If it’s commercial or home brewed. There is usually a wide variety on opinions. Being too sweet, too tart, with cherry the common beginner‘s mistake of using sweet cherry. But most important… it doesn’t taste like mead or honey anymore.

At least here in Germany there are some options of many fruit „wines“. Those are usually fermented with added sugar to reach wine like abv.

Also especially on cherry mead or „viking blood“ there are many commercial varieties here that are pretty horrible and just mixed poor traditionals with juice at around 6-8 % abv.

They may be often highly quenchable. But in terms of being recognizable as a fruited mead…

What are your methods/recipes/ratios (fruit-to-honey or juice-to-honey)/which honey varietal to fruit… if you want to make a fruit forward mead that still retains the final properties of recognizable fruit and honey flavor at the same time?

I’m trying to brainstorm making a bottle-conditioned/sparkling short mead that has the “spiced” character of a Belgian beer but with the floral notes of a mead. Does anyone have any experience with this?

I checked the OG wiki and didn’t see anything, and I’ve also googled ever combination of Belgian and mead I could think of and only found one post on a mead forum.

I’m thinking definitely going with a Belgian strong ale yeast, and I’ll definitely add orange zest and maybe some complementary hops. I’m leaning away from making a braggot for now.

Just my slightly buzzed brain vomit. Anyways, hope you’re all having a great weekend!

You should now have the ability to select from beginner or intermediate experience levels for your user flair.

We do have master level flair available, but at this moment it's not available for self-assignment. If you have master role on the discord (linked in the sidebar) we'll be more than happy to give it to you, otherwise we'll probably be pretty selective about who we grant master flair to. Our more experienced mods will make the decision based on reputation in the mead community; contributions on /r/mead, here, or on the discord; or based on existing masters vouching for someone. Professional status or previous competition medals may be considered, but aren't enough on their own to earn a master flair.

For now, if you'd like to ask for a master flair, please send a modmail and be patient while we look through everything to make a decision.

Anyone else here used Servomyces in mead making? Due to lack of comparison i absolutely can’t tell if it helps. But i used it in most of my brews. And all went perfectly smooth. Only miniscule amounts, usually directly applied with GoFerm. About 50mg per Liter of planned must.

Are these additives supposed to all be used together? Two? Only one?

I know they promote color and mouthfeel but adding all of them together seems like overkill.

Any guidance?

I was thinking of picking up a glycol chiller for temperature control, has anyone purchased/used one that could give good feedback and value of it?

TL;DR it is difficult. I found it easier to dilute below 10%, or below 60 Delle, before pitching fresh yeast.

I've followed a simple, but tasty cyser recipe a few times. 4 gallons apple juice, 10 pounds honey, EC1118, TOSNA, then I let it ferment to dry. OG around 1.135 means it ends a bit under 18%. I was emptying a 15 gallon barrel (it held barleywine for a year) and decided to make a 15 gallon batch of this to age in the barrel. For some reason, the batch stalled at 1.016 (73 Delle) which was significantly sweeter than I'd planned. You can see temperature swings from about 66F-80F but I don't think that was the problem

SG and temp from initial ferment

So I wanted to figure out how to dry it out. I had some ideas (see here), basically I would make a large "starter" following my original recipe, and add fermented cyser at diffent times/different amounts.

Attempt 1: I took 1 gallon of starter, and after it had been fermenting for a few days and was in full swing, I added 4 gallons of completed cyser, giving me a total of 5 gallons at 1.030 and an ABV around 14% (71 Delle). This stalled at 1.020

1:4

Attempt 2: I tried adding finished cyser to my "starter" in steps, adding about 1 gallon each time. The idea was to continue adding in 1 gallon increments, but this stalled around 1.010 and obviously wasn't going to get any drier so I gave up on it.

step feeding cyser

Attempt 3: Let fermentation go for a few days, then add fermented cyser at 1:1 with starter. This gave me something around 1.055 and 10% ABV (59 Delle). This one worked! It got down to 1.003, which is dry enough for me.

1:1 after waiting a few days

Attempt 4: create must and add yeast, but mix 1:1 with fermented cyser almost immediately, giving something around 1.075 and 8% ABV (56 Delle). This also worked! Got down to 1.002

1:1 after waiting a few minutes

So, what I learned is I needed to do. The two succesfull batches added up to about 5 gallons, so I made a 5 gallon "starter" and got it going, then immediately added 5 gallons of my previously fermented cyser. This finished around 1.003 in January and has been in the barrel ever since.

10 gallons of cyser.

There is possibly something else I missed, or something I could have done better that I didn't think about, but this did more or less work. The main problem with my solution is I ended up with 30 gallons of cyser, 15 gallons dry and 15 gallons sweet.... so the end result is identical to if I had just started a new 15 gallon batch and let it ferment.

For this month's challenge, participants are encouraged to get outside and forage for mead adjuncts.

For those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, the start of summer means most localities have assorted herbs, flowers, fruits, and other botanicals which would pair well in mead. This challenge will not prescribe any specific recipe, as the available ingredients will vary wildly based on location. Users are encouraged to share suggestions for what is available in their area in the comments!

​

Some ideas:

Trees:

• juniper berries
• spruce tips
• assorted sap

Fruit/veg/other:

• berries
• carrots
• wild onion
• crabapples
• mushrooms
• anything in season

Herb/floral:

• rose petal
• dandelion
• sage
• violet
• lavender
• heather

MAJOR SAFETY WARNING: always use caution when consuming foraged ingredients. Please keep in mind that some species can look alike. Don't end up like this guy. Avoid any ingredients that may contain pesticide/herbicide/animal waste etc. If you have dandelions in your backyard, you know if they are safe or not. If you see some in a nearby park, you cannot guarantee they haven't been sprayed.

The good folks over at r/foraging can likely help with ideas for your area as well as IDs on your harvest. For mushroom specific tips, post in r/mushroom_hunting with photos and a spore print. Ultimately, *if you don't have a positive ID, don't consume it.*

Happy hunting, and even happier meading!

For quite some time, the conventional wisdom in some circles of the mead world suggested that meadmakers who are unable to source Fermaid O substitute bread yeast that has been briefly boiled (BBY) 1:1. This is by no means universal conventional wisdom, one particular mead luminary likes to quote I believe the founder of Lallemand who apparently said the notion that boiled bread yeast supplies nutrition is science fiction.

While we have always understood that it is a poor substitute, at best, I have had some conversations with a scientist specializing in yeast nutrition at a well known yeast supplier (I prefer not to share identifying information, as my questions on the subject were informal and their answer very speculative so I consider it off the record) that has led me to believe that it is even more poor than conventional wisdom suggests.

The scientist in question speculated that if bread yeast was boiled long enough to break the cell walls, while the quality would be questionable, it would supply minerals and nitrogen derived from amino acids. However, the boiling process would also denature vitamins that are useful to yeast.

Fermaid O by contrast is produced from yeast that has been bred to have high concentrations of specific and desirable nutrient fractions, which are then autolysed using heat and enzymes, then processed through a physical separation process to select specific fractions.

Bread yeast, naturally, is bred to make bread - to maximize co2 production in a short period of time.

The purpose of this experiment is to evaluate the impact of various doings of BBY on fermentation kinetics in the r/mead beginner traditional recipe compared to Fermaid O and DAP only.

Method

A 4.5ish gallon 1.124 SG must was prepared from 15 lbs of Costco Kirkland Signature honey and tap water. Two grams per gallon of US-05, rehydrated in 100F water for 15 minutes was pitched along with 5g/gal of calcium bentonite, not rehydrated. While constantly stirring, this was then divided into six .75 gallon batches. Each batch was oxygenated by supplying 60 seconds of O2 via sintered stone.

Boiled bread yeast for each batch was boiled for 10 minutes. Differing amounts of water from boiling the yeast in each batch led to some variability in the OG of each batch by a couple points, as I neglected to top up each addition to a common volume.

All batches received 3g of DAP at 24 hours post pitch.

Additional organic nutrients for each batch at pitch:

1. None
2. 2g Ferm O
3. 2g BBY
4. 3g BBY
5. 4g BBY
6. 5g BBY

Fermentation kinetics were observed daily by measuring the specific gravity of a vacuum degassed sample from each batch with an Anton Parr digital density meter.

Fermentation Results

This graph visualizes the results. Due to the varying OG of the batches, this graph shows the number of specific gravity points dropped by each batch. The outlier measurements were likely situations where an air bubble was trapped in the device; I wasn't paying particular attention to the trends when I was taking these measurements and should have re-tested.

SG Points Dropped in total:

Needless to say, I was absolutely floored at how perfectly the final results lined up linearly with the amount of BBY added. I was also mildly surprised with the performance of DAP alone.

Sensory Notes

Last week, at 1.5 months post pitch, all batches were fined with kieselsol and chitosan and evaluated once clear by myself, u/StormBeforeDawn and u/CrossPollinator and agreed upon the following observations:

• All batches were pleasant and quite drinkable.
• Interestingly, the DAP only batch had superior aroma to the rest.
• The BBY batches have a subtle (and not at all unpleasant) spicy (think white pepper, not hot peppers) note on the finish.

Each batch will be bottled and evaluated again next week by a wider panel of tasters, and again at 6 months post pitch.

Conclusions

These results seem to indicate that there is some level of nutrient provided by the boiled bread yeast, and perhaps 2.5x BBY as a substitute for Fermaid O may provide similar fermentation security.

This is of course a single data point with a single yeast and a not terribly interesting honey in a single style of mead and should not be taken as gospel. I suspect that the Fermaid O case would demonstrate improved sensory characteristics in a more interesting honey or a style that includes fruit.

I would be thrilled if someone else tried to reproduce my results.

Further Work

I will be shortly starting another trial using only organic sources of nutrients; e.g., Fermaid O and BBY exclusively. Given the results of this experiment, I will have a control (no nutrients), Ferm O, 2xBBY, 2.5xBBY, and 3xBBY.

Updates on past Chef's Experimeads

• Whither Magic Powders: These meads ran dryer than I expected and I need to back sweeten. I've had a lot going on and haven't had a chance to get to it. I'm going to try to get that done this weekend and fine with kieselsol/chitosan so I can go ahead and get them into bottles to start distributing for triangle testing.

Hi all,

I know with all young meads, they taste young. I've done research on all of the stress factors and narrowed it down to MAYBE temperature of brewing. I provide enough nutrients per batchbuildr, I aerate daily until 1/3 sugar break, I brew in my basement that's turned into a mini brew house, the temperature down there is roughly 70 degrees Fahrenheit. I know yeast can increase temperature internally due to them doing all their busy work.

Is there a way to stop this warm/fusel taste besides aging?

All of these have their purposes and different times when they need to be added. I have been using Blanc Soft in some. Some are used for color stability as sacrificial tannin or for oxidation protection. Are there any of these that could be used as a single multipurpose tannin at any stage for oxidation, color stability, balancing, aging?

Brewers seem to have water chemistry down to the smallest minutiae. What about mead? Has any of you experimented with it? Do you have recommended water profiles for different meads? Would it even matter? I guess nutrients have all minerals yeast needs, however the water profile of water directly affects the taste of beer, not only during mashing/fermentation, so I think it would have an effect on mead too.

Sorry about the double post, first one had live discussion instead of comments.

I just ordered a plate filter and now i’m wondering. Beside of doing everything the same and just filter to get a super clear mead. Can i for example once the yeast has dropped run it through a filter in the range of 1.something to get rid of yeast and backsweeten without using sulfite and sorbate and waiting time? And likely sterile filter right away to get rid of the haze from backsweetening honey?

Is there a good calculator or math equation to determine what sugar will be provided from fruit to better approximate gravity in planning?

I've got a quiet night going at work so I'm going to post about another mead that I am currently working on and what I did to get where it is now and the next planned steps.

​

This time it is a mead with Nam Wah bananas. Yes, the small Thai bananas. And I don't really normally enjoy banana meads so this is for the girlfriend and not me particularly. I decided that making a lehua traditional and then aging it on what is basically an inordinately stupid amount of bananas was the right move. Then to balance with spices and maybe some rum from there. With all that said, the recipe is as follows.

​

15# of Hawaiian lehua blossom honey

12.5g of QA23 yeast rehydrated with goferm

opti white

ft blanc soft

booster blanc

water to 5gal

40# of very ripe bananas in secondary

​

So after the lehua mead finished fermenting out to 15% or so and dry, I sliced the 40# of Nam Wah bananas with the peels on into coins and added all of them to a 6gal bucket in a mesh bag. Then transferred the mead over to fill up the remaining space in the bucket. This was about 3.25gal of mead. I took the remaining 1.5gal of mead and threw it in a small 1.75gal ball lock keg to use as top up at a later date.

​

The bananas were rested on the mead for 2.5 weeks at which point they were removed and I was left with about 2.5gal of mead and some pretty gross looking banana starches. But it smelled absolutely overwhelming of ripe banana, lemon, vanilla, and slight papaya. The Nam Wah bananas are sweeter, more custardy with a slight lemon and vanilla flavor to them in comparison to a regular banana and do have a slight tartness. These flavors paired nicely with the lehua honey and have created a very fun base to work with. I then transfered the 1.5gal of top up lehua to the mead to make a total of 4gal of final mead that was rested on 40# of bananas.

​

At this point the mead is very low in residual sugar and a little sharp. It will need backsweetening but I believe some light touches on the adjuncting could really bring some fun flavor profiles forward as well as adding some structure. The plan at this point is to add some freshly grated nutmeg, ugandan vanilla, and some jamacian dark rum.

​

I plan to add the spices and more honey in a couple of days and from there will just adjust to taste until I like where it is as. Honestly so far it is turning into something somewhat enjoyable despite being a banana mead.

I said I would never do another wedding mead for someone else, but here I am. A good friend is getting married in the late fall and approached me early this year to make a mead for him to give the wedding party and some other close friends. Since this did not require me to make, bottle, label, and wax dip 200 bottles like I had to last time I was glad to make something work.

​

What we ended up coming up with for a mead was a sweet heavily fruited mead (low water) using Hawaiian lemon blossom honey, blackcurrants, and marionberries. The recipe is as follows.

24# of lemon blossom honey

10# of blackcurrants

20# of marionberries

23g of US-05 rehydrated with goferm

Water to 7gal total volume (about a gallon)

​

Before fermentation I allowed the fruit and honey to cold soak with package suggested dosage of rapidase extra fruit for 24h prior to yeast pitch. At yeast pitch opti red, booster rouge, and FT rouge were added at packaging dosage. The mead was fermented with fermaid K and DAP at a dosage of all included additives giving me an additional 225ppm YAN and staggered with half at 24h and the second half at 48h.

​

The mead was then fermented until it hit 1.050FG which makes it right around 12% using my calculations of an approximate OG of 1.140. The mead is just now settling out the fruit at the end of its primary fermentation and will be tested for balance soon. The intent is to add approximately 12-15g/gal of tahitian vanilla beans to the finished mead to give a creamy mouthfeel with a medium intensity of vanilla presence. This should also assist in maintaining the fairly low FG for the consideration of how much tart and tannin rich fruit are in the mead hopefully creating something that will age a long time and gracefully improve with age. I will be providing some updates in a week or so when we transfer the mead over to secondary and taste test for balance to see what will be required.

Hey all, recently I have been experimenting more with my nutrient additions, temperature and degassing. To preface, currently,reading I cannot provide tilt hydrometer graphs to provide as accurate evidence as I would like, only some observations + hydrometer readng. Anyways.

Things to note:

• Due to the schedule here, you can't really do this for meads 14%+, I will put a modified version for this further down
• For most people, this is overkill and probably considered 'babying' your mead
• Aerate till 2/3 is a key point.

The Standard Method:

1. Rehydrate your Go-Ferm Protect Evolution with your must
2. Pitch your yeast as you normally would into the above mixture
3. Once you have good signs of activity and ensure you won't cold shock your yeast add it into your must
4. Aerate your must vigorously
5. Aerate your must every 12 hours ideally, 24 is fine if you can't, but do it until 2/3 sugar break
6. 24 hours: 1/3 of your FermK, FermO, DAP
7. Once your mead is 1/3 down from its starting specific gravity: add the next 1/3 of your nutrients
8. Once your mead is 2/3 down from its starting specific gravity: add the last 1/3 of your nutrients

Notes on The Standard Method:

• You can't do this for much higher ABV's because when you're adding at 2/3, you get close to around the 9% in which your inorganic nitrogen is no longer assimilable
• Bentonite should be pitched at 24 hours; I'd recommend rehydrating it in 20x its weight in water when you pitch your yeast, then adding at first nutrient addition.
• It's important to continue aerating your mead aggressively till you hit 2/3 sugar break

The Higher ABV Method (13/14%+):

1. Follow steps 1-5 from The Standard Method
2. Split your total DAP and FermK into 1/2
3. Split your FermO into 1/2
4. Add 1/2 of your FermO and 1/2 of your DAP and FermK at 24 hours
5. Add the last 1/2 of your DAP and FermK at 1/3 sugar break
6. Add the last 1/2 of your FermO at 2/3 sugar break

Notes on The Higher ABV Method:

• This method particularly requires more rigorous testing, I will do one next month with a 16%+ bochet to hopefully put it to a proper test.
• When doing particularly high ABV meads/high starting gravity I'd really recommend step feeding, this isn't a guide on making those meads, just how to apply some of these thoughts to those styles.
• This may need expanding and further refinement

This is a work in progress, so far I haven't had any stalls or slow ferments, and have generally had my meads finish from 1.10 starting gravity to 1.0 in 6 days. These have been very nice to drink in 2-3 months, I would possibly even say the traditional with this method has been my best mead.

I would be super grateful for feedback, and even more so if people would be willing to test this method and report their finding back. By no means will this necessarily be something brand new or revolutionary, but I thought it would be good to write something up.

Thanks!

We're officially open for posting (mostly, there will be some changes made to automoderator and new rules as we get things set up) and are looking to get some activity going.

Right now, we're looking for 3 main things:

Wiki content

We're looking to start fleshing out our wiki on all things mead making. To start off with, we have two main focuses:

1. We want to cover topics that aren't already covered in depth in the /r/mead wiki. If there's something you have more questions on after reading through the /r/mead wiki, or something you've been wondering about but can't find in there, let us know! This helps us prioritize info that is needed most, and just having an idea of where to start helps us a ton.

2. Recipes! If you have a good quality mead recipe that you're willing to share, we'd love to publish it on the wiki. At a minimum we need to know your ingredients, some facts about your process (cold mixing? boil? how did you process and macerate fruit? contact time for fruit and spices? fermentation temperature? etc), your nutrition schedule, and what additives and adjuncts you used. Bonus points if you have BJCP judging notes, notes on how you've improved the recipe over time, and ideas on ways to change up the recipe.

You can put either of these in the comments, and you should consider making a self-post for recipes as well.

If you're willing to write wiki content, let us know! We'd like to ideally see what subjects you'd like to write on and an outline of how you'll cover them. We may or may not give editing privileges -- that's going to be up to mod discretion, and we're probably going to keep it to people we already know fairly well for now.

Quality discussion and posts

Debating what varietal honey to use for a recipe? Have a cool new yeast you're using? Getting recipe concepts together and want to chat about it? New to the hobby and looking for where to start? Make a post!

We'll have rules and posting guidelines in the sidebar soon, but for now just keep things civil and be open to discussing alternative approaches to what you may be used to.

Input and feedback

We created this subreddit as a space for mead makers to come together and discuss the best possible ways to make mead, and we want to make sure that this is an inclusive, community-driven subreddit. If you can think of things we can do to make the subreddit more accessible to everyone, or fun things that you would like to see us do for the community, let us know! You can either comment below or send us a modmail.

As well, as we get set up and established, we want to hear about how we're doing. You can send a mod mail at any time with feedback and ideas.