How to make a Session Mead | A crispy hydromel recipe made with fruity honey and a touch of sparkle
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- Опубликовано: 9 июл 2024
- This session mead recipe is ALL about the honey. A good-tasting honey is critical to this mead's success. At a low ABV riding just above 5%, this crisp, refreshing hydromel mead is perfect for summer sipping. Great either bottle condition or on draft. Why not home brew one right now? It can be ready in under a month if kegged. In this video we show you how to make mead, but unlike a traditional mead this is a light and crushable drink more akin to a honey-flavored lager or hard seltzer than a big, sturdy traditional mead. We've brewed this recipe dozens of times, and it is a trusted winner!
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Crispy Hydromel Recipe
- 6# orange blossom honey
- 3 grams malic acid
- 1 gram citric acid
- 3 grams wine tannin
- D47 yeast
Ferment all the way dry, with front-loaded nutrition.
Back-sweeetening:
1# orange blossom honey to backsweeten (1.010-1.015, pasteurize or stabilize first, and keg) or 12oz erythritol (1.010, keg or bottle condition)
Target for CO2 is about 2.6 volumes. Use a priming calculator to be precise!
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How do you like your session meads? Let us know in the comments (or on Discord)!
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FYI - Full recipe with tips and FGs, etc is in the description. :)
Hey thabks for the great recipe but i had 1 question have yall ever used honey for the carbonation instead of the dextrose?
@@claytonsmoking Yes - just make sure to use a carbonation calculator!
Excited to giving this great recipe a go! I’m about 2 days into primary fermentation. Just trying to get a feel for a timeline. So after hitting target gravity I then rack, backsweeten, and add sparkaloid? What is the time frame after that? A couple weeks for sparkaloid to do its thing- or rack at acceptable level of clarity? After bottling with carb drops does two weeks for carbonation and another three weeks for the yeast to “mellow out” sound right? Thank you!
@@jcwing5040 I’ve found sparkolloid takes about a week to clear it up. Bottle conditioning takes 2-3 weeks. Then give it another couple weeks to mellow.
Hey I didn't catch how much water you used.
Earlier in the year, I made a 5% hydromel. Once it went through the first fermentation I added fresh mango to the secondary stage. Then I racked it again and dry hopped with Citra. Mango Citra session, so refreshing! I then made a "double" with a bit of extra hops that came out at around 9%. problem is, it's still a little too drinkable for the strength so can get messy pretty quick!
nothing wrong with a bit of messy!
This video is exactly what I was looking for when I first began making mead. I love the way BC comes across with such simplicity. Thank you for teaching me how to make super crushable session meads. Cheers
What I've been doing is brewing at a slightly higher abv, then diluting with fruit to desired abv. It's a good way to get a large fruit impact, without the abv plummeting below 5%.
Love that methodology!
I'm gonna try this.
About to make my first mead with local Colorado pine honey and local peaches! Can't wait, but in the meantime I'm glad there's a 1 month drinkable mead for me to try as well! Thanks for the video!
This is my newest addiction! My first session mead. Delicious right from my keg kept at 32 degrees. More session meads please!
I can say 100% truthfully that this is probably one of the best mead recipes I've tried. I used linden honey and it tasted really nice and exactly like you said, like honey soda lol. I also think this could be a great first mead, provided the beginner is willing to get a setup for bottling or kegging.
I'll be making this soon. Thanks!
Thank you for the recipe I've been looking for something just like this
Thanks for your videos! My husband and I are returning to brewing after 6 or 7 years, and never thought to make a mead...and now our first is off to a vigorous ferment!
Made a raspberry hydromel for NYE that was an absolute hit! Even people who don’t drink enjoyed it and wanted more!
I used local clover honey to a 1.045 starting gravity and back sweetened with Trader Joe’s Mesquite honey. Stabilized and put some raspberries on top and holy moly.. what a brew.
Also I used US-05 yeast. It’s a powerhouse yeast for sure, and leaves a crisp taste. Great for the beer drinkers that like mead
Session mead is a great way to win over those beer folks!
What a cool community!! I love this video and making Mead!! Wooo
Thanks for watching and happy brewing!
Just trying my first hydromel. I added mango and habanero to mine. Thanks for your videos!
I just converted this to a Blueberry Crispy! So good and still blueberry at 3 days, LOL!!! It has good legs on my pint glass ;-) !!! Can't wait to have some seasoned people try this! A vid on converting a recipe like this to many fruit hydromel would be awesome!!!
Hi there! I just recently discovered your channel- thank you so much for the great information! I am a realtively new meadmakerm having only done still meads util now. I'm excited to try a session mead and this recipe sounds delicious. I'm going to scale it down to a 1 gallon batch (assuming this is a 5 gallon batch in the video) and give it a try!
great video as always 👍🏼
Thanks!
Love the video! Would it be possible to ferment in a plastic bucket in the stead of a glass carboy or would that give it an off flavor?
Love the simplicity of this recipe. Quick question: I brewed this yesterday (adding a # of buckwheat honey and substituting 10g of Fermaid K for the 10g of Fermaid O). Today there is a faint sulfurous odor from the airlock. Honestly, it could be the buckwheat. But if it is sulfurous, could that be from Fermaid K substitution? Thanks!
Thanks
Hey BC, love this recipe. I think it is especially good with some lemon zest and a little green tea for tannins. I also prefer mine to be kegged, but I miss out on the convenience of bottles. Is it possible to bottle a brew after kegging it? How would that work?
Excellent video! Any thoughts on cold crashing to clear? Then rack and bottle condition. Thanks!
Yeah that would work well! There shouldn’t be anything in here too stubborn to cold crash out.
Hello! I made this same recipe with sundew yeast and 10 grams fermaid 0 and it seems to have stalled at 1.012 after three weeks of primary. Should I leave it as it or try to reinvigorate it with more fermaid O or DAP?
Fantastic! Thanks for putting this video together! Absolutely going on my list to make. Can't buy anything like this in the stores. Stoked to give it a shot
It’s very similar to the Honey session mead from Meridian Hive. :)
@@DointheMost ah! Must be my area then thats got a lousy selection. But, silver lining, its driven me to start this awesome hobby :-)
Looks like they ship. Gonna pick some up. Thanks for the suggestion
@@d3f3ds2 Awesome! Try their lemon and blackberry!
This recipe with a shallow mix of blackberry and strawberry feels like it would be a tad reminiscent of Wildberry Pop Tarts.
I definitely need to make that batch (although, it'll only be a gallon). Thank you for the notes on acidity.
If you look back to our berry hydromel collab we did with Homebrew Ohio, you can see an example of how we bent the recipe to work with fruit purees. They turned out really lovely, delicate fruit flavors but nice strong honey flavor.
Hydromel will always be my favorite mead - maybe because it goes better chilled with the Texas heat! Definitely by the pint!
I'm not a fan of D47, tho. It seems a bit too picky with temperature and tends to give off some weird flavors if fermented at room temp. I much prefer qa23.
I will shamelessly admit that D47 is one of my favorite yeasts! Maybe it’s because my house is so damn cold.
Thoughts on using munkfruit for mead? (disclaimer I already did this but am waiting for the bottles to finish conditioning)
I made this - target OG was 1.046 but mine was 1.050. However mine stopped fermenting at 1.013 which seems a little high. So my ABV is a touch low. Should I do anything now to change it, or just plough-on with the recipe? SG stabilised about a week ago so it's just sitting.
My crispy session following this recipe naturally cleared after about 9 days into fermentation and racking out of primary. Went down to 1.000, do I need to wait much longer to bottle? Love the taste currently
Question on sparkoloid. Do you have to boil it for 5 minutes or can I just mix it into boiling water and add to my cider?
if clarity isn't an issue, is it alright to move to bottles once back sweetened right after fermentation and letting them carbonate and bottle age at the same time?
Have you tried to pressure ferment mead? Such as in a fermentasaurus or similar. I copied this recipe and it fermented out in 6 days and cleared up without a fining agent. It’s fantastic by the way.
If I wanted to make a one gallon batch of this and make it a cranberry-orange session, would I want to use the cranberry juice in primary or add it to secondary?
Cheers from México!
Happy brewing!
Ted Cruz is that you???
Hi. That looks ace. I live in Asia and the honey that's easiest to get for me is coffee blossom. Clearly, that's not one of the honeys you recommend for this. If I were to add a little fruit, do you think that would cover it to some degree? Cheers.
Hi, I need your opinion. I decided to try out this recipe and after 10 days gravity is below 1.000. What would be the expected smell and taste at this time because mine cider now smells and tastes sour.
Would it work to use orange juice or lemon juice to add tartness and an extra note, as opposed to using an acid blend?
I am going to try this recipe but still. I am not quite ready for carbonating anything yet. Lol Do you recommend any techniques to optimize this recipe to be enjoyed still?
Should I rack it after a week? Or let it do its thing till the gravity drops to 1?
How would you scale this down to a smaller batch?
How much Go-Ferm did you add to the sundew?
and how much sparkolliod did you use?
What about filtering for polishing to a 1 micron filter online filter or do you lose all the flavors? If you that
Sorry I’m a bit confused, so if using the ingredients in the beginning of the video (D47) do I need to load it with nutrients and fermaid 0? Or is it only if using ale yeast?
Have you thought about using this sundew yeast for an plain apple cider? Wonder what sorts of flavors it would produce with that
I just set up your recipe, can't wait to try it! Although it took me 8 lb of honey to get to 1.044 specific gravity, not sure why
I figured out my issue, I'm brewing in a plastic fermenter not a carboy. I added more water that you did.
it's nice how this recipe comes out to exactly to 100g of sugar (80% in honey) per liter of total volume.
i know there must be a way i'm just spacing...but how would i back sweeten with a fermentable sugar , let it bottle condition for carbonation, pasteurize, AND clear with Sparkloid? The clearing is where i'm getting stumped...should i just rack into secondary, back sweeten, cold crash for 3 days or so, add to bottles, cap, and let sit an appropriate amount of time before pasteurizing (just skipping the Sparkloid)? Or is there some way to BOTH use a fining agent AND sweeten/condition/pasteurize? omg, i'm confusing myself! i hope i've expressed this ok...just no desire to use erythritol.
Have you ever tried Omega Lutra Kviek? Also, where did you get those sweet Peg Boards?
So I’m gonna try this in my fermentasaurus snubnose... ferment it under pressure.. gonna see how it goes!
Hey Mr Doin the Most, could you tell me if you're using Imperial Gallons or US liquid gallons? Any chance you could include litres as well? About to attempt making this mead, it sounds incredible.
US gallons - all my gear here is in Imperial units. America problems!
I just finished racking using this recipe and added my erythritol. I mixed it pretty well but it's all just sitting at the bottom of my carboy. Will this dissolve over time or do I need to be more aggressive with my mixing? I'm trying to add as little oxygen as possible of course.
eventually it will dissolve, but it may take time, and then it needs to spread evenly throughout the brew., try mixing it up with water to a syrup next time.
Anybody have a rule of thumb for how much Fermaid O to add per gallon for low abv session meads?? Love the videos!!
I generally use 2g:5gal when the gravity is 1.05 and 2g:1gal when gravity is 1.10. There’s no exact science to it, depends a lot on your yeast, ferment temps, and gravity, but it’s better to give a little too much than too little in this case.
What did you mean by juicy flavors?
I'll have to update my recipe!
Just some minor tweaks!
What is your volume mate, vital piece of info!
When kegging, how do you introduce the honey into the keg? Do you just dump it in and rack on top?
i think you can mix it in right before kegging in your "bottling" bucket, just make sure its stabilized first, like when racking into secondary with your fining agents
I plan to grab some orange blossom honey from the south to try a low ABV hydromel like this one. I've been brewing with limetree or basswood honey (how do you call it in Oklahoma?) plus some wildflower to 1050 OG. Nice sweet aroma in an elegant dry flavour. Also I brew with honeydew honey, that leads me to a more aromatic mead, drier, with bigger bubbles when bottle conditioned. ...well it's always bottle conditioned :)
Basswood is one I’d like to try! Sounds like you have some great brews going!
Please plase, what about glycerin as a sweetener?
Oh my lord I’m in shock. Normally I’m screaming at RUclips NO when watching mead making videos
Do you rack after sparkloid or just bottle from secondary?
Depends on how I'm feeling, usually. But typically I will wait to sweeten until after it's clear and rack to a bottling bucket to sweeten. But for this video I wanted to show it as tight as it can be with less fuss.
Would a pinch of hibiscus for colour be a terrible idea? Care to take a stab at how much / whether or not acid profile needs to be adjsuted?
Hello! Just one question from a newbie: How much yeast is needed? A packet of D47 runs up to 5 gallons of must, but it seems to be much more than a packet in that jar (at 2:30)
In addition, it is not possible to get wine tannins in my region. Are there some alternatives?
Thank you very much!
Did you ever get an answer to your question? I used a single pack of D47 but I'm worried it wasn't quite enough for 5 gallons because it seems to have stopped fermenting slightly early. Target FG was 0.998 or something similar, but mine finished at 1.013
Newbie question here: When you bottle condition this do you not remove the yeast? Or do the tablets in the bottle still work after 1 or 2 reracks and clearing and ussing erythritol ?
The yeast are what create the carbonation, they aren’t all lost between racking/clearing/backsweetening. That’s why you don’t backsweeten with a fermentable sugar when bottling , because the yeast will consume those sugars and create bottle bombs if not stabilized, but if you do stabilize they won’t carbonate your bottles.
What was the target CO2 for bottle conditioning this version? I believe the last time you went with 2.6 vol (American Wheat Beer) using the online calculator. I'm adding dextrose, not the carbonation drops, so a CO2 range would be helpful. Thanks BC!
Yeah, def go with 2.6 volumes as a bottle conditioning guideline. Sorry, I've been working on making these videos as beginner-friendly and jargon-lite as possible. Maybe I'm pulling back too much.
@@DointheMost No, keep doing it the same way. If people have questions, they just need to ask.
What was the FG before bottling/kegging??
With honey it comes back to between 1.010-1.015. With erythritol it's more like 1.010. However, please sweeten to taste. My sweetening recommendations here are based on a low-side sweetness. I like a drier hydromel.
Maybe just me missing it, but whats your starting gravity?
Sincerly a watcher from sweden
How is your keg not spitting out a foamy mess when it isn't chilled? I get so much foam. Sad times.
I’ve never had a problem with that, fortunately. That room also stays pretty cool - but I can’t wait to finally get a keeper built. That’s hopefully a 2021 project.
When brewing with out your omega yeast mix, do i need to give my d47 yeast the same nutrients you did?
Yes you do - I've found that 8-10g Fermaid-O in a five gallon batch, front-loaded, no matter the yeast, is about the sweet spot. Kveik probably could use a bit more. And if you use a different nutrient, you may want to calculate a different amount.
@@DointheMost and what about the go ferm? is that needed with d47 yeast?
@@TheMBobbo404 I would probably not rehydrate D47 - but I tend to find that rehydrating yeast is a personal preference. Others may disagree with me.
Beer brewer with a few batches of session mead under my belt but here goes: 1 gallon recipe. 1-1.5 lbs wildflower honey (target is 1.040 OG for approx 5% abv), 10 ounces thawed frozen blackberries, 1 cup black tea, zest of 1/4 orange, handful of raisins, 4 slices fresh ginger, french saison yeast, water to fill one gallon fermentor. Sanitize your equipment but no cooking of ingredients. Have all ingredients at room temp. Ferment until done and bottle condition. I need weigh out ingredients and lock in my recipe but its pretty tasty. Its meant to be very dry. I prefer high attenuation saison yeasts. They are usually low flocculation yeasts but i dont care about clarity too much. I might try making a wild yeast starter from some local berries
Love the idea of ginger and a saison yeast. I may have to try that combo in this recipe sometime soon!
Ive done a little ginger in primary and a whole hand in secondary. Trying to figure out the method i like best.
How long do you keep this in secondary?
I'd like to know it too!
Humble request for peach hydromel recipe
Scale of 1-10 with 1 being “barely noticed” and 10 being “oh my gosh, I just drank poison” How funky was the bottle carb version? And did the funk decrease any with age?
When I added the erithritol it appeared to start fermentation again. Is this common, or am I just seeing off gassing. I'm very confused 🤔
It's off gassing if it happened the moment you added it. It gives the carbon dioxide a surface to form bubbles and can cause a rapid amount of foam all at once to form. You're fine, other than a potential mess from the initial foam :)
Hey where did you get those little measuring bowls?
They are these ones here: amzn.to/3pywAsr But you may click around on Amazon, there are some multi-packs with slightly better deals. :)
@@DointheMost thank you! Also nice job on the video. I’d like to try this recipe with Flyingbeeranch’s blackberry Meadowfoam honey.
Also I’m about to start a kiwi strawberry mead and that yeast your using sounds great for it so I am running down to my local homebrew shop to grab a container of it!
@@mkmead2006 I would be VERY interested to hear how that turns out. I've toyed with the idea of meadowfoam in a hydro but haven't pulled the trigger on it yet.
Just transferred my 5 gallon traditional from bucket to carboy. It smells sour almost like vinegar. Should I dump it? Used 15 lbs Clover honey to 2 packs d47 and Nutrient.
If nothing ever grew on it that looked like a vinegar mother, then it almost certainly didn’t turn into vinegar. A lot of folks think that younger dry meds taste or smell sour, but backsweetening generally fixes that. Definitely do some bench trials after a month or two of age to see how sweetening changes the profile.
What airlock are you using?
It a breathable silicone airlock that doesn't require liquid: amzn.to/3sfyqAx
If you stabilize a mead you can't Carbonate it after, can you?
That’s correct. Stabilizing kills off the yeast, and they’re the ones that produce that CO2.
I tried to make session mead with fruits and ende up overshooting the OG (1,064) and at top of that it's going dry as f% (0,994 and still going). Well, time to convert to regular mead ;/
Just a thought. What if you bottle condition with dried pineapple chunks? They are super sweet and packed with flavor. Just add it to the list for a brew lab special or something.
Interesting idea - provided you could calculate for the sugars. I actually love this idea.
Hmm 🤔 The bottle condition challenge. Brew your Cwrispy mead as a base then before bottling add different ingredients to each for a side by side comparison.
Jolly Ranchers , candied pineapple, candied ginger, etc etc etc.
@@DointheMost keg condition with a spunding valve!
👀
I literally just finished making this and went back to review this vid because my must is MUCH darker than yours was. I had thought I added too much wine tannin, but then I saw you walk in front of the camera/lights and saw it was much darker like mine for that brief moment. Just a heads up for people that may notice that too. You must have some bright lighting for filming that throws off the color. J
Hello I’m new here. What are measurements for this if doing one gallon?
one fifth
can it be used tartaric acid instead of malic?
Tartaric is much sharper than malic acid. Malic acid is a "round" acid. Subbing in tartaric would be sort of the same as subbing in more citric.
@@DointheMost well i believe then i have to buy some maic avid, btw can this acid be place after fermentation on the same amount?
@@cesarpineda4279 Acid additions can happen in secondary! :)
Could somebody offer me some good mead idea, wich is the cheapest type of mead, and I can start working on my own balancing technique with it in smaller like 10l batches?
Thanks for the video! Good as always ☺️
A traditional with orange blossom honey is an inexpensive way to get started - even using a 1-gallon plastic water jug if needed. Learning how to balance orange blossom honey provides good insight that applies to many other mead styles as well.
@@DointheMost In hungary Orange blossom honey is very rare, and expensive (maybe just for me :D) 400g is like 10 dollar. But we have a lot of linden honey, or lilac honey, maybe sunflower honey cheaper. I will consider trying them in small batches. Also yeast is a big question. I only found 0.5kg portion from lalvin d47. I wonder if a kveik can do the job, if I stay under 10%abv :).
@@DENIEL1908 kveik is almost always a good choice!
Would wildflower honey work for this?
yes
Allulose works even better than erythritol because it dissolves better and has a flavor profile that's even closer to sugar. The only real downside is that it's even more expensive than erythritol.
I'll have to give it a go, this is the first I've heard of it being used in mead. I do see that it is quite a bit more expensive than erythritol. I've never had problems with erythritol dissolving, though. I also hear some folks are powdering their erythritol in a food processor to make dissolving easier. I'll buy a bag of allulose and see how it compares. Thanks!
@@DointheMost Erythritol also has a nasty habit of recrystallizing when chilled. At the concentrations we're normally talking about I don't think it's a problem, but I already have it on hand because I don't eat sugar myself (it's yeast food) and it has some other interesting sugar-like properties like caramelizing.
@@bullsbarry I usually melt the erythritol in boiling water. If I'm doing it at bottling time, then I just add it to the dextrose slurry. I've also had problems with it not dissolving if added straight in. Could also add it at the same time as sparkolloid, if you're using that.
My wife uses it for baking, so I've always got it on hand. Has similar baking properties to sugar, without the calories, or glycemic load. Good stuff.
@@Vykk_Draygo Yeah I use erythritol as well, it works well enough and is probably not really a hugely noticeable difference between the two, I just think allulose has a more neutral taste and none of the cooling effect either.
What could happen if I accidentally use to much potassium sorbate to stabilize?
i think you can just let it gas out eventually, the levels deplete over time if im not mistaken
i came for the recipe but i subscribe for the intro song 🤣
The calculator is gone for the nutrient schedule 😕
I only have access to DAP but make it less than 10%
DAP works just fine in this! For a five gallon batch I probably wouldn’t use more than 3g.
You misspelled cwispy
Haha, I included the shirt at least!
"Getting to know each other"...?????
Who do you think you are?! Babish 😂
I'd need to really up my bald-guy-with-beard game haha
@@DointheMost nah you're doing great.
Just realized that's two bald guys with beards that I follow on youtube.
@@USMC8746 semper fi
@@monkeywiener rah! 06-11
9:35 you homebrewers always say this wrong lol. In SUSPENSION is when solids are suspended in a liquid. In SOLUTION is when gasses, solids or liquids dissolve into a liquid. CO2 is dissolved so it cannot be "in suspension".
Why not simply use honey as the backsweetening and carbonating agent rather than doing the Dextrose drop and Erythritol in bottle conditioning as well? Are you afraid of bottle bombs?
*Cwispy
🤣
Too late lol, used stevia for a 1 gallon batch and it is awful
Whoops! Yeah stevia in particular seems to FIGHT against the honey. Very weird and not good.
You need testosterone dude.
Sorry but why not trim that rug of a beard?