Any Mead Makers Here?

I'm going to try my hand at making some mead. Never made any before.

I'm going to start off with an easy one, Joe's Ancient Orange Mead (with cinnamon and clove). They say that's the best one to start with, but it pains me to use bread yeast in a brew. That's what the recipe calls for though, and they say not to change anything (even a little bit).

I've heard making mead can be really tricky and requires both time and a lot of attention. I'd really like to make a straight mead first and then split it up into gallons at the secondary stage and add flavoring, but from what I understand this is a mistake for a beginner.

I guess I need to set up a still to 'reprocess' all my blunders in wine and mead. Keeping my fingers crossed because I haven't had any...yet. I'm sure I will eventually though.

Oh I’m interested in this myself. Never had any. ABC will not allowed be sold in my state for some silly reason.

It is a very time consuming exercise and not nearly as simple as fermenting crushed raisins in a tub. I've done very basic research but my schedule doesn't allow for much experimentation at the moment.

Decided to re-type this reply for all that are curious -

Making mead is a bit of a process, you'll need an afternoon and some help.
To start with, we used 25L fermentation containers, as soon as it reaches the desired level of alcohol, you bottle.

We started with the same orange mead mentioned in the OP, but also made a dark mead at the same time, also called a braggot.

Always use champagne yeast for mead, no alternatives.
Fermentation time will depend on ambient temperature, we made our first batches in the winter, if memory serves they spent about 2 months fermenting.

For the Braggot we used espresso and dark malt (it was amazing), we used about 5-7KG's of honey per 25L batch.
We would always bring about 1.5L of water to a boil, then let it cool a bit, add the honey slowly bit-by-bit and keep stirring.

Once most of the honey has dissolved into the water add your ingredients, the heat helps to bring out the flavours and mix them.
Once everything is mixed you wait for the water to cool, if your pot or boiling receptacle is large enough add cold water.

Once the water reaches about 30C you're ready to add the yeast, mix well.
Throw in some raisins or other material that the yeast will be feeding off of, with the orange mead the pieces of orange should be enough.

Ferment until it reaches the desired level of potency, in a warm climate it will go quick 3-4 weeks.

We bottled our dark mead for about 6 months to a year before consuming.

The orange mead is very refreshing on a warm summers day and tastes like a honey and orange champagne.
The dark mead after a year was silky smooth and indescribably delicious, also very potent at 16% ABV.


I think this should get you started.
We've also made a blueberry mead, but didn't bottle at the right time so it was almost fermented dry (we were very lazy with bottling).
Blueberry mead was still delicious though, just very low in sugar content.

I think we used apple rind with the dark mead for the yeast to feed on.
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a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

Its the best, i use Lemon and Honey, but always experimenting with other ingredients.

Cant go wrong with bakers yeast. Never use powdered stuff.

Also good to encourage the growth of wild yeast, like throw in a couple of wild picked berries or flowers.

a reply to: GreenGunther

Great info!

Thanks!

/r/mead has a wealth of info on reddit. I'm half into a gallon of vikings blood myself.