r/mead

How much does room temperature matter when making mead? My husband used to brew mead, but he doesn't drink anymore so he stopped. (Health reasons, nothing serious!) But we have bees and a bunch of honey now.

He said i probably shouldn't start a batch in the summer because it does better when the indoor temperature is the mid 60s instead of the mid 70s.

Does it make much difference? I don't really want to wait months if I don't need to!

Hello, all!

I’m getting my hands on an excess of wild mustang grapes. They’re in season, and some jelly already made by the land owner has been great. My father used to make solid wine out of them, and I’d like to make a mead.

I’ve been looking for some quality recipes using them, but can’t find much outside of that it tastes good once it’s set a long time.

Does anyone have a wild/red pyment recipie you like a lot? Or a wine recipie I could add honey? I don’t have a ton of grapes, so I definitely want bang for my buck!

I’ve never even tried a pyment, and I usually like a sweeter wine, so I really am not sure where to start.

Thank you for your time!

Hi! First time brewer here.

I have just racked my first ever batch of mead, after checking the hydrometer readings. They, after appx 1 week are stable at 1.005, which I appreciate is a little sweet.

I killed primary fermentation using campden tablets and am planning to cold crash. Would this be acceptable or must I use potassium sorbate additionally? I wish to keep the mead as natural as possible, but I have some on hand in case it is necessary.

The transfer was done using a simple siphon, which I preloaded with water rather than sucked (to avoid contamination) into screw cap bottles. There is a negligible effervescence in some of the bottles, though all seem to have a minuscule amount of CO2 in them even when otherwise still - I do really mean minuscule too, a thin ring approx 1mm deep only at the meniscus and with bubbles not bigger than roughly half a millimetre.

The mead tastes okay, a touch strong (which was expected owing to my yeast choice!) with the flavours I expected to taste from my research.

Does this sound okay, I am mostly asking to alleviate my own worries and make sure I’m unlikely to get bottle bombs or poison anybody.

I can provide pictures if required.

I just got into both growing my own hops and making mead. I'm writing a recipe for a wet hopped mead using the hops I'm growing. I currently have vista, columbus, crystal, cluster, and comet hops. Anyone have opinion on which profile would one or ones work best from these options? I'm thinking higher Alpha would be a nice contrast to the naturally sweeter profile of honey but flavor notes would also likely be very important. Hope this isn't too obscure or specific and any help or thoughts is appreciated!

To be brief, my first batch of melomel (raspberry and blueberry) was a real crowd pleaser, and then a batch of cinnamon plum that turned out pretty good too. But then my last batch came out really bitter and acidic, and from a taste test my latest batch has done the same. Are there any common mistakes I'm making? I'm adding fruit in secondary and leaving it to infuse for about a week, which is exactly what I did with the first successful batch. I've wondered if I've added too much yeast nutrient as my fermentation has been painfully slow since my first batch.

Hi all! I’m on my second batch of mead right now using about 3 lbs of a local raw honey, and about a pound combined of peaches and strawberries in a 1 gal wide-mouth jar. I’m using Lalvin D47 and some fermaid-o nutrients. Currently on day 7, and coming out of the other side of getting hit by the heatwave/dome in PA. Temps in my apartment briefly hit 92°, but have otherwise been hovering in the 80s. My question is, should I be worried about the yeast being killed off by the high heat? If it has been killed, do I add more, or should I cut my losses and bottle what I have to let it age out at a lower ABV?

Thanks!