Let’s make mead for something it was meant for – a wedding and all the things that come with it. I know this guy. He’s getting married in September and he wants me to make a mead for parting gifts/favors for all that attend his wedding. The role mead played in the marital ritual in days of old intrigues him and he wants to bring it back. Let’s bring it back.

He wanted to pay me for my services but I said to myself long ago I would not charge for my passion until I was licensed to do so. (Heh heh) I asked him to reimburse me for all the costs but I would make the mead for the experience of it and nothing more.

He’s buying the bottles and the labels but he’s leaving the rest of it to me. This past weekend I got a two gallon bucket of raw honey for the mead making. I have bought from the Merrimack Valley Apiary before and I was happy with the product. Their prices are better than what I can get online and picking it up myself saves on shipping costs as well.

2 gallon bucket of raw honey

This white bucket has around 24 pounds of honey in it, which combined with some of the honey I have from previous purchases should be enough for the 10 gallons of mead I am planning to make. Opening up the top of this pail reveals the raw honey goodness.

Raw honey is thick

When I used this type of honey before, I scooped it out and weighed it before adding it to my fermentor. It’s not as easy as filtered honey that is surprisingly free flowing in comparison to this stuff. The raw honey is fairly solid (it has the consistency of soft ice cream) and can be moved from the bucket to the fermentation vessel using a big spoon.

I don’t have a large enough vessel to ferment all ten gallons of mead together so I will be splitting it in half and fermenting in two separate fermentors. Here’s the yeast I am using.

Lalvin EC 1118 Champagne Yeast

I am going to use a simple champagne yeast that I have had success with in the past. The plan is to make a dry mead aged on oak. The guy liked that style of mead and it’s simple enough to make. I will need to buy a couple of oak spirals for the conditioning phase which should take us right up to the end of August. I am excited for this project.