Making great mead at home
The guys spend an evening breaking down all the different ways to get fruit flavor into your mead, and the pros and cons for each – from fresh, frozen, concentrates and purees, to other odd options like freeze dried and flavorings.
The Mead House Podcast is sponsored by Bacchus & Barleycorn! Use our discount code MHP10 for all your shopping and supply needs! Thank you Bacchus & Barleycorn!
The guys returned to Minneapolis/St Paul for the annual Valkyrie’s Horn mead competition this weekend and spend about an hour chatting over the events and things they liked, sharing some of their favorite experiences and some of the goals they have moving forward.
The Mead House Podcast is sponsored by Bacchus & Barleycorn! Use our discount code MHP10 for all your shopping and supply needs! Thank you Bacchus & Barleycorn!
Jeff and Chris taste a few varietal honeys the two of them have collected, giving some notes and thoughts, as well as talking about some strategies for using varietal honeys in their meads. Chris gets a proud father moment as the guys sample a mead made by his son Roane!
The Mead House Podcast is sponsored by Bacchus & Barleycorn! Use our discount code MHP10 for all your shopping and supply needs! Thank you Bacchus & Barleycorn!
This week Jeff and Chris talk about keeping your must’s microbiome clean talking about the sanitization process, what it is, methods for doing it and making it work, as well as similar but different terms like sterilization and pasteurization. Then the boys go into some of their favorite yeasts for making mead, and chat about a mead Chris’ son is putting together.
The Mead House Podcast is sponsored by Bacchus & Barleycorn! Use our discount code MHP10 for all your shopping and supply needs! Thank you Bacchus & Barleycorn!
This week Jeff and Chris chat about what to do when your batch just isn’t going your way. Topics include how to diagnose a bad batch, what kind of problems you can correct and what kind you simply have to walk away from, as well as a handful of approaches to enhancing a batch when it could be going better.
The Mead House Podcast is sponsored by Bacchus & Barleycorn! Use our discount code MHP10 for all your shopping and supply needs! Thank you Bacchus & Barleycorn!
Jeff and Chris dive into a wide variety of topics related to how to store your mead – with opinions on closures, types of bottles, labels. wax seals and heat shrink closures, plus a sidebar on bulk aging your meads as well.
The Mead House Podcast is sponsored by Bacchus & Barleycorn! Use our discount code MHP10 for all your shopping and supply needs! Thank you Bacchus & Barleycorn!
Jeff and Chris take a deeper dive on fermentation vessels for making mead – Preferences, pros and cons, the whole nine yards.
The Mead House Podcast is sponsored by Bacchus & Barleycorn! Use our discount code MHP10 for all your shopping and supply needs! Thank you Bacchus & Barleycorn!
In this episode, Jeff walks Chris through the process of how to judge a mead at competition, giving all kinds of insights on processes, flavors, faults and philosophy for judging and appreciating meads along the way. But what unlabeled surprise does Chris have in store for both of them?!
The Mead House Podcast is sponsored by Bacchus & Barleycorn! Use our discount code MHP10 for all your shopping and supply needs! Thank you Bacchus & Barleycorn!
Jeff and Chris talk about entering, volunteering and judging at competitions, how to enter, how to get involved, and how much fun it can be to be a part of the event! Stories and anecdotes get shared, and then the guys move on to covering the specific categories used by the BJCP for competition as well as some tips to make sure you get entered into the right one.
The Mead House Podcast is sponsored by Bacchus & Barleycorn! Use our discount code MHP10 for all your shopping and supply needs! Thank you Bacchus & Barleycorn!
Jeff and Chris dive in to the topic of what it takes to get started making mead, a topic both of them have been asked about countless times recently.
They start with a run down of the gear it takes to get rolling, all of which is available at your local homebrew store, or at our sponsor Bacchus & Barleycorn! Use our discount code MHP10 for all your gear and brewing related needs! Big thank you to Bacchus & Barleycorn!
Then Jeff runs down the Mead House 8% Starter Mead – a simple recipe you can follow to get started making a nice traditional mead and begin your journey into the world of making mead at home!
The Mead House 8% Starter Mead Recipe
Ingredients:
Proof 2g 71-B in a quarter cup of lukewarm (70-80 F) spring water, set to one side and observe for yeast activity.
Start with approximately 2# honey in your gallon jug. Fill the jug most of the way to the top with spring water. Mix honey vigorously and use a hydrometer to dial in specific gravity to 1.065, filling the jug to about half way up the neck. Once yeast is proofed and is displaying activity, add to the honey & water mixture along with yeast nutrient. Seal with a bung and airlock and let sit at ambient indoor temperature.
After 2-3 weeks, expect to see diminished activity in the airlock and the mead begin to clear. Use your hydrometer to read gravity and determine that the yeast has completed its fermentation. Mead can be racked to a secondary container at this point, this lower ABV will likely not require secondary aging, if fermentation has been complete and the mead has been moved off the yeast detritus, Potassium Metabisulfite and Potassium Sorbate can now be added to stabilize, wait 24 hours before adding additional honey for backsweetening and bottling.
