The quality of the honey is one of the first considerations when making mead. In general, a lighter honey yields a lighter coloured and more refined mead, and a dark honey a more robust, richer coloured mead. Choosing which honey to use is a matter of personal taste. There will be variations in the amount of sugar, minerals and vitamins between honeys. The specific composition of any batch of honey will depend largely on the mix of flowers consumed by the bees that produced the honey.

The basic ingredients for any mead are honey, yeast and water though there can be many variations when other ingredients are added like spices, herbs and fruit. If you would like to learn more on the whole mead making process the following book is a mine of information and is highly recommended.

The Complete Meadmaker, by Ken Schramm

As one of the most ancient of human beverages, mead arose in part because it was easy to make. Today' hobbyists rediscover the simplicity of making mead while revelling in the range of flavours that can result. In this book, veteran beverage hobbyist Ken Schramm introduces the novice to the wonders of mead. With easy-to-follow procedures and simple recipes, he shows how you can quickly and painlessly make your own mead at home. In later chapters, he introduces flavourful variations on the basic theme that lead to meads flavoured with spice, fruits, grapes and even malt.

..$33.00

Equipment:

Basic brewing or winemaking equipment is needed. Depending on the quantity of mead you wish to make you can choose equipment accordingly. We stock a wide range of demijohns in sizes from 5 litres up to 54 litres. Glass demijohns make ideal fermentation vessels and maturing vessels.
This will include the following:

• glass demijohn or food grade polyethelene fermenter fitted with bung and airlock
• A second container the same as above or similar for racking the mead into stainless steel pot (for heating the honey/water mixture)
• syphon/ racking outfitcorking tool and wine corks or crown seals
• wine hydrometer and thermometer
• sodium metabisulphite sterilising powder for cleaning and sanitation of equipment.

Ingredients: We stock the following ingredients

• Honey of your choice: We can supply a suitable honey.
• Yeast: We recommend SIHA German Riesling or all purpose wine yeast or for Sparkling wine Champagne yeast. Or Lalvin wine yeasts.
• Lalvin Fermaid K yeast nutrient
• Acids: small amounts of acids such as malic, tartaric and citric acid.
• K40 Stabilising liquid if you intend on having residual sweetness in the mead (to prevent refermentation of remaining sugars
• fining or clarification agent
  
  

Making Wild Wines and Meads

by Pattie Vargas & Rich Gulling

An excellent book if you wish to expand on your mead making recipes

Includes 125 unusual Recipes using herbs, Fruits and flowers to make elegant, exotic wines, honey meads, spicy metheglins and fruity melomels. Including Apricot wine, Dry Mead, Almond Wine, Cherry Melomel, Cranberry Claret, Strawberry Wine, Rose Hip Melomel and many more.

Price: AUD $29.95

'Honey in Beer' pdf brochure available here

Bett-A-Brew ® Festival Ale is a selective blend of Australian Honey, Barley Malt and Pride of Ringwood Hops which ferments to produce a smooth well rounded Mead Ale best described by many of our customers as 'Summer in a Glass'

At double the weight of most beer packs, this pack holds 3.4kg of all natural ingredients to produce 30 x 750ml bottles of Sparkling Mead Ale of the highest quality.

3.4kg pack requires no other additives and is supplied with Danish yeast........AUD ..$23.00

Traditionally 'Ale' is the term used for open (top) fermentation method, however we supply a Danish yeast for closed fermentation (lager style) as this enhances the Mead and is the preferred method of brewing this product.