
What do you do with a drunken meadmaker? To complement the previous Mead House 8% and Mead House 12% recipes, this week Jeff presents the highest base recipe yet, a 16%. He walks Chris through the process and ingredients, along with subtle changes from previous base recipes, then Jeff and Chris spend a little time chatting about what they’d use a higher ABV mead for, when the higher ABV can be a benefit and when it can be a drawback.
The Mead House 16%
- ~1 gal water
- Honey to 1.125
- Fermaid K in 4 doses of 2.33g each
- 2g K1-V1116
- 2.5 g Go-Ferm
- Mix Go-Ferm and Dry Yeast together in 50ml (or approx ½ cup) warm water and let sit.
- Add honey and water and mix thoroughly, testing gravity and adding more honey until target gravity is reached.
- Add yeast slurry, stirring to incorporate and place under airlock.
- 24 hours after airlock activity has been detected, begin degassing, add first nutrient addition.
- Degas 1-2x daily, adding nutrient additions at 48hrs, 72hrs, and at the 1/3 sugar break (1.083)
- Follow standard procedure for fermentation, rack to secondary at appropriate time, allow to ferment as normal.
- After secondary, stabilize and backsweeten to desired level of sweetness, then fine and filter as desired before bottling.
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