Making mead is rather simple, with its main ingredients only honey, water, and yeast. However, there are a few items that will make your meadmaking journey better, and produce better results from the first batch. The following items, often available in a brewing or winemaking kit (1 gallon kit, 3 gallon kit, or 6-gallon kit), are an overview of the basic meadmaking equipment needed to get started in the meadmaking hobby.
Fermenting Equipment
1. Hydrometer
The hydrometer is not technically necessary to make alcohol. However, its use will greatly improve your ability to make delicious mead, and to repeat the process time and time again.
A hydrometer provides its user with the ability to measure the density of a must (honey water mixture that will be turned into mead) and of the finished mead. Comparing these two measurements, one can calculate the alcohol content of a mead at any point during the meadmaking process.
Knowing the alcohol content during the fermentation process will provide the meadmaker valuable knowledge to maintain a healthy and robust yeast population. Yeast ferment best when maintained in a healthy environment, and understanding the amount of sugar consumed and remaining tells the meadmaker how much yeast nutrient is required to maintain a healthy colony.
The hydrometer will also let the meadmaker know when the mead has finished fermenting. Healthy yeast will often overshoot their stated alcohol content, so you may not know if the yeast has completed its fermentation process. If one bottles the mead with residual sugar, and the yeast wakes up, the potential for a bottle bomb exists. The hydrometer will let the meadmaker know if additional time is required to finish making the mead, or if sulfites and sulfates should be added to stop the fermentation where it is at.
For those looking for something advanced, a refractometer can also be used. We at MeadMakr do not have much experience with refractometers, but nonetheless a link to purchase one is provided below for those adventurous souls amongst the readers.
2. Fermenter
The fermenter is just what it sounds like, the container where fermenting happens. Fermenters come in many shapes and sizes, but for the hobbyist you are most likely to come across brewing buckets and carboys.
Buckets provide the best access to a fermenting must, but are not usually good for long term aging. The amount of exposure to air provides the potential for oxidation. Rather than aging in a bucket, it is best used for vigorous primary fermentations, and when using whole fruits to punch the cap below the must. (A fruit cap is the portion of fruit that floats at the top of the must. You will want to keep this moist throughout the fermentation, and continually push it down below the must to avoid spoilage.)
Carboys are fancy names for large glass and plastic jars that can be used for fermenting. These will provide the meadmaker with visual cues concerning the state of the must. Sediments will be easily visible, as will it be easy to determe the clarity of a finished batch.
I recommend both carboys and buckets for a meadmaker, although if you are starting, the carboy is your better option. If you do get both a bucket and a carboy, ensure the bucket is slightly larger than the carboy. This will ensure that when you rack the mead (move it from one container to another), there will be minimal headspace in the second container. Think of getting a 6 gallon bucket if you want to use 5 gallon carboys, or a 2 gallon bucket if you want to use 1 gallon carboys. A couple of extra 1 gallon or 1/2 gallon carboys are also useful for storing that little bit leftover, or saving some of the must to backsweeten at a later date.
Carboys
Buckets
3. Airlock and Stopper
When fermenting, and aging for that matter, you need something to protect your precious mead from the outside elements, namely spoiling micro-organisms (mold, bacteria, and wild yeasts), bugs (the creepy crawly kind), and oxidation (exposure to oxygen). This protection is accomplished via an airlock and stopper.
Stoppers come in two varieties, the universal stopper and the drilled stopper. My preference is for drilled stoppers. Drilled stoppers come in a specific size to match the width of the carboy neck, resulting in a more secure closure than the universal stopper. This will be important for long term aging to avoid oxidation.
Traditional airlocks also come in two varieties, the S-type and 3-piece airlock. The S-type airlock is shaped like a fancy S, if you give artistic license to the writer, as he has to continue the ends of the S to the top and bottom. The 3-piece airlock, naturally, comes in three pieces, the body, the top, and for lack of a better term, the shuttlecock (it looks a bit like one). In both designs, the air outside the fermenter is separated from that inside the fermenter by a fluid. During pressure changes, air bubbles through the airlock from the high pressure side to the low pressure side.
During fermentation, air typically flows out of the fermenter as the yeast produces CO2. The high pressure caused by the CO2 production pushes the air inside the fermenter through the airlock. Because CO2 is heavier than oxygen, the oxygen gets pushed out of the fermenter first, minimizing your chance of oxidation.
Water is the most common fluid to fill your airlock with, but you may hear of vodka or glycerin being used. Vodka is naturally sanitized, so you minimize spoiling possibilities. Glycerin doesn’t evaporate, making it great for long term aging when you leave the carboy in the back of your closet for months to forget about it.
3 piece airlock
S-type airlock
4. Thermometer
Yeast types have optimal temperature ranges that maximize the production of alcohol and wanted flavor compounds while minimizing the creation of unwanted byproducts. Fermenting yeast produces heat, and the ambient environment itself may drive the temperature too high or too low for your yeast choice. A thermometer will help ensure you can react to any wild temperature swings, ensuring a healthy fermentation from start to finish.
Any kitchen thermometer with a range from 45 to 120 degrees F will work to monitor your mead. The longer the temperature probe, the better so that you can reach through the neck of the carboy to measure the must temperature. Stick on thermometers are also great for estimating the temperature of a carboy or bucket without having to break the airlock to measure your must’s temperature.
Adhesive thermometer
Floating thermometer
5. Mixing Pot
A mixing pot isn’t technically necessary to make mead, especially if you are going to make all of your mead with using no-heat methods. However, we’ve found in practice that it is far easier to dissolve honey into water in a large pot than in a carboy. A good idea is to get a pot slightly larger than your largest fermenter. So, if you are fermenting in a 1 gallon carboy, make sure you have a 2 gallon pot. If fermenting in a 5 gallon carboy or bucket, a 6 gallon pot will work best. You will find the extra space useful if you ever get into brewing or making bochets, as this will help avoid the wort or must boiling over in the process.
6. Auto-Siphon and Tubing
Yes, it is possible to pour mead out of a carboy or bucket to rack from one container to another. But this is a terrible idea. Not only will it stir the lees at the bottom of the fermenter back into suspension, it will also oxidize the mead. Instead, a good siphon is in order, along with enough food grade tubing to adequately reach between the old fermenter and the new fermenter or aging vessel.
Siphoning can be accomplished in many ways, but a good auto siphon will do the trick to start. But be forewarned, it often requires two people to use: one to pump the siphon, and the other to hold the tubing in place. When buying tubing, make sure it matches the diameter of the siphon and, if using, the bottle filler.
Bottling Equipment
The first section identified everything you will need to make a mead. This section covers the additional items you will want for bottling day.
1. Bottles
Three choices exist for bottling: beer bottles, wine bottles, and flip-top bottles. Personally, I drink mostly beer at home, so I’ve defaulted to using beer bottles with a capper, but your preferences may be different. Below are highlights of the pros and cons of each type to help you make an informed decision about how to bottle your meads.
Beer Bottles
The bottle of choice in the MeadMakr household, beer bottles come in a variety of styles. And if you go through many of them of a regular basis, reusing your bottles is a good way to save some money. Just make sure you know how to soak off the labels.
Store only the pry-off beer bottles, as they stand up to repeated cappings better than their twist-off cousins. Creating carbonated meads will also be a cinch with beer bottles given their natural strength up to beer carbonation levels.
Beer bottles will use a crown cap and capper to seal the bottles, so links to purchase these are also provided.
Wine Bottles
For those wine aficionados in the audience, your leftover wine bottles can also be used to store your precious mead. However, there are a few things to keep in mind with a wine bottle.
There are options for both real cork and plastic cork, although most would argue today plastic corks are sufficient for home uses. To ensure a proper long-term seal, it may be a good idea to add a cover (they also add a decorative fashion to the bottle), but this isn’t necessary. When using real cork, be sure to store bottles on their side so that the corks do not dry out.
Wine bottles will also limit the amount of carbonation that can be created for a mead. Most wine bottles are not capable of maintaining pressurized liquids, and will either push out the cork, or possibly result in bottle bombs (literally, the bottle explodes from the pressure inside). Bottle bombs are also possible when using beer bottles, but beer bottles maintain higher pressures than wine bottles. Champagne bottles are an option for a wine bottle shape with carbonation, but are not covered within this guide.
Links to different size bottles, corks, and options for corking are provided below.
375 mL 750 mL
#8 Corks #9 Corks
Double Lever Corker Floor Corker
Flip-Top Bottles
The last regular bottling option are flip-top bottles, sometimes referred to as EZ Cap bottles. These work with a swing cap and rubber grommet to provide a seal for a finished mead.
Flip-top bottles provide many advantages to beer and wine bottles. They will limit the chance of bottle bombs as the top will pop prior to the glass breaking. They do not require a single use cap or cork to seal the bottles, and similarly the capper or corker are not required purchases up front.
The major disadvantage is how little they are used in regular commerce. This means you will have to buy and maintain a dedicated supply of the bottles, vice reusing bottles from last week’s liquor store run. But if bottling is a regular occurrence, it means fewer items to sanitize on bottling days, and may improve the overall flow to the bottling line.
16 oz 32 oz
Replacement EZ Cap Swing Tops
2. Bottle Filler
The last equipment item that may be useful for a beginning meadmaking kit is a bottle filler. This item allows the user to precisely fill a bottle close to the top, while stopping the flow as the filler is lifted from bottle to bottle.
Bottle fillers come in two varieties, with a gravity valves or a spring-loaded valves. These valves are engaged by depressing the against the bottom of the bottle being filled. I have found spring valves provide better seals than the gravity fed options, and the ability to take the entire apparatus apart to clean is a major bonus when bottling that last bit in a fermenter that may contain solid matter in the form of fruit sludge.
As with the auto-siphon and tubing, ensure the diameters all match for proper operation.
That wraps up the basic meadmaking equipment required to get a batch going and to ensure bottling goes smoothly. There are a lot of items that aren’t included in here that could be useful to an advanced meadmaker, but this list is meant for the beginner. We will provide future parts to the MeadMakr Guide targeted to advanced topics like temperature control apparatuses, filtering options and kegging equipment.
If there is anything you didn’t see in this guide that is not included in the current list, let us know via our contact page, on twitter or on facebook.