Dandelion Mead Recipe (Dandelion Wine Made With Honey) (2024)

FAQs

How much honey for 1 gallon of mead? ›

We'll go over it in further detail later, but we recommend using between two and three pounds of honey per gallon of mead — 2 pounds if you want it on the dryer side, and 3 pounds if you'd like it to be sweeter.

The ratio of water to honey depends on the type of mead you want to make. For a dry mead, the ratio is 4 parts water to 1 part honey; a sweet mead is 2 to 1. Kluz likes his mead sweet, so he typically uses 1 3/4 gallons of honey and tops it off with 3 1/4 gallons of water.

Orange Blossom Honey

It's also a great base product which can be experimented with endlessly by adding some distinct subtle flavors to it. Orange Blossom honey is a good reliable choice for mead production, so you really can't go wrong if this is the type of mead you produce your mead with.

Honey wine is a subset of mead, referring to meads that are typically refined and may have characteristics similar to grape wine. The terms are often used interchangeably, and the distinction can vary depending on the region and the specific characteristics of the beverage.

If you put in a bunch of honey and you get enough yeast (the right kind of yeast where it ferments all the way out) then you'll have a really dry, high alcohol champagne-like mead. You can use less honey to make a lower alcohol mead. Using less honey might make it a little bit more dry, though not necessarily.

(Some recipes call for boiling the honey, which makes for a cleaner, quicker ferment. However, many of the aromatic oils that are characteristic of the different flower honeys are boiled off as well in this process. Either method will make you mead.)

Why did it fall out of favor? There were some new tax laws, as well as an increased availability of West Indian sugar in the 17th century that made honey harder and less necessary to obtain. But it was also the rise of other alcohols—namely beer and wine—that really did it in.

Lalvin D-47

This white wine yeast is the primary choice for many mead makers. It ferments at a moderate to fast pace with little foaming and is good for medium to dry meads. It tends to accentuate the honey characteristics so it is a good choice for traditional varietal mead.

The long version of the answer is yes with a few considerations. Mead made with just honey, water, and yeast is called tradional mead. There is a section of the forum dedicated to traditional meads. If you use the search part of this forum you should find several posts with might help you out.

Just don't use the bulk cheapest "clover" honey that you see at every local supermarket. Spend an extra few dullars and get good honey: you will appreciate it years from now, and you will be giving mead a good name in a world where it is just not appreciated any more...

Is clover or wildflower honey better for mead? ›

Re: Choice of honey for mead

I'll second the choice of a local wildflower if you can get it in bulk at a decent price. Otherwise, a lighter honey like orange blossom, clover, berry blossom, etc. is a good base.

Because honey, which is easier for the body to process than alcohol, is used to make mead, it is thought to be healthier than beer and wine. Additionally, mead contains the nutritional advantages of honey. Honey has inherent bacterial and antimicrobial properties.

Mead (honey wine) is an alcoholic drink made from honey, water and yeast. Mead-making pre-dates beer and wine making, having origins dating back 8,000 years. Mead (honey wine) was considered a sacred drink in many early cultures in every corner of the world.

If you had to compare the taste of mead to a wine, it's most comparable to a Moscato. There are several different types of mead, each one with its own unique twist on the basic honey, water, yeast recipe.

The short answer is that for every gallon of mead that one wishes to be made, you would need anywhere from a pound and a half to five pounds of honey, then enough water to make a combined gallon. This is the 'yes' part to question above.

Honey is typically sold by weight rather than volume and is heavier than water (the standard for “fluid ounces”). That is why one cup of water is considered eight fluid ounces, but one cup of honey will actually weigh 12 ounces. A gallon of honey weighs approximately 12 pounds.

The fermenting process depends on various factors, like temperature, the amount of honey, the type of yeast, and the presence of additives and nutrients. Depending on how active the yeast is, it will take around 2 to 6 weeks.