Useful Mead Making Tips

Honey for Meads:

Most any fresh honey will work well.  The preservatives in some honey has been known to inhibit your mead/wine yeast!  Pollen in honey gives character to it.   Most processed honey is filtered thus removing it's character. We prefer raw, unheated, unfiltered, unadulterated, straight from the hive honey. 
Necessary ingredients:
Good quality honey (no preservatives)
Good drinking water (no distilled water, no chlorine!)
Acid (as the recipe requires)
Yeast Nutrients (very important, yeast need nutrients for a vigorous healthy fermentation)
Tannin (as the recipe requires)
Yeast (wine or mead yeast works best)

Keep all equipment clean and sanitized!

Sterilizing your Honey: can be done one of 2 ways:
Add campden tablets(a sulphite) to the honey must. (should be done a day before you add yeast)
or Boiling the honey must. (BUT, you will lose a lot of wonderful aroma!) We prefer the campden tablet method.
Ferment like regular wine.
Glass is best to ferment in. A food grade plastic bucket is ok for the first month, then transfer to a glass jug. Keep a constant temp of about 70' to 75' F. Transfer to a clean glass jug once a month for the first 3 months. After that, transfer when the mead off any layer of yeast or sediment build up..
Bottling:
When the fermentation has completed, mead has cleared, and no bubbles are visible, it is time to bottle. You may have to wait a full year before bottling. If you bottle too soon, you might have alot of sediment which will detract from the mead.
Sparkling meads:
Ferment like a traditional mead. When it comes time to bottle, add 3/4 cup corn sugar dissolved in a cup of water to 5 gallons of mead and also stir in a package of fresh yeast. Put in Beer bottles and cap. It will take about 1 month for the mead to carbonate.

Meads and Mead Variations

Traditional Mead:
Only honey and water used. No fruit or spices.
Sack Mead:
Similar to the traditional mead, although 20 to 25 % more honeys added. It should have a honey aroma when the bottle is opened, be careful not to have to much honey.(to much honey could make the mead too sweet)
Metheglyn:
A mead made with Gruit. (a combination of herbs). Very popular in the Middle Ages.
Sack Metheglin:
A Metheglyn made with a bit more honey.
Clarre or Pyment:
Honey and grape juice fermented. Also popular in the Middle Ages.
Cyser:
Apple juice or cider fermented with honey.
Melomel or Mulsum:
Ferment honey and a fruit juices (other than apple or grape). Popular Roman drink.
Morat:
Made with honey and mulberries.