how do I brew mead at home?

Question

Oh, I'm based in the UK, so US-based solutions aren't altogether helpful. Ta!

Oh, and onion-girl? Get a life, please...

Answer 1

With a onion a 2 red potatoes. Ha ha ha

Answer 2

If you've never homebrewed before, there are a lot of things to take into consideration above and beyond the recipe. Without proper sanitation, the perfect recipe can be ruined and turn to vinegar (at best) or simply rot (naaasty!) with an infection by bacteria, airborne wild yeasts, etc.

Give a good read to some wine/beer making sites that discuss not only the recipes (the one above is a good one) but also the care and feeding of a healthy fermentation, how to check, and to keep good tabs on what you've got going on as well as having an advance idea of what the final product will turn out like.

http://howtobrew.com
http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/
http://www.homewinemaking.co.uk/

Among many others. Also, check in with your local home brewing supplier for hints, ideas, and any special tools/ingredients to help you along.

Answer 3

Basic Recipe
For a five gallon batch,
12 pounds of honey
3 tablespoons of yeast nutrient
2 tablespoons acid blend
1/4 teaspoon of irish moss
1 packet of Pasteur Champagne yeast
Dissolve the honey in water, as much as you can fit in the brewpot. [1] Add the yeast nutrient, acid blend, and irish moss, mix all thoroughly, and bring it to a boil. Skim off the brownish foam that collects on the surface as it boils, and when the foam's all gone, stop boiling (should be about 5 minutes or so). Cool the liquid [2], pour it into the fermentation vessel [3], and pitch in the yeast [4].
Fermentation should begin in about 12 hours, and it should last for three weeks or so. Rack the mead into a secondary vessel when fermentation stops [5]. At this time, taste the mead and decide whether to add flavoring [6]. Whatever flavoring agent you use, put it right into the secondary and let it sit there until bottling. Here are a couple of my favorite flavors:

Orange: zest of about a dozen oranges
Ginger: about 3/4 pound of ginger root, grated fine
When the mead is clear (another month or so), bottle it in clean bottles [7]. Most mead is okay to drink right away, but will improve with age up to a year or so.

Answer 4

Honey wine or mead is an ancient fermented drink. Mead is fairly easy and inexpensive to produce. A few simple ingredients, attention to an uncomplicated procedure, and a little patience will lead one to a good fermented honey drink.
In the making of mead as in any wine, yeast cells attack sugar releasing carbon dioxide and alcohol. A dilute solution of honey left at room temperature will ferment naturally although the resulting product will not usually be very pleasant. To make a quality honey wine we need a mild, pleasing flavored honey, a source of wine yeasts and a few trace additives (acid and nutrients). Controlled fermentation of the necessary material takes about three weeks for dry wine and up to four months for a sweet wine. Additional time is needed for aging and maturing of the wine. For fermentation a large jug is required. Clean corkable bottles or oaken barrels are desirable for aging and service of the product

Answer 5

do not start up your brewing with mead. It takes a three hundred and sixty 5 days or extra to sparkling appropriate. and on no account believe any internet site that tells you to brew with bread yeast. the end result would be crap. somewhat, start up with a lager, ideally an all-extract ale, made with real ale yeast. After a three hundred and sixty 5 days or so of homestead-brewing journey, you would be waiting to attempt a mead, given which you have one extra carboy to tie up for a three hundred and sixty 5 days or so, alongside with one extra airlock.

Answer 6

Try using Mr. Beer at www.mrbeer.com or at most local retailers. The kit sell for about $30 and you can brew a case for about $7 - $8 bucks after buying the initial kit

Answer 7

Never tried but it's brewed from honey so I quess some honey water and yeast.

Answer 8

there are some good books around to help you.