I have been watching your videos and "brewing with you" for over a year and I think this is one of your best videos so far. You call this a "beginners mead" but I learned much more than I expected to learn. I really like how comprehensive this video is. Thanks.

Second! Grocery store mead can be good. My last one was clover honey. It was boring Mead. So after six months of aging and still not happy with the flavor profile, I added a vanilla bean for about a month. Brewers, that was awesome.

Ive been watching your videos for a long time. Just got my wife to start watching you about 2 months ago and 3 weeks ago she told me she wanted to make some mead! Now my wife and I share a hobby! Thanks for showing how approachable the hobby can be!

Alot of brews I make now are mostly bought at the grocery store. I had never made wine, Mead or rice wine before watching this channel and I have to say, Brian and Derica are extremely knowledgeable and I REALLY trust what they have to say. I'm now making pretty advanced stuff and I've found a lot of the basics really tend to be the best (like my first Mead). I suppose I just wanted to thank you both for your awesomeness and guidance.

That bread yeast actually flocculated really well for you, the sediment looked nicely compacted after tilting the fermenter. The mead looks great too!

All my mead is made from cheap honey from lidl for 1.35 per lb, bread yeast for 10p per packet and 2 litre bottles of spring water for 35p, makes great mead with tea leaves and fruits.

Great job guys. I love the concept of a supermarket mead with bread yeast. I’m glad you guys made this video I’m sure it will bring more people on to the hobby

I love this video! I always learn something new from you guys--thank you!

Thank you, thank you and thank you again 😁. I've been sharing my "fermentations" with my neighbors and when we had a new family move in down the street an easy friendship was started because of your channel. They've been watching you already and when I brought over a couple bottles of wine and cider, they brought out their own "brews". After a few drinks and discussing our next concoctions, we came to a conclusion, since we are both making recipes, we're gonna need to find more friends to share with so we don't run out of bottles after the wine is done fermenting 😂👍❤️

Thanks to you guys, I have my first mead fermenting right now, which I started just over a week ago. I'm looking forward to how it turns out.

I just taste tested a year old bottle of a beginner mead I made last year, just as simple as you can get, yeast, honey, water... I am so glad I had a bottle that I left for a year. It was amazing the difference in fresh vs aged.

Great recipe and content as always! Just an FYI on the NaCl addition, it mainly will neutralize or remove bitterness from the solution in my experience. I am sure all of your viewers including myself would really enjoy both of you experimenting with some addition of salt in a basic type of mead similar to this recipe. As always, love the great information, knowledge & antics you both exude and appreciate all of the videos too! I also live in Land O Lakes, FL and grew-up here neighbor. Cheers!

You two have been the driving force behind me starting to brew mead. Carboy with airlock, Hydrometer, yeast and yeast nutrient is on its way, then to pick up honey etc. Just want to say thank you for the push to do something fun.

This video could not have come at a better time, started my first batch on Friday and followed your other beginners mead recipe, made a control (basic yeast water honey) one and an lemon&black tea one. This one is for sure what I'm trying next and it's really nice to have a whole video start to finish with some good notes on what to do at each step.

Very nice! Love the intense step-by-step nature here, it's a nice reminder of all the things we need to be doing as brewers

Love your channel, Been watching your video's for a couple of months and pretty much 3 or 4 a day still haven't made my first batch but almost got everything together to making my first batch, Keep making video's and I'll keep watching, THANK FOR ALL THE GREAT INFO

Recently found your channel and I'm hooked. I have never fermented anything before and now I have 8 separate brews going. I am having a blast doing this. Thank you for sharing your knowledge with us. Looking forward to your next video.

Great refresher vid! Loved it!! 4 carboys on the go atm. Need to ask for a few more for my birthday. Favourite pens are important as a lefty!

Just did my second take of this mead after back sweetening it. It is so good!! Thanks!

I've been watching your channel for a couple months, just started my first brew yesterday! It is a blackberry mead, but I added some chopped raisins and tea to try to make it an extra bit better. Thank you so much for helping me discover and learn about this hobby. I plan on making your viking's blood next, because the name is too cool to not try.

I just wanted to thank you guys for all the videos and all the recipes. I currently have 4 different brews going on right now, one of them being the spiced metheglin for the 2nd time because I loved it so much. I even experimented with it using a different honey i have never heard or seen before it was called a spring locust honey and may be one of the best kinds I’ve tried so far. So just thank you guys again for showing me to this great hobby!

i love how you guys were getting “happier “ towards the end. great video!

Fully inspired to take up this craft, thanks so much for your friendly approach.

Great video! I started 2 bottles of metheglin back in July, one with 1.5lb of honey and one with 3.5lb. The first went dry, was racked, primed (for carbonation), and bottled. The other is going very slow. It was at 1.045 (started at 1.100) after 30 days, checked it again after a week and it was at 1.040. I kind of forgot about it and need to check it today, im hoping it is further along or done. The wife and I popped a bottle of the first one and it is VERY good. I had a couple of glasses and the wife polished the rest of the bottle off before I even noticed. lol Thanks for the great videos and wonderful recipes. I think the next one I do will be ginger, lemon, and lime for a ginger ale mead.

I just popped open a bottle of white grape juice pyment I’ve had bulk aging for about a year and recently bottled last week. Chardonnay-esque and I love it.

Love it! 👍

This is my first time watching your channel and I learned a lot about how to make mead. When I get the space and the money I'll give it a shot.

Literally JUST made my first batch of Mead ever. I used the make a brew kit and I must say thank you for the help while i was going through the steps. Your little tips and knowledge really helped me out:)

When I use mandarin peels (for syrups and such, haven't tried it in meads but it's a great idea!) I find that zesting is much easier and convenient in preventing the whole thing coming off and also avoiding any pith going in.

Watched you guys for over a year and have made dozens of meads now, you guys are great! Plus I used to be a St Pete guy myself... What I found to be the best part in this summative and informative video is the pace and tempo of a “corporate” or “business” veteran team teaching a bunch of new hires... New hires who are smart and motivated and not completely out of touch. You hit the main points and are approachable without demanding strict adherence. And you two are not Corporate! Best part! Thanks again guys and keep up good work!

My very first Mead was Kirkland honey and Walmart distilled water and champagne yeast from the local brewer. Split the honey visually into 2x 1gallon jugs and put a balloon on top of each, poke a few needle holes in the balloon and let it rip. Turned out decent for a first time try, could not tell you the ABV or anything, but 2 small glasses was enough to give me a good buzz.

Love your Brewing!! Learn a lott form it😁

I love you guys. I am so inspired!

Excellent content. You have made mead accessible to the huddled masses. Nicely done. Thank you.

You know, the time and effort involved in making these videos of yours, are absolutely commendable. Thank you so much for sharing. Great stuff!

It didn't happen in this video but I smile when he goes "I'll see you in a couple weeks... so here we are a year later"

This is exactly the time to try salt. In one glass try a little pinch of salt and see if it gets rid of that bitter edge of the Mandarin orange.

I added 2 oz of raisins to my city Steading brew and it’s been fermenting since September 5th. I used D47 instead of bread yeast because it’s what I had on hand. The aroma coming off the airlock smells delicious. I can definitely tel the raisins are contributing to the tannin smell.

I started this one on the 14th Jan, and I've just bottled it. I used EC-1118 instead, and also added the rind of 2 lemons because I already know I'm uneducated (lol). The smell is amazing, and with minimal sweetening, it tastes wonderful! Thanks so much for helping me make my first batch a success!!

made my first ever batch of Hard Cider: 2 1 gallon jugs of Tree Top Apple juice. Used Great Value Active Dry Yeast; Half packet per gallon jug. Fermented for 5 days with a few balloons as airlocks. racked today and used my roomies refractometer to test the abv: 6.5%abv, semi dry, back sweetened with brown sugar... currently chilling the racked jugs in the fridge and am gonna finally have some for regular use tomorrow. poured a glass for me and my mrs.... we LOVE IT!! it is DANGEROUS!!! thank you, Derica and Brian for inspiring us to do this :D

I do commercial plumbing and work in grocery stores all the time. Might just purchase supplies up front and mix up a batch of mead now and then in the back and find a nice spot behind product to leave it for some lucky employee to find. I'll label it and leave a number to a burner phone and ask them to leave a message as to how it turned out.

This is so true. Make the mead you want. And shit for $5.95 a bottle. Cant beat that. And at the year it’s gonna be great. Love it. Keep up the great work.

Imma save this one for my first batch of mead. For now I'm just on beer brewing

12:07 Noooo, not raisins! {hisses} 17:37 ❤ persnickety ❤ I love that word! Ok, actual question. I had a mead fermenting. My second one ever. It was in the carboy for about two months, and wasn’t paid attention to for that time. When I remembered to take a look at it and see what was happening, it looked different from the first batch I made. There was lees on the bottom, clear in the top, and a kind of lighter and hazy looking center. I wasn’t sure if it was just me being rougher with moving the carboy around so I set it on a counter and let it sit. It didn’t change, didn’t try to crawl out of the jug and eat me as I slept. No other questionable floaty bits. Just the weird separate color thing. So I racked it and packed it. It didn’t smell off, and the teeny taste of it I took didn’t result in anything dire. Have you ever had a ferment do that to you, do the whole separation of color layers in the jug? I really wish I had taken a picture. 😂

Gonna start my first mead tonight! Got wildflower honey from a coworker. You guys are my favorite channel! Cheers from California

Love the Firefly shirt Derica. My first mead is just about 1 year old and i cant wait to try it. In another couple of weeks im going to crack it. Wish me luck. I liked it after a couple of months so i should love it.

My favorite pens are the click ballpoint pens. Thanks for great information 💚

Hello from SWFL. I have tried making my first mead because of you guys! It went OK, very dry. But I plan to keep making more and more after watching your videos. Thank you!

I used raisens and bread yeast when I made my first batch of meade in the early 2000st, had some exploding bottles in an extraordinary Hot summer but that had nothing to do with the ingrediënts. The bread yeast in the Netherlands goes up to around 10% alcohol but gives a slight bitter taste. Also most honey sold in the Netherlands are, sadly enough, all or partly fake honey which can ruïne your brew because not al sugars are the same. I've put a video up on my KZfaq account about a batch of mead for one of my scouting friends who loves mead about how to make a simple brew with ingedients found in the Netherlands offcourse linking your channel. I also made a "prison cider" a few years ago showing the progress on insta. Really like this video because it gets people in the hobby.

Just moved to a place with an apple tree in the backyard, with the help of your videos we pressed the apples and started a cider. So far so good in primary. Thank you for the tips and excitement! My favorite berry is Aronia melanocarpa, if you're up for a challenge it could be fun. I was thinking about trying it but it is big time astringent.

I gotta comment on the use of salt. In beer and coffee brewing it is very normal for people to start with RO water then add back a specific amount of minerals to achieve a certain mouthfeel/crispness. Usually it’s the ratio of sulfates to chlorides that control this effect. Chlorides add crispness and sulfates are good for softness. I’m kind of over simplifying. Instead of adding sodium chloride I’d recommend adding calcium chloride

Love your show. I had to subscribe. Keep up the good work

Seeing Derica remind you to take a reading reminds me of a scene from the t.v. show Kung Fu where the pebble was snatched from the masters hand. The student has become the master.😅

I ve been able to Make the Best Quick(7day) Meade I ve ever had. Just a wee bit Bubbly and Bursting with flavor. I WILL try adding other ingredients after seeing yall😊

Love your Style

God i love this channel. Lingon/blueberry mead from pressed apples bubbling atm

I love watching your videos and learning how to brew. Since I have been watching you guys, I have grown curious in trying my hand at this hobby. I have made my first brew with Cranberry-Rasberry Juice in order to keep it simple. It's is still brewing and next weekend I will be checking the ABV to see where it's at. But I must say, someone should of warned me about the fruit flies!!! LOL

It really blows my mind that you two, the advocates of brewing and sweetening to personal taste, have not been doing that for yourselves, just to make the viewers happy. Stop trying to please us, and make your brews all for you. ❤

My partner and I have been making mead on and off for a year and a half or so thanks to channels like yours. Our deep dark secret is we only ever use grocery store honey, I can't not they keep giving me 40% off coupons. That's like 12 bucks for 3 pounds and that makes a 15 dollar or so gallon of your metheglin recipe.

Love the Firefly shirt, Derica!

Maybe you could show a picture of the brew from the top when your checking it so we could get an idea of what looks normal in the different stages? Love the videos looking forward to trying this out!!

Recommendation #6: Thou shalt TWACK thy packet! I actually was planning this very project this week but cider was calling my name so it ended up as a Peach Passionfruit cider instead.

My favorite commercial meads range from 1.04 (cysers) to 1.088 (Polish Dwojniaks) so when I make my own meads, as long as it is above 1.02, I find that I like it. I make much drier meads because other members of my family prefer those. It is all personal preference and as you said, has nothing to do with brewing experience.

I've never made mead, but I have been watching your videos while working. You guys pack a lot of information into your videos. I wish you were beer people - I fell like your videos on brewing beer would be awesome as well!

awesome vid as usual!

Love the recipes!! But your shirts always also make me smile 😁

Just a note on sanitiser. Here in the UK we have a product called sterident it's for cleaning dentures this works really well too

I'm glad to learn you can use bread yeast

Love the video, and also prefer home made, even though here in Denmark it's often cheaper to buy ready made mead.. But then you miss out of the experience and personalization of your own mead.. keep it up, love your videos.

Derika said rando-honey everywhere. That would be a great idea for the next brew. Kinda like the SWHLA wine. 35:23

I watched another channel do a blind test with 20 different yeasts with the same bread yeast. Through the line up of all the wine, beer, champagne, and in between the bread yeast in that blind study tested in the middle above some notable yeasts. The number 1 spot was a champagne yeast which they also say doesn't do good for it, but it ranked 1. That's what made me want to try the store bought method first of course.

I know all about messes I exploded a cubitainer in my attempt to make strawberry wine. My wife was so happy and she made me so happy! LOL

Lol im probably with you guys on the sweetness 😂 also the taste as you go is very up my alley. My mom taught me to cook by taste so i'm very attuned to subtle changes and i think adding and tasting makes more sense for me in the long run

People's pallets are different depending on which part of the country you are from. Look at spices. People say that foods from Louisiana, Texas, and New Mexico are too spicy.

Had pretty good results with frozen concentrate apple juice with very little sugar. At 3 years in cellar... Excellent 👍

Thank you Brian for the Moscato comparison! I like moscato every once in a while but preffer a malbec both have decent sweetness. You definitely have a sweet tooth more power to ya, Cheers!! Love your videos you both are great!

1 micron filter socks filter out all yeast (as the smallest yeast get is around 3 microns), meaning you don't have to pasteurize or treat with K-sorbate/K-meta before back-sweetening/bottling. It's also much faster than a coffee filter, if you buy one made of poly instead of paper or cotton. And, because it's made of poly, everything rinses right off (the darkest red wine won't stain it, or anything), then you can just pop it into your sanitization bucket right before using again. It really simplifies the whole process & gives you an incredibly clear end product (so, no need for pectic enzyme bentonite or other clearing agents, either). And, it doesn't affect taste, whatsoever -- at least ime (just removes most/all particles and the yeasty taste; and you don't waste a drop of it, because you pour it all through, instead of leaving behind the stuff at the very bottom each time you rack with a siphon; and, you'll never have to rack it more than once -- it's seriously all pros and no cons, imo). Try one out, I think you'll be shocked, and will probably wish you tried one sooner, if you haven't already -- I know I did, haha! Now, I have a ton of expensive products I'll probably never need, and a few dollar filter sock that will likely last a lifetime replaces all of it. Not having to add excessive chemicals, or do the whole pasteurization process is enough of a reason to use it -- the clearing effect and other bonuses (only racking once and never losing a drop, etc.) are just the icing on the cake. I think you'd both be impressed with the results, and how quickly it does all the work for you. Worst case scenario you spent about $10 for a set of 2, that you can give away, or have as backup just in case. I'd love to hear how you like them, or if you have any critiques or whatever. Maybe run 2 containers of the same batch of mead, one using pasteurization and stuff like pectic enzyme or whatever you'd normally use, then only use filter socks on the other ½ of the batch (and do the same back-sweetening and all that, so the only difference is one uses filter socks, and the other doesn't), and see which comes out better. I'd love to see that video! Oh, and Try Nate's 100% Raw and Unfiltered Honey, if you haven't already (I have nothing to do with them, just a happy customer), it's my new favorite honey, and makes a damn fine mead. (Oh, one last thing: try putting your honey in a pot of sink hot water for a ½ hour or so before pouring it into your carboy, and it will flow like water, without damaging the taste.)

I had just started my very first batch of mead. I'm excited. For this mead I am using wildflower honey from a local bee farm owned by a small family

I live in Ontario, Canada and for several of my meads (cyser, coffee and bochet especially) I buy an inexpensive wildflower honey (Aurora, 1kg = $8-10 CAD) and it makes great mead. Even very good honey here can be purchased for $12-15/kg.

I'm doing this!!!! Oh yes!!!.. My equipment arrives Tuesday. I have 71 beast on the way...but I'll use my Fleischman yeast to stay true. Can't wait!!! Yay!!!

Mead with mandarin and lemon peel - very appealing!

oo thank you so much of this long video. watched and drink some beer. as with my another eye, looking my first blueberry mead making "plop" sound next to me.. i got so many questions about mead/wines but maybe i will shout out those some another time :) nice video anyway. thank you

❤Thanks for the video. I'm one who likes dry much more than sweet ❤ So dry wines/meads for me. However... I don't mind a slightly sweeter meads over wine

I give left over fruit to the chickens. They love it😊

Advice for using mandarin without bitterness, use a zester! Gives you only the best parts of the peel without any pith at all. Downside is, in my experience anyway, you have to use about 50% more than you expect to use based on using normal peels. Much cleaner flavor though, works for all citrus. This channel is great, you two have a great rapport.

I was playing Skyrim, when one Christmas, someone gifted me a beer making kit, and I decided to make “mead” but my grocery store was out of honey, so I bought Michele’s honey creme syrup, and it made the best alcohol Ive ever tasted.

I just came to hang out but questions I'd have in two weeks time have already been answered!! I'm 5mins in.

Good job

hey y'all - longtime viewer, fulltime lurker - until today. appreciate your channel. you helped answer many questions i had starting out brewing 3yrs ago. thank you. that being said, in regards to your debate about backsweetening and the levels you like around 40 minutes in: why not start your brew with more honey? start with 3lbs instead of 2lbs and then adding another 3/4 pound (or more) to backsweeten? i usually start my brews with 3lbs and just let the yeast run out. racking to secondary usually involves adding fruit and rarely involves adding more honey as it has retained a fair amount of sweetness and full range of flavors. just a thought. thanks again for doing what you do for the homebrew community.

I did make honey malt's years ago; microwaved the honey and dumped the honey in the mixer and the first time locked it all up in the mixer AHH ! Anyway got the timing and temperature down pat ! The greatest milkshake/malt of all time !

Started my first mead today after buying the Ohio homebrew kit. I am doing a regular honey water mead but the kit didn’t come with a long enough tube for my hydrometer to take a beginning test. Hoping I can find something that will work in a local store after the holidays, new subscriber here and I look forward to more videos!

I made my first Mead from one of your videos. On 11/29/2022. I racked it on 1/4/23 and then waited till march to bottle. It was great and got me hooked. I now have started my 5 batch. My 4th was a Vikings blood from one of your videos. Thank you for helping to get me started in this. It wasn’t something I thought I could do and know I am looking to expand and my wife loves it. She didn’t like any mead I bought. But she tried mine and wants more. Have to find a way to not run out. Thank you.

All my mead batches so far have been made with Pure 'n Simple honey from Walmart. It was about $12 for 5lbs but now it is $18 for 5lb. I had great results and man do I need to make more, lol.

Highly recommend experimenting with adding salt to brews, start very small of course, but oh baby it can bring so much to the table. Never done it to a mead because I've only ever done one batch of mead, many years ago, but we add salt to almost ever beer and wine we brew for years now! It was explained to me like adding salt to cookies and cakes, ever had a chocolate chip cookie that was made without any salt? Its astonishing how different, and how much worse they are without the salt!

my mead is so dry i could chase away an alcoholic with it LOL

Just add the cinnamon stick and you have JAOM. Great job on your explanations of everything. You guys are amazing!

I remember Publix store from when I lived in Florida. It was a really good store. I prefer a slightly sweet brew but I like higher abv somewhere in the 8 to 12% at least. I really like honey though :) Those are really good looking glasses. Sounds like you pretty much nailed it again.

Best video you ever did ;) I brew a lot of beer and I do not laugh! You made the best out of it. And yes one can carbonate bottles with more than 10 ABV even with beer yeast. Just add a little yeast to every bottle too with some corn sugar. Nice idea to use instant coffee.. will try this with my next imperial stout. Maybe the champagne yeast diese nit like that kind of sugar. I use nottingham for that kind of beers and some beer botteling yeast for carbonation. It is called cbc1 from lallemand.

So on the subject of sweetness/dryness. I think the level thereof varies based on personal preference as well as the batch and the type of batch. For example a batch with fruit in it may need more sweetness to taste good than one without. There is a mead I made from hibiscus tea that came out to 0.998 I think it was and actually tasted somewhat sweet to me, to the point I didn't want to change it. I've also had a batch using blueberry juice and blueberry honey that tasted good both dry and sweet and I wasn't sure which I liked better. I actually bottle half of it dry and back sweetened the other half before bottling. Basically make it to your taste, unless you're making it for someone else, and then try to learn what they like and go accordingly.

About a year ago I made this recipe (from your other video) less the mandarin. After aging for about 10 months one of my son's friends (who is somewhat of a "wine snob") tasted it and was vociferously surprised that it was a homemade brew. He thought it was very nice and had a subtle citrus undertone. I heartily endorse this as a first mead, and have repeated it twice since. Thanks for updating the recipe and presentation.