How to Make Your First Mead

Introduction
For anyone who is interested in fermenting their own alcohol but has no idea
where to start, this mead recipe is for you. Mead is arguably the world's oldest
form of alcohol and is known as the Vikings drink of
choice. Mead is traditionally made with water honey
and yeast, but today you can find it with all sorts of
additional ingredients such as fruits, spices, chilis, and
much more. However, in this recipe we will stick to
the basics and make a sweet traditional mead. If you
prefer a drier mead, this is a simple fix and all you
have to do is lower the amount of honey by one
pound.

INGREDIENTS
 3lbs of raw honey, any type will do.
 1 gallon of room temperature spring water
 1 five-gram packet of LALVIN 71B-1122 yeast

EQUIPMENT
 2 one-gallon glass carboys
 1 rubber stopper and 3-piece airlock
 1 eight-ounce container of One Step No Rinse Cleaner
 1 auto-siphon with tubing
 The following is optional for storage of the finished mead. You can store in
the second carboy if you wish.

 Wine bottles and corks

 Wine Corker

STEPS
Step 1: Sanitize All of Your Equipment, sanitization is the most important part of
brewing so anything that your mead will touch must be sanitized with warm
water and your One Step powder. Let it air dry afterwards. You will only need to
sanitize one carboy for now.

Step 2: Add your honey into the sanitized carboy.

Step 3: Add about half of your spring water into the same carboy.

Step 4: Cap the carboy and shake until the honey and water are combined
together.

Step 5: Mix about 2/5 of the packet of yeast into a clean cup with some of your
spring water and stir. This is for rehydrating the yeast.

Step 6: Pour the water and yeast mixture into the carboy and then pour in the
rest of your water until there is about 2-4 inches from the surface of the mixture
to the base of the bottleneck.

Step 7: Cap the carboy again and shake until everything is fully mixed. A good rule
of thumb is once you think you are done shake for another minute.

Step 8: Put in the stopper and add the airlock with water to the fill line on it.

Step 9: Store in a room temperature environment for 4-6 weeks.

These next Steps will be for a process known as racking.

Racking is just transferring the mead away from the yeast
cake which will develop at the bottom of the carboy. For
these steps you will need your original carboy placed at a higher elevation than
the new one in order to properly siphon.

Step 10: Sanitize your auto-siphon and tubing along with the second carboy.

Step 11: Remove the stopper from your original carboy and place the auto siphon
in deep enough to be about an inch above the yeast cake.

Step 12: Place the other end of the tubing into the second carboy and begin
siphoning. You are going to lose some mead but that is ok because if the dead
yeast is left in for too long it can leave a “meaty taste” to the mead.

Step 13: Place a clean stopper and airlock onto the new carboy and wait for one
to two weeks.

Step 14: Sanitize your wine bottles or original carboy and transfer over the
remaining mead.

Step 15: Cap your carboy or cork you bottles

The finished mead is now ready to drink but for best results wait at least 6-8
months before drinking.