How To Make Mead At Home - 2020 [Fun Step-By-Step]

Have you ever wanted to make mead at home? This is your complete home mead making guide for brewers and beginner fermenters alike! Evan began his homebrewing life many years ago eventually turning it into a successful Meadery! In this informative, and entertaining, video, he shares his knowledge and process with Nick as they create a small batch right there in the production facility. Need some mead in your glass while you create your own masterpiece? Order some from our Meadery Website: https://drinkinghornmeadery.com/buy-m... Any questions? Leave them in the comments below and we will get them answered quickly and in detail. Materials Needed: 5-gallon (or larger) Bucket + Lid with airlock hole, Airlock, Honey, Water, Dry Yeast, Nutrients (Fermaid & DAP), Sanitizing agent, Mixing utensil, Hydrometer, Siphon Tube, Bottles or Keg. Step 1. Sterilize everything! Any surface that might touch your mead should be cleaned and sterilized (buckets, mixing utensils, testing equipment, etc. If it touches the batch, make sure it’s clean and sterile first!). We recommend using a food grade sterilizer such as starsan, so that you don’t have to worry about nasty chemicals. Step 2. Glove up! (or at a minimum wash those flesh mits really, really good) Step 3. Add five gallons of hot water (we recommend distilled water, tap water can have chlorine in it which could inhibit or alter fermentation) Step 4. Put in 17lbs of honey (we like raw Orange Blossom honey, but that’s up to the mead maker’s personal taste) Step 5. Blend the mixture to homogenize the must (must is what the honey/water mixture is called before the yeast are “pitched” into the batch). It also beats oxygen into the batch which helps yeast propagate in the early stages of fermentation. Step 6. Adding Nutrients- This can be the most confusing part of making mead. We are using Fermaid O as our organic Nitrogen source, and DAP as our main phosphorus source. We recommend a staggered nutrient addition. In short this means breaking up the entire amount of nutrients you would add to a batch into 3 separate additions that are added throughout the first half of fermentation. This ensures that yeast are not over fed, and that the nutrients do not just end up settling to the bottom where they are unusable for the majority of your yeast. Step 7. Take a hydrometer reading (it is recommended to take this number pre-yeast pitch to ensure an accurate reading) Step 8. Add yeast (make sure the temperature of the must and the temperature of your yeast starter are within 3 degrees of each other). A strong but neutral champagne yeast works great! For more information on a yeast starter check out our How To Make A Yeast Starter video! Gently stir the batch after pitching yeast. Step 9. Cap off your bucket and add an airlock with sanitizer or vodka in it Step 10. Temperature control is important. Try and find a way to keep the container at a constant temperature, preferably in the low to mid 70’s (depending on your yeast species specifications) Step 11. Let it sit! Check your specific gravity every 3-4 days until you are done with the yeast feeding protocol (this should be about two weeks, but temperature of fermentation can make a big difference in the speed of fermentation). Step 12. If you have finished the feeding process and you have a layer of sediment in the bottom, you can go ahead and rack it for the first time. This is when you use a syphon tube to get the mead out of the bucket and into a carboy (demi-john) where it will finish its fermentation (this is what some would call, secondary fermentation). We do not recommend racking out of your plastic bucket before finishing feeding because the opening on a carboy is really hard to work with. Step 13. Now you have finished the feeding process, let it sit for a while (roughly a month from the start of the batch) until sediment drops out to form a “cake” at the bottom. Step 14. Rack off the sediment. Let it sit for another month, more sediment will settle out into the bottom of the vessel. Step 15. If you have made it this far and your mead tastes good, bottle it! You want to make sure that fermentation has stopped before you bottle. If fermentation is still occurring after you bottle you will most likely get “bottle bombs” where the pressure builds up inside of the sealed container and can cause sticky explosions when the bottles ruptures from massive pressure). Age mead to appropriate taste liking Invite friends and family to a celebratory feast! Find the detailed list of instructions here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1a... Subscribe for more mead fun!    / @drinkinghornmeadery   Check out our entire playlist: How To Make Mead for more tips and strategies!    • How To Make Mead   SKAL!