How to make mead?

>>9267174
A carboy like your photograph depicts is pretty much necessary (I say pretty much, because you could use brew-pails, or really any container that would seal with an airlock).

You want honey and soft water - you can use distilled, but you may/will want to add a tiny bit of calcium and magnesium salts to keep the yeasts in a happy pH zone, with some electrolytes to help them stay hydrated.

A mead-specific yeast is your best bet, but really any reasonably low-phenol, high-temp, high-tolerance yeast should do the trick.

Really all you should need at that point is honey. I've had good results sticking to a beer-brewing kind of bill - about 10lbs of honey for 5 gals of final product (so about 6-6.5 gals of water to start).

There are resources out there. Even something like the Brewer's Friend app can be indispensable.

watch the good eats mead episode

>>9267174
>get some wine
>stir some honey in
done.

Sugar + Yeast + Water, mix it all up and wait for weeks as it ferments.

All depends on how clean your gear is, how active the yeast you have is and what other ingredients you are using to differ its taste.

fruits, honey, brown sugar, lemon peels, apple mush, raspberry mush etc, will make the mead exceed your expectations in taste

>>9267322
I miss the HOMEBREWMEN threads

>>9267322
How long do i let it sit?
6 months to a year or longer?

>>9268312
Not him but I make meads. Fermentation is usually complete within 30 days. Then you want to rack it over to another carboy leaving the sediment behind so it can clear. A lot of people keep racking every month or so until it's crystal clear, but after it sits in the secondary for another 30 days, I add a 2 stage clarifier and bottle. You can drink it right away, of course, but it will improve and develop more character by aging for at least 6 months, preferably longer.

>>9268312
depends on what you're after.

I'd give it a 4 days to a week on primary (basically your yeast, water and honey... you'll probably want to boil the water, but DO NOT BOIL THE HONEY... it will just break down, and you won't get any flavour or body, just alcohol, and only add the yeast once you've cooled everything down to 30C or lower)

The rest of a 2 week period (so 7-10 days) racked into secondary (basically siphon it off the yeast, leaving as much goo in the bottom of the first container as possible - you can rack right into a second container/carboy, or into a holding container while you clean out the first one, and transfer back), and then either a month or more in tertiary (same deal, just get rid of more dead yeast) for flat mead, or into bottles for at least a month for sparkling.

Main things:
>sanitize everything.

>yeast takes a while to clean up the flavour - this is why you need at least a month after secondary fermentation/first racking, or you'll wind up with this awful artificial green apple flavour

>dead yeast tastes bad, hot yeast tastes worse (yeast autolyses into... essentially soap, so take your liquid off your dead critters at least once. Yeast also produces more off flavours the hotter it gets. Mead/white wine specific yeasts tend to like it in the 20-25C range)

>An airtight, scratch free container, and airlock/blowoff tube is essential. The yeasts may seem to be boiling the first few days, as they burn through as much of the glucose and fructose as possible. You don't want that clogging up your CO2 exhaust, but you also don't want unwanted microbes getting/staying in.

>>9267437
Different ingredients yield different terms.

Mead is made with honey
Metheglyn is mead with herbs or spices
Melomel is mead with fruit
Braggot is a mead/beer hybrid, usually meaning honey and malt, but occasionally honey and hops (which could technically be a metheglyn)

>>9267406
This is called Pyment