The Bee Bench › Mead Calculator
🍶 Mead Calculator
The oldest thing to do with honey, and the best use for a bucket that came in too wet
to sell. How much honey for how strong a batch.
Strength guide: a session mead sits around 6 to 8%, a standard table mead 11 to 14%,
and a big sack mead 16% and up — though anything past about 14% needs a yeast chosen to survive it.
Honey has almost no nitrogen in it. That's the one thing that catches beekeepers out — the
yeast will start fine and then stall, or throw fusel alcohols that make the mead taste hot and
solventy for a year. Feed it nutrient in staggered additions over the first few days rather than
dumping it all in at pitch. That single change is the difference between mead you're proud of and
mead you apologize for.
Don't boil the honey. Boiling drives off the aromatics that made you want to use your own
honey in the first place. Modern practice is to mix it into water at room temperature and pitch —
honey is antimicrobial enough that you don't need to sterilize it.
It needs time. Mead is drinkable at three months and good at a year. A batch that tastes
harsh at bottling is usually just young.
Selling it is a different matter entirely. Making mead at home for yourself is legal
federally and in Pennsylvania within the household limits. Selling any of it requires a license —
federal TTB approval and a Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board limited winery license. Do not sell
or trade it, or give it away at a farmers market, without that in hand.