Homemade Mead - DIY Honey Wine

Well, no photos on this one, but the procedures for making mead are so easy, I don't think you'll need any!

I first had mead at a little Ethiopian restaurant here in Austin, and later discovered how easy it was to make.

Disclaimer: My own mead, of which I have two batches currently fermenting, have not finished yet, so I can't attest to the quality.  Still, you can't go wrong with mead, so give it a try!


Here's what you'll need:

• left over wine bottle or other fermentor
• 1 cup honey
• 3 cups water
• yeast
• airlock and cap or wine bottle cork

You can adjust the honey/water ratio to make larger batches; just keep it at 1:3.  Heat the water in a pot/kettle, and slowly pour in the honey, taking care to stir.  Allow the mixture to heat to 160 degrees F.

Keep it at 160 for 15 minutes.  Then, pour it into a container and cold crash it to about 65-70 degrees.

Once it's cool, add your Yeast/yeast starter.  Pour the mix into your fermentor and cap it with the air lock.

Let the mead sit at 70-75 degrees, which is slightly above beer fermentation temperatures.  I just kept mine in a dark place in the house.  It started fermenting within an hour.

After a couple weeks, rack the mead into a secondary.  You many want to repeat this again after a full month.  Let the mead sit anywhere from two to six months.  Then, enjoy!