Ask any mead maker and they’ll tell you: mead making is cool. Mead making is mystical. Mead making is like stepping into the shoes of ancient alchemists of centuries past blending age-old traditions with the advantage of modern creativity. You're not just brewing a beverage - you're crafting a magical elixir that connects the past with the present, creating your own unique twist on a beverage enjoyed by Vikings, medieval knights, mystical druids and you!
One of the first steps in the process of mead making is preparing your honey. There are many different methods available, some traditional, some modern, and a simple internet search can quickly become overwhelming. In this blog, we'll explore the most popular methods for using honey in mead making, ranked in order by their overall popularity. We’ll present the information in outline form so you can get to the good information quickly, because, let's face it, most of us have that tldr mindset.
1. Direct Honey Addition
- Adding raw, unprocessed honey directly to the must (the mixture of honey and water) without any prior treatment. This is by far the most popular method used by mead makers. However, some people worry that using honey directly without any treatment could introduce wild yeast or bacteria, potentially spoiling the mead. While in theory it’s possible, it doesn’t play out in practice. Why? Consider this: when you add a pack of dried yeast to your must, you are adding in the range of 100 billion yeast cells. Yes, that’s billion. When using this overwhelming magnitude of commercial yeast, it vastly outcompetes any wild strains, leading to a successful fermentation. For millennia, mead makers have produced amazing meads using raw honey, enjoying the full, natural flavors without encountering significant issues.
- Simplicity: This method is straightforward and easy. Simplicity is good. Never underestimate the value of simplicity.
- Preserving Flavors: This is a big reason why the direct honey addition is so popular. By not heating or treating the honey, you retain all the natural flavors and aromas that contribute to a more complex and interesting mead, and that’s exactly why we’re making mead.
- Measure your required amount of honey.
- Mix the honey thoroughly with water to create the must.
- Add the yeast, yeast nutrients and other ingredients as per your recipe.
- Adding potassium metabisulfite (Campden tablets) to the honey must to sanitize it by inhibiting wild yeast and bacteria. If you would like to read about the gory details of sulphite use, click here.
- Effectiveness: Sulphites are very effective eliminating uninvited bacteria and wild yeast, thus preventing funky off flavors and spoilage.
- Convenience: Like the direct addition of honey, this method requires no heating, making it quick and easy.
- Dissolve 1 Campden tablet per gallon of must, which provides approximately 50-75 ppm of sulphites. If needed, use 2 tablets per gallon to achieve around 100-150 ppm.
- Crush the Campden tablets and dissolve them in a small amount of water before adding to the must.
- When you are using Campden tablets or sulphites to sanitize your must, it is recommended to wait 24 hours before pitching the yeast to allow the sulphur dioxide (SO₂) to dissipate to safe levels for your commercial yeast. Immediately after you add the sulphites, the concentration of SO₂ is high enough to kill the wild yeast and bacteria, which is what you want, but it’s also high enough to kill the commercial yeast you plan to add, which is what you don’t want. By waiting 24 hours, the SO₂ has effectively sanitized the must and has then reduced to a level where it won't harm the commercial yeast.
- Pasteurization is the process of heating a liquid, (in this case honey), to a specific temperature for a set period of time to kill harmful microorganisms without significantly affecting the flavor or nutritional value. In practice, mead makers can heat the honey to a temperature around 145°F (63°C) for 30 minutes. This will kill any wild yeast and bacteria without having to boil the honey, which could sacrifice flavor.
- Safety: Pasteurization effectively sanitizes the honey, reducing the risk of contamination. The risks of microbial contamination are low, but taking the extra step helps some people sleep better at night.
- Preserving Quality: This method kills harmful microorganisms while, unlike boiling the honey, preserves most of the honey's flavor and aroma.
- Heat the honey and water mixture to 145°F (63°C) and maintain this temperature for 30 minutes.
- Cool the must to the proper specified temperature before adding the commercial yeast.
- Boiling the honey and water mixture to sterilize it.
- Thorough Sanitization: Boiling ensures that all potential contaminants are killed. For mead makers with great paranoia, this method will allow them to sleep through an earthquake.
- Historical Method: This traditional method has been used for centuries, giving it a sense of authenticity. Arguably this might have been the best method used centuries ago for the simple fact that yeast had not yet been discovered. Remember, our ancient ancestors didn’t have convenient packs of dried yeast containing 100 billion pure yeast cells like we do, and, unlike us, there probably was a lot of funky stuff floating around in their raw honey.
- Bring the honey and water mixture to a boil.
- Boil for a few minutes, then remove from heat.
- Cool the must to the appropriate temperature before adding yeast.
Wrapping it All Up
We fermentation hobbyists have a tendency to make things more complicated than they need to be. Preparing honey for mead making doesn't have to be complicated. Remember - making mead is as much about the journey as it is about the final product. Whether you choose to add your honey directly, use sulphites, pasteurize, or boil, each method has its own set of benefits that can lead to delicious and unique meads. Which one should you use? The direct addition is the easiest and most common, but experimenting with different techniques can be a fun way to discover what works best for you and your mead. And fun (hopefully) is the ultimate reason we engage with this hobby. Cheers!