Mead

Mead is more than fermented sugar water

Mead is an alcoholic drink made by fermenting diluted honey. Yeast converts the available sugars into ethanol and carbon dioxide, and the honey also supplies flavour that sugar and water cannot. A ferment of refined sugar and water can produce alcohol, but the honey is what puts a drink in the mead category.

Honey is not a standard sugar source. Its composition and the nutrients it carries vary from one honey to the next, and reviews of mead production describe yeast-nutrition problems and fermentations that stall. That variation is why makers add nutrient and why the same method gives different results with different honeys. The sources do not name one yeast strain for all mead.

How the make works

Honey is warmed in a water bath because crystallised honey dissolves slowly in cold water, and the must is mixed until no dark and light layers show. It is then left to cool before the yeast goes in. The homebrew tutorial pitches the yeast once the must is at 60 to 70 F (15.5 to 21 C), aerates it once by shaking at that point so the yeast can multiply, and from then on avoids splashing so that oxygen does not stale the mead.

Nutrient is added after pitching on a staggered schedule, which gives the yeast a steady supply through the ferment rather than a single early dose. The airlock lets carbon dioxide out and keeps air out. Bubbling usually starts within 24 hours, but slowing or stopping bubbles does not by themselves mean the fermentation is finished.

After two to three weeks the mead is racked off the yeast into a second vessel with as little headspace as possible. Fermentation finishes there and the mead clears. Hydrometer readings that stay steady over one to two weeks show that the sugar has stopped changing, and only then is the mead packaged. A still mead needs no priming sugar or forced carbonation.

Honey strength, yeast and temperature

FAO gives a rule of thumb of 2.3 kg of honey per 100 litres of water for each percent of alcohol by volume wanted. Expressed as honey sugar solids, 21 percent gives a dry mead of about 12 percent alcohol and 25 percent gives about 14 to 15 percent. Sugar beyond what the yeast uses stays in the drink as sweetness. FAO recommends clean soft rain or well water boiled first, since a public supply may carry minerals or chemicals that change the flavour.

It advises 0.5 to 2 percent active, acid-resistant champagne or brewer's yeast, a starter culture for larger batches, and not bread yeast. Fermentation should run without air in a vessel sealed with a lock, because if oxygen gets in the mead will turn into vinegar. FAO keeps the must at 20 to 25 C and never above 28 C: warmer temperatures speed fermentation but yield less alcohol, and cooler ones slow it and can stop it. Fermentation takes roughly one month, or until no more gas leaves the lock, and the mead is decanted once it slows to avoid bitterness from dead yeast.

Clarifying and ageing

Mead can be cleared with tannins, bentonite, egg white or very fine filtration. Boiling the must before fermentation removes most of the proteins that cloud it, but also much of the honey aroma. FAO ages mead in oak barrels, which it prefers, or in bottles, with maturity at 6 months to 3 years and at least 18 months recommended.

Its worked example dilutes honey to 21 percent solids, adjusts the pH to 3.7 to 4.0, adds nutrients and ferments 150 litres in a 200 litre oak barrel at 18 C with 0.5 percent active yeast. After 6 months it is filtered, its total acidity set to 0.6 percent, pasteurised at 63 C for 5 minutes and bottled hot. Mead can also be turned into vinegar with Acetobacter aceti at 20 to 25 C, taking days to months.

What the history shows and does not show

Archaeologists have reported a mixed fermented drink containing honey alongside cereal and fruit, called Nordic grog. It supports one beverage context, not a pure mead and not the beginning of mead. A transcription of Susanna Packe's 1674 household book includes one entry titled White Meade; its wording after a rest is ambiguous, so it is evidence of one text and not of a method to follow or of how widespread mead was.

The sources give no single origin, continuous history or season for mead, and honey harvest varies with region and beekeeping practice.

Limits of the sources

The homebrew tutorial and the separate named dry varietal recipe it links to are examples from one publisher and not a universal method. A hydrometer and airlock help a maker watch a batch, but they do not independently show that it is safe to package or how long it will keep. A package that still holds fermentable sugar can develop pressure if fermentation continues. The sources give no universal alcohol, endpoint, pressure or storage limit.