How to make GREAT mead at home | The Triforce of Balance
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 27 มิ.ย. 2024
- Are you wondering how to make your first mead? Or maybe you want to improve on your mead-making skills? Maybe you want to see a starter recipe you can work from to build a mead that works for your palate? Well, here we are! This video has been a long time in the making - and we can finally present you our Triforce of Balance. Acid, Tannin, and Sweetness are at the core of the perfect mead recipe, but how do they work? Where do these things come from? How can you balance your mead? This video is your go-to guide for how to make great mead at home. We talk through the components, a recipe, and even do a tasting of a finished product. Let's make mead together!
0:00 Intro
3:18 The Components
10:06 Ingredient Card
10:32 The Recipe
12:16 The Triforce of Balance
16:41 A Tasting
The zester: amzn.to/361O8pV (link supports the channel)
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Research
On yeast nutrition: docs.google.com/document/d/11...
On kveik: www.milkthefunk.com/wiki/Kveik
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How do YOU make perfect mead? Let us know in the comments (or on Discord)!
Nutrient schedules explained: www.meadmaderight.com/nutrien...
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I follow a couple of mead channels. I like yours the most ( get it ). You don’t B.S. I love that you master recipes ( at least to your palate ) before making the videos instead of just pumping them out claiming the greatness of the recipes. I love the songs you guys have made for your segments. I think my favorite part about your channel is just how involved with channels community you are. Keep up the great work.
This means a lot to us - thank you so much. Happy brewing, friend!
I agree with Jesse on all of the above!
I agree as well...wish my local mead makers/producers had that sense of community! they’re too “do it my way or the highway” or afraid of competition, idk what it is!
This is the video I wish I had when I tried my first mead. I'm glad it exists now. Really great job!
Glad you enjoyed it!
I aced it first try.
The next two got infected
I just started making mead. And this is the most useful video ever to keep me motivated for the year to come. Experimenting with flavors.
I'm going on 4 weeks on my first mead... she's still bubbl'n. 6 gal. Smells epic. raisins, black tea and local bee juice.
Local bee juice - love it!
One of your Best Videos , in explaining the Why's , of your ingredients . Should be Required Viewing , for all New Brewers . Thanks . 🐯🤠
I'm not sure why but this is one of my favorite videos. Great job, and thank you
Glad you enjoyed it! Thank you - and happy brewing!
I've been doing meads for few years now, love the video. thanks for sharing.
Your channel has to be the most informative out there. I have been making wine for over 40 years and still learn so much from your videos, keep them coming, cheers Dave
Informative, but if I had seen this before some of the other channels. I might not of tried to make mead myself.
you and 3M are my mentor's in making meads! Between you 2 and a good 3months of study n notes from y'all's videos my first break came out with a 9 out of 10 ppl enjoyed it. Thank you.
just wanted to chime in, ive found your traditional mead recipe, serves INCREDIBLY well for blending with my tart cherry and blackberry melomels. you can cut some of the natural bitterness of the cherries with traditional mead instead of over sweetening and it brings out the honey and gives a really balanced mead that isnt overly complicated on the pallete. you get the cherries on the inhale, exhale is almost like graham crackers! im working on a desert mead if you cant tell by now! i let my melomels go dry 16% and blend with a 10% traditional and the sweetness from the traditional wakes up the melomel. i never would have thought to do that without seeing your videos. thanks for helping with my creativity!
Haven't made my first batch of mead yet but watching your video has given me enough confidence it will bee good. I've been helping my mother out with her behives and helped her expand enough that I can utilize 12 pounds of honey.
Havn't brewed a mead yet. . .still on the fence if I want to brew one. . .This video definitely taught me a ton.
Maybe I’ll bring ya a bottle 🤣
It was right around a year ago when I began this wonderful journey of Mead Making.
Your channel has helped me really enjoy the craft and actually be pretty darn good at it.
Cheers to “Making a Great Mead” 💯😎
Thank you for the knowledge and keeping it real!!🍻
Great video!! Many young brewers struggle with the right balance of a mead. This will help me improve my brews going forward! Thanks for the content and two traditional mead recipes. 😉
Thank you, as always, for watching! We appreciate you!
Love this, it goes along great with your acid/ tannin video
Would you say the two videos ...BALANCE... each other? 🤣
Another good video! Thanks DTM!
Glad you enjoyed it!
Awesome video, gonna have to brew this one for myself
Let us know how it goes, and if there are any changes you make based on your palate preferences!
I haven’t made a good traditional yet and I’m definitely interested in going that way soon. I really appreciate this video
Glad you enjoyed the video - and happy brewing on that mead! A good traditional is a tough one to nail down, but so worth it when everything clicks!
A good traditional is definitely based on your pallet, after you figure out what you like a couple 1gals as testers to figure out what you like before going bigger is the best way to go.
New to the channel, great content! Thank you for the brewing lessons
Love your videos man, I have just started brewing, almost to the 20 day mark. Degassing is next and then I bottle but your videos have helped me gain a better understanding of what I need to study up on, what I need to get my palette to to understand what my brew needs. Thank you so much for your videos!
Another content winner. Added to the list of must see
Thanks man! That means a lot 😁
Revisiting this video as I found some fun varietals very cheap yesterday. Lutra is such a good yeast choice. Gonna cop some for a tea tree honey traditional
Really like the Airlock on your 6 gallon Carboy . Have to get me some .🐯🤠
I owe everything I know because of Doin’The Most 💯
Thank you so much for helping me understand the process and making it super easy to make exceptional brews.
Cheers 🍻
Cheers!
I haven't thought about the flavor profile in that graph form in ages. This is really nice. If love to learn some exercises to identify different tannins and acids and help tune my pallet.
We have a video on a practice exercise on that: th-cam.com/video/gyQJIM9TQiw/w-d-xo.html Hope this helps! :)
Like your yeast, I’ll have to try it.
Great video. The best trads I've had are tupelo, meadowfoam, orange blossom, and a gallberry blend.
Balance is right for every palette. In the big3!
Man... your edits add the perfect amount of fun *hand kisses*
Great video. I love quick meads with berries in the 4-5 abv range like a cider or beer. Fast turn around and nice when bottle conditioned.
Session meads are definitely my favorite! Crisp and crushable!
#crispyhydromels 💯👍🏼😎
Another great video! Good to see solid mead making advice *cough raisons are not nutrients*. I am personally not a fan of adding acid and tannins up front. I enjoy seeing the final product then adjusting at the end to where I want my trads to be at. Trads are a style that takes lots of practice to perfect. It's hard to hid any faults behind such clean final product.
I've not made a traditional as of yet. Blueberry, banana, dates, blackberry and a combination of these fruits have come before any traditional mead. Now I have done somewhat of a traditional white wine but at the 2/3 break some sort of fruit comes into play. I tend to prefer a higher abv seeing i only drink 1 to 2 oz's at a time. But your traditional recipe has more to do with the overall idea of what's being produced.
You have a wonderful way of getting your ideas out in a way anyone will understand without any issues. Keep doing what you do and always dtm
Love the idea of fruiting a white wine part-way through. I may need to try that myself!
Remember i said that i was going to split a large can of BlackBerry puree between a white wine and a traditional mead . That didn't happen. The puree all went to the white wine at about the 1/3 fermentation and the BlackBerry flavor 😋👌 was outstanding and the gravity was at 1.000. I'm not fond dry wines and backsweeten and got that wrong 1.040. So I oak it 🤪 somewhat heavy. Smooth out the sweetness but still sweet. Best served with a meal and maybe cooking with. I perfect a final gravity around 1.015 .I'm a long time sugar baby.
My next wine is going to be with strawberry & Rhubarb jam 😋 2 / 11 oz jars that i plan incorporate into secondary fermentation. Seeing where it comes out to.
Great content! I am a beer homebrewer and currently looking into making mead as well. Your videos are super informative and fun to watch as well. Coming from a beer brewing background gotta ask :D Do you ferment at room temperature? or have any sort of temp control setup? Thank you!
This is definitely complex! I wish I had seen something like this when I first started, however when I first started I probably would have been confused.
That's fair - I had a few people watch an early cut of this video and there was definitely an opinion that it crams a lot into 20 minutes. Happy brewing!
@@DointheMost it definitely does. I'm more of a natural brewer (I like using what I have in my cabinets) I really appreciate your including those in too! I'm nearly or just over 1 year into this hobby and I love it! At the same time although I have gained knowledge and confidence, I still have more to learn.... This is definitely something I need to note in my learning process.
Very well done video. Thank you for introducing me to a new yeast. I started a batch of traditional still mead and primary is finished. Is it ok to add the tannins and acid in secondary? In what order do you typically balance the triumverant? Do you balance the sweetness first, then tannins?
Awesome video. Thank you. I've got some Voss Kviek at home. Reckon that would be suitable?
For your nutrients, are you only adding Fermaid O (no DAP)? How much initially and how much during each addition? Great video, thank you!
Done cider once and wanted to give mead a go! Love your video! I have a question tho! How do you make sure the mead stops fermenting, to not have explosive bottles later on? Do you use a yeast stop?
I would recommend starting with a 1ga mead - unless you have a lot of money for honey... That way you won't worry about screwing it up as much (which is hard to do) and it's easy to experiment with 1ga carboys, so you can have 2-3 meads on the go vs one giant one :)
Great video, have to try Lutra now! Balancing my mead was a game changer. Have you ever tried using lactic acid directly? I recently started using it in big dark melomels and low acid dark country wines and the smoothness and velvety it introduces is really nice. Have to try also if it can work in a traditional.
I’ll have to get hold of lactic eventually. I’ve used MLF but not the isolated acid itself. I have a butterbeer experiment brewing right now that has dried out and the lactic is so strong. Backsweetening helped batch 1, so hopefully it fixes batch 2! Right now it’s yogurty. Hah
great video & info as always!!! ty 👍🏼👌🏼....idk haven’t really found good meads here where I live, at least not to the liking of my palate, a lot are carbonated and I don’t really like that in meads. Mainly all are carbonated bc the few mead producers here feel that’s what people want, but not me! so sadly I’ll have to say my traditional is the best I’ve had 🤦🏻♂️🤣 I wish more people would mind that balance of acids, tannins & sweetness! thanks again for the content, may the balance be with you!
May the balance be with you!
Lallamand Kveik Voss and Nottingham together in a traditional mead give a great flavor. I ferment at 88 degrees. You should try it and see what you think.
I’ll give it a go!
Thanks for the amazing video. I'm a newbee and am trying to figure it out. In your recipe, you refer to grams. What type of equipment do you use to measure grams? Spoons, scales, etc...? All of my basic measuring equipment is probably like most; cup, quarter cup, half cup. Thanks in advance! 😊
just WOW !! i dont know why you are not sponsored yet !
Thanks for the kind words - and for always supporting the channel! Happy brewing :)
There is another caveat to know regarding using acids. Since honey has a high pH, so will the must, and bacteria can take hold better in pHs above 4.0. in my opinion, your starting must should be between 3.7 and 4.0 pH in order to prevent unwanted bacterias from taking hold early on.
Also, and this may or may not be an issue for the average home brewer but is more important in commercial production, by starting with a lower pH, you naturally end with a lower pH that is in a more stable range of 3.2 to 3.6, and as a result will require less sulfites and sulfates to stabilize the wine before filtering and bottling. And also will naturally have a longer shelf life as well.
I've got two packets of Lutra in my fridge right now. Using them for beer though.
Sounds like we look for the same thing in a traditional. Dry, perception of sweetness, and only moderate ABV (11-12%). I tend to lean towards more tannin than acid, but as you say, it's the balance that is key. Acid is difficult to get just right.
It definitely does sound like we have the same taste in trads! Consider a Lutra trad if you're feeling experimental sometime. I love it.
I may have simple tastes, but I have enjoyed just about all of my traditional meads.
Or maybe you just make great stuff!
@@DointheMost Thank you! I'm to the point where I've created a label for my little countertop meadery. Gotta impress my friends, aka the mead beta testers.
@@martharetallick204 Isn't it funny how people line up to beta test mead? haha! I know my friends love it.
I also used the bacteria for the second fermentation of my payment-hippoccras mead.
I like this video. I have my first mead in secondary now and I already want to start my second. No idea how #1 taste yet but I am sure I can do better. I have like 3 lbs of Wildflower honey left over from my first mead attempt. Would you change anything in this recipe if you were using Wildflower honey instead of Orange Blossom? I know things are subject to taste but I would be happy to start with your taste.
got a list where i can purchase these ingredients? this was a great video!
Subbed and liked. This is the channel with the subjects I'm interested in. Finally...
Al Sharpton at 7:15. But why? He heard it through the grapevine.
I hear Picture of a Stranger by Fellow in the background. MMM made me addicted to it. So much so that I used it in my last drone video lol. I want to try to make this recipe, because I don't know if I like any of the meads I've made quite yet, but the oldest one is 3 months. Maybe its because I keep ending up with meads that are super high ABV.
Let me know how it goes for you! And like I said in the video, some folks may want it sweeter than I like it. So you may be prepared to up the sweetness on the back end or just blow through Lutra‘s ABV tolerance with a higher OG.
Hi! Great channel! Any reason you use red wine tanin and not white?
I would like to try a 1 gallon batch of your traditional mead. Can I use 1/5 the amount of acid and tannins or do they not scale linearly?
Hi DMB. Regarding your discussion of flavor balancing and the addition of acids, can Cream of Tartar be used as a source of tartaric acid and if so, when would you use it?
Thanks for the video, very informative! A couple questions if I can ask: How much yeast nutrient are you adding at each addition? Do you degas throughout primary? How long (on average) would you say you let your mead sit in secondary? Working on my first mead! Thank you
Hope you found some answers. I've been making mead for ~18 months now. I never bother with nutrient, but they won't hurt. I never degas (although I usually swirl it 2-3 times during the first week), I tend to rack after one month and then just let it sit for at least 2 months after that during which time it almost always clears and degases itself.
Do you recommend using campden for a day or two before pitching Lutra? Or is no boil, no campden okay? Thanks!
I use olive oil as part of a yeast supliment sometimes
I mix it 50\50 with 190 shake it up good I make 30mls it last for ever. Then dip a bent leg of a paper clip in your solution. Touch that to a paper towel now you have about .00000005 of a drop that will dose 5 gallons.
From my understanding it's great when the yeast are populating and gives them nice healthy cell walls
Just bottled my second brew tonight, I definitely don't like the mead I make 😂 but my friends absolutely love it so it puts $ in my pocket lol (I use the Modern Rogue recipe, made my first batch in fall 2017 and this latest one in late 2019 I think, they each aged about a year and a half)
But I think in my case it's just cause my mead is WAY too dry for my palette (14% abv)
I prefer sweeter wines, so if I make a desert mead it would taste a lot better to me
I know your comment is a year old… still felt the need to react.
If you don’t like dry meads, I’d say: stabilise a mead and back sweeten a portion of it to your taste. Let it age. Taste it again. My daughter prefers bone-dry meads. I like them off-dry. My SO’s daughter likes them semi-sweet to sweet and my daughter’s SO tends to prefer sweet, fruity meads. As a result I tend to tailor my batches to everyone’s preferences. Either batch-by-batch, or by dividing the batch in three and then back sweetening and balancing to three levels, from dry to sweet or semi-sweet. Even with the ‘dry’ meads I will often add a touch of sweetness, and some recipes simply call for a sweeter finish. Depending on the ingredients, something might come across as dryer or sweeter than another combination of ingredients.
I find that a higher ABV calls for a bit more sweetness and a bit more tannin than lower ABV batches. This isn’t a hard and fast rule, more a tendency.
Totally new to this. Can this recipe just be divided into 4 for a one gallon brew then? Or does recalculation have to be done to be correct?
I've just mixed a wort using this recipe as a base.
I made a wort with OG of 1.075 with 1 part honey and approx 4 parts spring water.
It should come out as a 10 abv drink when fermented to dryness.
Since we are expecting Kveik to leave approx 20% of sugars behind, maybe we are looking at around 8 abv drink.
What I'm wondering is that the wort is already at pH 3,2. I'm very surprised is Lutra will ferment this to it's theoretical maximum of 75-82% attenuation.
I didn't have malic acid in stock so I switched the malic acid to tartaric acid. I'm not sure how they compare together in their potency.
I determined the total acidity and it came out under 0,2 g / L.
It's my first ferment with tannin added.
If the wort won't start attenuating, I'll be raising the pH with potassium carbonate to somewhere around pH of 4.
Have a nice day!
Great video. This one showcases your ability to explain the nuances of mead making. However, I don't understand one discrepancy. You mentioned in the video that lutra has an alcohol tolerance of 11%. The manufacturer's website shows that lutra has an alcohol tolerance of 15%. In the description of the yeast and specifically states dry yeast. Is there a difference in alcohol tolerance between the liquid and dry forms of yeast
I've made a lot of meads but never a traditional because I was afraid of a bland drink. I think I'll finally try a traditional and use acid and tannins! Do you have a good online store for getting the malic and citric acid? I can only find blends.
I got my malic on Amazon: amzn.to/3jqhPGN
Citric acid is also available on Amazon, but typically you can find it in the baking section of your grocery store. It’s used a lot for cheese making. :)
Definitely like your videos but the omega yeast lutra kveik I've been buying says 15% abv tolerance and I've pushed it to about 16.5%
It was ginger,dark grapes, and honey . With lemons and oranges .
Excuuuuuse me princess. Absolutely fantastic information 🙌🏻
I have a question. I bought some Swerve (the self proclaimed ultimate sugar replacement) for backsweetening, it’s erythitol, but also contains some oligosaccharides, will these ferment? I’ve searched the internet and I cannot find a clear answer. Have you had any experience with them?
Should I be concerned about them kicking up fermentation?
Thanks again for a great video!
I don’t have experience but a little googling leads me to believe MOST oligosaccharides are nonfermentable. Here’s the study I came across: online.cerealsgrains.org/publications/cc/backissues/1973/Documents/CC1973a18.html
@@DointheMost thanks dude!
Any difference between red wine and white wine tannin? I'd think for a trad you'd go with white wine tannin but just curious
I keep watching Mead making videos, cuz my TikTok fyp has been showing me a lot of videos on it, and I wanna start making mead now...
But I hate alcohol 😂😅 I can't stand the taste at all! At best I could make it a gift, but... I couldn't taste test it to know it's actually *good* so that could go very wrong 😂
Where do you buy the airlock you have in the video
The best traditional mead is unaged sac made with champagne yeast and wildflower honey.
Can Creme of tartar be a substitute for some minor acid balancing? Pleas and thank you
You have provided a lot of information. Thank you. One question… How is adding so many chemical agents a “traditional” mead? When I think traditional, I think Viking. I’m pretty sure citric acid, tannin, and yeast “food” was in short supply then. I understand that fruit peels, and citric fruit would supply the tannin and citric acid, but what about the “food”? I’m curious because I am trying to make the most traditional I can. I don’t like the dry white wine taste from the store.
Traditional mead wouldn't be associated with vikings. It'd be associated with the mead originally created in China that was a mixture of honey, rice, and various grains. Even as time went on, the vikings hadn't discovered mead next. It would have been people in Africa creating Tej which is a spiced mead to us, but is traditional to them. Overall 'traditional' is a misnomer that is used to label mead made with honey, yeast, and water - where those are the only ingredients that come through, everything else used is a processing aid to dial in the flavour because honestly... Who wants to drink an out of balance mead, when they can add some chemical agents and make it into much better mead than before.
Also, I like using the ideas and techniques from my ancestors, but like using electricity, showers, and doctors when I’m sick…
@@kjdevault this makes no sense.
@@iraph thanks for the history lesson, but you are missing the point to my question. What is the traditional counterpart to citric acid, tannin, and most importantly the yeast “food”? What was traditionally used for yeast “food?
@@iraph especially since there was no yeast then
I did my first brew a week ago as a traditional, so hopefully I’m a good gambler. Next step, play the hell out of the powerball ??
Absolutely. I hear the powerball will be 45 this week!
Would you recommend to boil the water? I live in Norway, our tap water is low clorine, and probably one of the cleanest tap water in the world. But would you still recomend boiling?
Hey dude,
Even with Lutra it's gonna take 2 weeks in primary?
I'm trying to convince my boss at the LHBS I work at to pick up a few buckets of specialty honeys to try to attract Mead Makers to the store. What websites do you guys purchase your honeys from?
Bulk honey comes from Webstaurant and I can vouch for their orange blossom and alfalfa being just fine for brewing. Blueberry blossom comes from MaineBees. John was great to work with there.
Question: Could this recipe be adapted for a smaller fermentation?
Absolutely! Just divide everything by five. If using dry yeast you might wanna use two grams instead of one, though.
@@DointheMost Indeed. Will definitely give this a try when I can; thanks for the recommendation. Great video, as always.
This may seem like a dumb question, but how does acid/tannins work if I decide to add fruit in secondary?
I am making this recipe but at one gallon, I’m unsure how to dose the kviek. Should I use half the packet at one gallon of water?
How do you feel about going all natural? Raisins as a nutrient, orange peels for acid, and tea for tannin?
Raisins are little to no nutrients at all
Would it be okay to use a acid blend that contains tartaric acid?
Why is there a color change in your carboy? Are you oxidizing the mead to get the brown stuff to precipitate out?
what range of PH would you recommend? measured at the beginning and end of fermentation
thanks for your help!
Hey, what was your starting gravity. Sorry just being lazy, I could work it out if I assume 35 gravity points per 119 grams honey per liter.
1.085
so apple skins would add tannin? and change flavour?
The website for LUTRA KVEIK lists the ABV tolerance as 15% and not 11%
I've never heard that raisins were a nutrient before, books and other things ive read say they are tannins.
From what I gather from a generic TOSNA calculator and that you said the yeast has a high nitrogen requirement, I'm guessing you added about 10 g of Fermaid O after 24 hours, 10 g after 48 hours, and 10 g after 72 hours? Or maybe more like 5g per dose?
Really curious to hear what the mead that you dumped was at 16:09.
Orange creamsicle experiment
Brooke: it’s not overcooked they are undercooked. Not raw, undercooked. Gotta cook ribs longer on lower temperature for everything to melt and give your seasoning the credit it deserves.
Not sure how to do the 1.3 fermentable sugars to add the Fermaid o, and how much...
Can I ask what your starting ph was for this mead?
Does anyone know where to get those silicon airlocks? I tried Amazon, but they just gave me the total plug as an option. Anyone know a good vendor?
You added acids but I'm not understanding why and/or how much? I'm only on my first batch ever even though I've been beekeeping 5 years. I thought you might have to use a pH tester and measure pH then adjust after. No pH measurements are used?
I know there's a pH range for healthy fermentation, but in this case the focus is more on the flavor / mouthfeel of the final product. I'm sure you could measure the pH to know exactly where you are, but as long as it tastes good, that's the big thing. Finding the exact amount to add could just be trial and error based on your taste.
I love how you explain "the triforce of balance." However I gotta say I'm not sold on all of the powders. I prefer ease of access, like tea for tannin, and zest for acid. I also like things like rasins or boiled bread yeast for nutrition, then set it and forget it. To each his own. I have seen quite a few of your videos, so I will definitely subscribe.
What do you mean by "clutch"?
Where do I get that breathable bung?
Say don't you have a video doing one gallon of mead I was looking for it and couldn't find it