So you are sick of kombucha? Try mead!

I got sick of kombucha because of the very regular time consumption. I obviously had all the time in the world, but I didn't want to spend every week making tea in bulk and cleaning glass bottles. After an attempt at making a quick wine, I decided I wanted to go all in on something new like I always do. I grew up making wine and beer with my neighbor, but we had never made mead. I never asked for a reason (being a kid making wine, what did I know, anyway?).

For my first attempt I read what I could from Sandor Katz in his book The Art of Fermentation.  The Art doesn't explain any specific recipes for most cultures, and mead was just the same. He did provide some important information on how it actually works:

It is commonly said that honey is the only food that doesn't go bad. This is because it is almost pure sugar and the lack of water controls anything from growing in the liquid. All natural honey will be below 17% water, and this keeps yeast in check. Once the water activity gets above 17%, the yeast will start to become active. Raw honey contains plenty of wild yeast, so don't heat it before using, and don't add any wine yeast to the brew...just let it go.

The First Attempt

In pursuit of the natural way, I started by diluting my raw honey to greater than 20% water content. I mixed 1 part honey with 4 parts water and shook it like crazy so it would dissolve. That's it! I didn't add any nutrients, I just let it go by itself. Katz recommends shaking the brew several times a day, but I stuck with once per day and within a week I had some motion!

To keep things moving, I also wanted to start a mead fermented with wine yeast. I settled on 2.5 gallons (mostly because that worked with the amount of honey I already bought) and planned to use Premier Cotee yeast (since I already had it from the high alcohol kombucha). I followed this video pretty closely since it seemed the simplest and most down to earth.