Changes

Most modern mead is currently fermented using clean yeast strains, but like many other alcoholic beverages its history is filled with wild and spontaneous fermentation as clean fermentation practices didn't start to become known until the 1800's. Mead's can range quite widely on alcohol content, which is primarily affected by the amount of honey added. Mead can also be broken down into different categories such as Melomel(fruited mead), Metheglin(spice/herb mead), Capsicumel(meads with chili peppers) etc.

Like most wild fermented beverages, a wide variety of techniques can be used to make alternative Meads. Below you'll find a list of ways you can use to ferment your wild Meads but feel free to experiment.

Just about anything can be spontaneously fermented, which of course includes Mead. For the most part its very similar to spontaneous beers as far as capturing ambient microbes, the big difference is the controlling of microbes by types of carbon sources as well as acid contributions from hops. Hopping can be used of course but is not used in normal Meads. Also unlike spontaneous beers, you normally wouldn't be heating must(unfermented mead) up to a boiling temperature so the cooling process is a bit different. To add a bit of control you could add things like maltodextrin or fruits/vegetables with complex sugars.

Like most "wild" alcoholic beverages, many techniques can be used when making wild Meads. The thing to keep in mind about wild Mead is osmotic stress due to high gravity environments. You can expect most Meads to ferment dry, but that isn't always the case as wild microbes may not have the ethanol tolerance to consume all the available carbon sources. This of course doesn't apply to all microbes but is found more when doing wild captures/spontaneous Meads. Through trials, a gravity of 1.060 or lower has been found to have the best results to complete a full fermentation leaving a dry mead but of course leaves you with a lower alcohol Mead. Trials with higher gravity have varied with both success and failure. In cases where trials have failed, another yeast strain can be pitched to finish up the fermentation. This can still leave you with wild qualities to the Mead and can ensure the fermentation completes.

==See Also==