You can make a lovely mead with just a few ingredients. This recipe makes a semisweet mead that has a strong taste of honey with a nice balance of tannins and acids to round out the flavor.
1 gal (3.8 L) water, divided
½ lemon, chopped
⅛ cup (20 g) raisins, chopped
1 cup (240 ml) strongly brewed black tea
3 lb (1.4 kg) honey
½ packet (2.5 g) Lalvin D-47 yeast
1. Gather and sanitize equipment: Gather your ingredients and your supplies. You’ll need a 1- or 2-gallon (3.8- or 7.5-L) stockpot, a long spoon, a funnel, a strainer, a gallon (3.8-L) carboy and a bung and airlock. Sanitize all of the brewing equipment and anything else that will come into contact with your brew.
2. Make the brew: Heat ⅔ gallon (2.5 L) of the water in the stockpot to just about boiling. Add the lemon, raisins and tea to the water. Give it a stir and remove the pot from the heat. Let that mix steep for about 15 minutes. Stir in the honey until it is completely dissolved. Once the must is well blended, let it sit for another 10 minutes or so to cool.
3. Funnel and cool: Use the funnel and strainer to pour the warm must into the gallon (3.8-L) carboy. Top off the carboy with as much of the remaining ⅓ gallon (1.3 L) of water needed for the must to reach the neck of the jug. Seal it with the bung and airlock to keep everything clean. Allow the must to cool for a few hours.
4. Add the yeast: When the glass is cool enough that you can touch the jug on the bottom and not feel the heat, or the must reaches 90°F (32°C), you can pitch the yeast. First, cover the mouth of the carboy. Shake the jug for a minute to add oxygen. Sprinkle the yeast into the jug and then recap the carboy with the bung and airlock.
5. Ferment: Label the jug with the brew name and date and set it aside somewhere around 60 to 70°F (16 to 21°C) and out of direct sunlight. After a day or so, you should start to see the bubbles appear, and you can revel in the sound of the jug bubbling until it is done with its fermenting magic! Check the airlock and watch how often it bubbles. You can tell the brew is done when the bubbles have stopped and the mead has cleared. This usually takes about 4 to 6 weeks.
6. Bottle: Once the mead is cleared it is time to bottle! Sanitize your bottles, racking cane and caps or corks, if you need them. Set the jug on your counter and put the sanitized bottles at a lower level, either in your sink or on the floor. This helps the siphon to work more effectively. Put one end of the siphon tube in a bottle and the racking cane into the jug and try not to disturb the lees at the bottom. Fill the bottles up to the necks and then cap them. Rinse the bottles and label them.
7. Age: Put the bottles away to age for at least 3 weeks before enjoying the fruits of your labor!
8. Serving: When you open your first bottle of mead, pour a little bit into a glass and let it breathe like you would for a dark red wine. Take a taste and see what you think! If you want to change the flavor and sweetness of your mead, you can make it a spritzer or add sugar syrup to give it a boost.
TIP: “Must” is the name for the juice or honey water of meads or wines before they ferment.
TIP: Frozen and thawed? When you freeze fresh fruit, the ice crystals break down the cell walls in the fruit, releasing more juices to flavor your brew. This is why many mead recipes in this chapter call for first freezing and then thawing the fruit.