At its most basic, mead is simply fermented honey-water. However, a lot of fun can be had by adding extra flavourings! And if you’re not trying to ‘do it like a Viking’ then the addition of yeast will make the results more consistent.

Orange mead has fast become one of our favourites. If you’re a complete beginner, we would suggest familiarising yourself with the basics over at Wine/Cider/Mead Making: Basic Equipment and Terms as we won’t be going into detail about the equipment used. However, as long as you own a demijohn (or any clean container that is big enough and can have an airlock fitted), an airlock (or balloon with a pin hole in it), a syphon (or clean tubing) and a hydrometer (if you want to measure your ABV) you should be able to follow this recipe just fine. If you’re looking for a basic wild fermented mead recipe, you can head on over to check out Wild Fermented Mead, it includes a few bits of information that may be helpful in buffering your knowledge too.

Now if you want to get technical about it, a mead with additions is no longer called mead, there are a whole host of classifications out there (you can scroll to the bottom for a list of those we know). One basic classification is: if it has fruit in it it’s called a melomel, but even that has its exceptions! We are not that fussy and will be simply calling it mead throughout.

This recipe is what is called a ‘short’ mead because it’s fast to make (bonus). And we’re going to lay it out in easy steps with pictures so you visual learners can have an easy time with it too! (Scroll down to the bottom for a cut-down, printable version with just words if you prefer your info in compact form).

Ingredients (for 1 demijohn):

• 1 kg Honey (plus an extra 1/2 kg for later if you like it sweeter) – anything that specifies 100% honey has worked fine for us
• 1 Orange (rind and insides – wash well in case of pesticides)
• 3 small slices of ginger
• 4.5 l Water (bottled or boiled non-chlorinated tap water)
• Yeast (usually a short mead uses bread yeast, but we’ve used unbranded wine yeast, and mead yeast, all with good results – we cover instructions for all types)

Step 1: Wash Everything

Wash everything you will be using:

• Demijohn (or other container)
• Airlock
• Grater
• Knife

A good wash with soapy water and a long swish with boiling water do the trick for us. Some people prefer disinfectants, you do you. Your aim is to eliminate any bacteria that would spoil your mead.

Step 2: Dissolve your honey

1. Boil a kettle full of water and add it to your demijohn.

2. While the water is still hot, add your honey (don’t forget to appreciate the prettiness going on below the surface)

3. Give it a good shake to dissolve the honey then top up with boiled or bottled water

Step 3: Add your fruity ingredients

• Grate the zest off the orange, then peel it, keeping the segments and removing as much of the white pithy part of the orange as you can (you don’t want it, it can impart unwanted flavours).
• Slice three slices of ginger.
• Grab a handful of raisins.

Go ahead and add the ginger, raisins, and orange zest and pieces. You can now add the airlock temporarily (to keep any nasties out) and leave it to cool.

Step 3b (optional): Take a reading

If you want to know the ABV (alcohol by volume) of your finished mead, you will want to take a reading with your hydrometer now. We won’t go into any big explanations about it, just put the hydrometer in (weight side down) in the supplied tube; draw off a little of the honey-water (using your syphon, a clean dedicated turkey baster or whatever you have) and fill the tube until the hydrometer floats freely (spin it to release any air bubbles attached and make sure it isn’t touching the sides); then read the number that sits level with the top of the liquid. Write this number down, you will need it later to calculate your ABV.

Step 4: Add your yeast

Before adding make sure your honey-water mix has cooled sufficiently, below 30°C/85 °F should be fine. If your yeast is a bit old and you want to test it’s still viable, or you’re using bread yeast, you can activate it separately before adding it to your honey-water mix; just add it to a small amount of tepid water to wake up (see notes below). If your honey-water is tepid and your wine/mead yeast is fresh you can go ahead and pitch it straight into the demijohn.

Notes:

• Yeast amount: The amount of yeast you use will depend on the yeast itself, wine/mead yeast should have instructions on it. If not, we’ve found around a teaspoon sufficient, which is the amount of bread yeast used too (this isn’t brain surgery, small variations won’t matter too much).
• Yeast type: If you’re using mead or wine yeast you have all the info you need. For bread yeast a little further info may be of interest. Brewers strains have been selected for specific attributes (flavor, attenuation, and consistency) while wine yeasts are selected for flavor and alcohol tolerance. Most baking yeasts will make booze but the result will normally be limited to about 8-9% abv. This is actually helpful in a short mead, because the yeast will die off as soon as the alcohol reaches above their tolerance, which happens quite quickly, hence the reason to use it for ‘short’ meads.
• Yeast pitching: again, this isn’t rocket science so don’t worry too much. Just pour a small amount of boiled water in a bowl and allow it to cool till it’s warm but in no way describable as hot. Add 1 tsp of bread yeast (or your chosen yeast’s spicified amount). Leave for 10-30 minutes until you see a light foam forming on top. That’s it, you can now pour the liquid into your demijohn.

Step 5: Wait

Now the hard part, waiting! You will need to wait anywhere from 1-2 weeks to 1-2 months (depending on your yeast) until the mead has stopped bubbling and cleared. It doesn’t require any special care during this time, but keeping it somewhere dark at a stable temperature (something around 20°C/70°F) is advisable – for us, that’s a space under the stairs. If the temperature is colder it may just take your mead longer to brew. Very cold or hot temperatures or drastic changes in temperature can kill off your yeast and ‘stall’ your mead early.

Step 5b (optional): Take another Reading

If you’re drinking your mead dry, you can now use your hydrometer to check the gravity once again. Use this reading (number at the surface) and your previous reading to calculate your ABV. There are loads of ABV calculators out there, such as this one, just enter the numbers and let them do the calculation. Or if you read our basic steps post you’ll have noticed an easy formula for calculation there too.

If you’re going to back-sweeten it, you will still need to take a reading at this stage, and another one after you back-sweeten (see next step).

Step 6: Rack and Back-Sweeten

If you like your mead as dry as it is, that’s it, you can skip ahead to the next step and bottle it. Or, you can rack off the sediment and fruit pieces, let it settle again, and then bottle.

If you find your mead too dry you can now back-sweeten it. It’s a good time to rack your mead too, this will remove the sediment from the bottom and give you space to add the 1/2 kg of honey. Simply siphon the mead from its current demijohn to a fresh demijohn, leaving behind the bottom layer filled with sediment and the fruit that was floating around. Then add the 1/2 kg honey to the new bottle and give it a really good shake to dissolve the honey.

By adding more honey after the yeast is dead, it means that it won’t consume it all again. There is a risk – especially if you are using wine yeast – that adding more sugars (in the form of honey) will kick start any yeast that hasn’t died off into a feeding frenzy again. This isn’t a problem if you intend on drinking it quickly – it will be gone before it gets dry again – but if you want to store it you should replace the airlock and wait to see that bubbles haven’t started escaping again. If they do, you have a couple options: bottle it in flip-top bottles and store it in the fridge if it will be drunk soon; repeat the previous steps, this time waiting till you’re extra sure the bubbles have stopped and again add more honey (possibly not as much as last time, check step-feeding section here); or you can add an additive to halt fermentation – see additives section here.

This pic is obviously not this lovely mead we’re making, but an old pic we had from racking an equally lovely blackberry wine. You get the idea though.

Step 7: Bottle

Well done, you’ve made mead! The final decision, regardless of whether you like your mead dry or sweet, is whether to drink it straight from that demijohn or bottle it. If you’re having a little gathering and will drink the whole gallon in one go, bottling is an unnecessary step. But if you’re drinking it slowly over time, you may want to bottle it. Flip-top bottles are easy and fine for short term storage. If you want to store your mead for long term ageing we’d suggest using corked bottles. A hand corker is cheap and simple enough to use. Once a bottle is open it’s advisable to store it in the fridge.

Good luck, and good health to you… Skål!

FYI: Different mead names we’ve come accross:

• Apples = Cyser
• Blackcurrant = Black Mead
• Blueberries = Bilbemeletc
• Caramalised Honey = Bochet
• Caramalised Honey & berries = Bochetomel
• Coffee = Coffeemel
• Fruit = Melomel
• Grapes = Pyment
• Herbs/Spices = Metheglin
• Hops and/or Malt – Braggot
• Maple Syrup = Acerglyn
• Mulberries = Morat
• Peppers = Capsicumel
• Rose Hips/Petals/Attar = Rhodemel
• Wine Vinager = Oxymel