How mead is made

Mead may be the oldest alcoholic drink, and it needs nothing but honey, water and yeast.

stations: 5
things upstream: 24
raw sources: 12
steps from the ground: 6

The short version

Mead is made by mixing honey with water and fermenting it with a yeast like the ones used for white wine. The first fermentation takes 28 to 56 days. The liquid is then moved off the dead yeast and aged for six to nine months. The finished drink ranges from about 3.5 to more than 20 percent alcohol.

Thin the honey

Honey is mixed with water, and sometimes fruit, spices, grains or hops. The sugars in the honey are what the yeast will feed on, and the added water sets how strong the mead can get.

Goes in
Honey Water
Add the yeast

Mead ferments at about the same temperatures as wine, often with wine yeast. A hydrometer or refractometer tracks the sugar left, and from it the alcohol.

28 to 56 days

Goes in
Baker's yeast
Rack off the lees

The mead is drawn off the dead yeast cells at the bottom, called lees, into a clean container for a second fermentation.
Age the mead

In the second vessel the mead rests for six to nine months. Length varies with the honey, water content, acidity and yeast strain.

6 to 9 months
Bottle it

Some meads keep the sweetness of the honey and are served as dessert wines, others are bottled dry or sparkling.

Goes in
Glass bottle

End of the lineMead

Worth repeating

A mead with fruit is called a melomel, one with spices is a metheglin, and one made with grape juice is a pyment.
Mead may have been discovered 20,000 to 40,000 years ago, before farming and pottery.
Mead's name comes from Old English meodu, related to Sanskrit madhu.