The Ultimate Cheap Mead: Wash the hell out of some empty plastic 1 liter bottles, the caps and small balloons with hot water & soap, and fully rinse. Poke a needle hole in each deflated balloon (don't pop it). Pour 1lb of honey into each 1 liter, and add room temp water to 1/2 full. Seal with cap & shake vigorously for 1 min to fully mix. Fill remainder of bottle with water to within 1-2" of the top, and add about 1/4th of a packet of Lalvin 1116 yeast (about $1 at a brew store or Amazon). Put the balloon on the end of the bottle, and wait. The balloon should inflate within 2-3 days. Wait until the balloon has been deflated for several days, this could take up to a month. The liquid will be "mead", and the stuff at the bottom of the bottles should be discarded, it's "dead yeast", although it can reactivate. Pour the liquid slowly into another cleaned and rinsed bottle, trying to avoid pouring the dead yeast in, and cap the bottle. Refrigerate to avoid having the yeast reactivate, and burst the bottle. The level of alcohol will depend on how much honey you put in per liter. And I say "mead", cuz this will probably be pretty harsh mead, and will mellow with age, probably being drinkable after a few months. Depending on what you have lying around, you should be able to make your first liter of mead for under $5. Buy 5lb of honey at Costco, balloons at the Dollar Store, and yeast from a brew shop, and empty liter bottles, you can make over a gallon for under $15. I suggest starting super cheap to see if you actually like mead, without spending tons of money on all the hardware needed to make large batches of mead (or beer), that can cost $100-200 or more.
Anyone watching this, they have come out with a step by step mead making kit since this video. It's called craftabrew mead making kit. Very clear instructions and includes everything you need other than honey and spring water. It's on Amazon. I tested it and it's great. Makes a good traditional mead. If you follow the instructions exactly it will come out in the ballpark of 12-13% ABV
1-Mead is delicious. 2-I plan to own a Farm with Chickens, Ducks, a few cats and some HONEYBEES 3-I’m Fkn tired of these bars never having Mead….and when they do have Mead it leans closer to Cider.
I’m a beer maker and I tried my first mead a one gallon bash . It turned out good ( well I like it) kinda on the sweet side. Next bash I make , 5 gallons and I’m going to make five different types. I’m going to put the fruit in the secondary two one gallon bashes and one still and the other sparkling. Now the other three gallons I’m going to store. Now if the fermentation ends and I decide to add fruit how do I restart fermentation? Beer is easy to me but this mead has me going
You probably could, but generally people don't. The biggest thing is to make sure that they are properly sanitized. I'm not sure about long term storage for them, however. What I've found is that plastic is a porous material, so overtime it can ruin the taste. It's possible, but if you're trying to make something for both taste and something to age for more than a year, I would say plastic isn't the best choice.
@@bendesoto6264 What I personally do is recycle my beer bottles and wine bottles. I've got both a bottle capper for beer and a cork capper for wine bottles. If you care much, it does become both environmentally friendly and cost effective to re-use as much as you can. The biggest issue is always sanitizing your equipment. Takes a bit of money to start brewing, but once you have the equipment and if you invest well enough, you can make some pretty good stuff.
You can either pasteurize the mead by heating it up to 150F for 5 minutes or use potassium sorbate and potassium metabisulfite in conjunction to halt any possible refermentation. You will want to do one of those before backsweetening!
I fucked up by adding to many nutrients in my mead after two days and it was like mentos in coke yet when racking being afraid it mjght have turned to vineger even though j planned on making some with a but of the mead i tatsed it and it was tasty and like strong champaign so it does seem to be so easy
Somebody who is salty against meads I guess lol Anyone else get a really strong acrid smell but pleasant taste out of their young meads when doing a taste test?
I mostly make traditional Polish meads with small addition of organic juices and they always have a dull or unpleasant smell but taste amazing. I'm yet to age a batch properly since there's no reason to wait :)
@@jwbrushpl I've noticed odd smells, normally yeasty smells, in my young meads. Most of the time when mine have spelled bad they've also tasted pretty bad...
I really wished I could find someone who has done this and had good results so I can get a real sense of what not only I should be seeing but smelling and tasting as well.
I've come to believe that most down votes are to keep similar videos from being suggested on people's channel. If you watch a video and especially like it you get dozens of similar video suggestions. I've noticed that the suggestions on my channel tend to follow what trend of video I watch. Sometimes I watch videos on guitar lessons then I get numerous guitar lesson video suggestions and more from the channels I watched. I think if the video is down voted you won't get suggestions of that topic or from that channel.
![FNAF vs TF2 - Episode 2 [SFM]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/z5b3V2-VLb0/mqdefault.jpg)
My reason to make mead...I keep bees and can’t eat or even give away 100’s of lbs of honey. Mead gets rid of 10 lbs at a go and I like to drink 🍷
Just started making my first traditional mead. Watching your videos have been an inspiration.
Well thanks for watching them!
The Ultimate Cheap Mead: Wash the hell out of some empty plastic 1 liter bottles, the caps and small balloons with hot water & soap, and fully rinse. Poke a needle hole in each deflated balloon (don't pop it). Pour 1lb of honey into each 1 liter, and add room temp water to 1/2 full. Seal with cap & shake vigorously for 1 min to fully mix. Fill remainder of bottle with water to within 1-2" of the top, and add about 1/4th of a packet of Lalvin 1116 yeast (about $1 at a brew store or Amazon). Put the balloon on the end of the bottle, and wait. The balloon should inflate within 2-3 days. Wait until the balloon has been deflated for several days, this could take up to a month.
The liquid will be "mead", and the stuff at the bottom of the bottles should be discarded, it's "dead yeast", although it can reactivate. Pour the liquid slowly into another cleaned and rinsed bottle, trying to avoid pouring the dead yeast in, and cap the bottle. Refrigerate to avoid having the yeast reactivate, and burst the bottle. The level of alcohol will depend on how much honey you put in per liter.
And I say "mead", cuz this will probably be pretty harsh mead, and will mellow with age, probably being drinkable after a few months. Depending on what you have lying around, you should be able to make your first liter of mead for under $5. Buy 5lb of honey at Costco, balloons at the Dollar Store, and yeast from a brew shop, and empty liter bottles, you can make over a gallon for under $15.
I suggest starting super cheap to see if you actually like mead, without spending tons of money on all the hardware needed to make large batches of mead (or beer), that can cost $100-200 or more.
Anyone watching this, they have come out with a step by step mead making kit since this video. It's called craftabrew mead making kit. Very clear instructions and includes everything you need other than honey and spring water. It's on Amazon. I tested it and it's great. Makes a good traditional mead. If you follow the instructions exactly it will come out in the ballpark of 12-13% ABV
4. BECAUSE IT TASTE AWESOME! I agree with you on the 3 months. I just give mine away to friends and family.
I’m making it to! This time with Ginger!
Love your labels!
1-Mead is delicious.
2-I plan to own a Farm with Chickens, Ducks, a few cats and some HONEYBEES
3-I’m Fkn tired of these bars never having Mead….and when they do have Mead it leans closer to Cider.
I’m a beer maker and I tried my first mead a one gallon bash . It turned out good ( well I like it) kinda on the sweet side. Next bash I make , 5 gallons and I’m going to make five different types. I’m going to put the fruit in the secondary two one gallon bashes and one still and the other sparkling. Now the other three gallons I’m going to store. Now if the fermentation ends and I decide to add fruit how do I restart fermentation? Beer is easy to me but this mead has me going
Generally if you add any sugar or gravity to a mead (assuming it hasn’t finished fermenting) it will start fermenting again! That’s the same for beer.
Correction, acerlgyn is a mead with maple syrup, not maple syrup instead of honey.....
Have you ever used plastic bottles to bottle your meads? Like 20oz mountain dew bottles?
You probably could, but generally people don't. The biggest thing is to make sure that they are properly sanitized. I'm not sure about long term storage for them, however. What I've found is that plastic is a porous material, so overtime it can ruin the taste. It's possible, but if you're trying to make something for both taste and something to age for more than a year, I would say plastic isn't the best choice.
Ok that makes sense lol
@@bendesoto6264 What I personally do is recycle my beer bottles and wine bottles. I've got both a bottle capper for beer and a cork capper for wine bottles. If you care much, it does become both environmentally friendly and cost effective to re-use as much as you can. The biggest issue is always sanitizing your equipment. Takes a bit of money to start brewing, but once you have the equipment and if you invest well enough, you can make some pretty good stuff.
@@ln108 What's your take on the bottles with the locking cap on it, like the ones grolsch beer uses?
I agree with LN! Plastic is generally more risky -- Drink beer and save the bottles!
I’m trying to have a sweeter mead. I’ve been told to pasteurize the mead before trying to back sweetening it. Please give me your thoughts
You can either pasteurize the mead by heating it up to 150F for 5 minutes or use potassium sorbate and potassium metabisulfite in conjunction to halt any possible refermentation. You will want to do one of those before backsweetening!
Four bucks a can in the store. That's what got me started.
I fucked up by adding to many nutrients in my mead after two days and it was like mentos in coke yet when racking being afraid it mjght have turned to vineger even though j planned on making some with a but of the mead i tatsed it and it was tasty and like strong champaign so it does seem to be so easy
That’s happened to me before!
Can anyone recommend a site for custom wine bottle label design
I don't have a great site to recommend honestly!
Somebody who is salty against meads I guess lol
Anyone else get a really strong acrid smell but pleasant taste out of their young meads when doing a taste test?
I mostly make traditional Polish meads with small addition of organic juices and they always have a dull or unpleasant smell but taste amazing. I'm yet to age a batch properly since there's no reason to wait :)
@@jwbrushpl I've noticed odd smells, normally yeasty smells, in my young meads. Most of the time when mine have spelled bad they've also tasted pretty bad...
I really wished I could find someone who has done this and had good results so I can get a real sense of what not only I should be seeing but smelling and tasting as well.
@@ManMadeMead I suppose this might be because I haven't botched a mead (yet!) the smell is just underwhelming compared to the honey flavor.
Give it time, about a year. Time is your friend.
Seriously, who would down vote the video right after it uploads?
I would. Jk..I make mead, and it's cool seeing a video/videos about mead making rather than reading aboot it
Someone who's never made a mead clearly!
I've come to believe that most down votes are to keep similar videos from being suggested on people's channel. If you watch a video and especially like it you get dozens of similar video suggestions. I've noticed that the suggestions on my channel tend to follow what trend of video I watch. Sometimes I watch videos on guitar lessons then I get numerous guitar lesson video suggestions and more from the channels I watched. I think if the video is down voted you won't get suggestions of that topic or from that channel.