Daniel's Mead Making Hobby Page

Fermenting Vessel

At the very least, you need something to hold your must while it ferments. This container should be airtight and allow for some form of airlock to be attached. It should be made of some sort of food safe material such as glass, stainless steal, ceramic, wood, or plastic (the food grade kind that is).

My personal favorite is the clear glass carboy. This is really just a large thick glass bottle. The bit advantage is that you can watch the progress of the fermentation. Furthermore, they have no effect of the flavor of the mead. Also, they can last forever; they don't corrode, resist scratches, and are easy to clean. The problem with carboys are that they have a small mouth. So, it can be difficult to access the mead with things like stirring spoons and autosiphons. Also, glass carboys don't deal well with being dropped and can be heavy.

The next most popular is the plastic fermentor. This is really just a food grade plastic bucket with a well sealed snap on lid. They are sold in most home brew stores and are usually cheaper than carboys. They are light weight for their size and can be easily accessed by popping the lid off. The problem I have is that they are opaque so I can't check on the progress with a glance. Also, they may develop scratches on the inside during cleaning. These scratches can hide bacteria. So, after a while, they need to be discarded.

The most romantic of vessels is the oak barrel. Many professional wine makers use nothing else. They add to the flavor of whatever is being made in them. The flavor addition can vary based on the toasting of the barrel. This is a process of slightly singing the inside of the barrel. There are three levels: light, medium, and dark. There is also two types of oak: American and French. Generally home mead makers avoid them. They can be very expensive and are difficult to maintain. Mead makers wishing to get that oak flavor can easily add oak chips or cubes to their mead.

The pros who make large quantities use stainless steel fermentors. These can vary in size from a few gallons to giant outdoor silos containing 1000's. High-tech equipment can be integrated to measure temperature and such. The cost for these can be outragious, but they are necessary when you need to worry about serious production levels.

Down here in the south, ceramic vessels have historically been used. Picture the hold moonshine jug. I suppose there may still be some who use such jugs, but I've never met any. It would seem to me to be pretty much the same as a glass carboy, except without the visibility.

Of course, if desperate enoungh, one can use just about any food safe vessel. I've heard that some of the home brew pioneers would use those large plastic drining water containers that you see inverted in the office water cooler. I've also heard of just using plain old glass bottles from the grocery store. The trick with these home remedies is to come up with some way to seal them, but still allow the CO2 to escape.

Air lock

In order to keep your fermentor from exploding under the pressure of the carbon dioxide produced by the fermentation, you need some way to release that excess gas. What's more, you need to keep the oxygen out. The solution to this is the airlock, also known as a fermentation lock.

The most popular kind of airlock is the plastic cylinder or three-piece airlock. The airlock is comprised of a tube which feeds half way into a hollow cylinder, a cap for that tube, and a cap for the cylinder. The cylinder is half filled with water to a line just below the end of the tube. The tube cap, which is wide enought to allow air to escape from the tube, is then placed over the end of the tube so that the edges of the cap are submerged. Finally, the cylinder cap it locked on so that the air pressure from the tube will not be able to push the tube cap edges above the water. The result is a bubbling in the air lock at the CO2 escapes.

A somewhat older type of airlock is the S-curve lock or the tripple ripple. This can be made of either plastic or glass. It is also half filled with liquid, but doesn't require the assembly of the cylinder type.

Some suggest filling either of these two airlocks with sanitizing solution, but I've discovered that can be a bad idea. I filled one with bleach once. The problem was that a change in room temperature caused my fermenter to go from blowing to sucking. A slight vacuum formed and sucked the liquid in. Bleach + Mead = badness. So I only use pre boiled water now.

There are some home made variations on airlocks. The simplest I ever hear was to strech a cleaned out ballon (remove that white powerdery stuff) over the neck of a bottle and poke a hole in it with a needle. I've never tried this, so I don't know if it works. You can also run a tube from the mouth of your fermentor into a bowl of water. This is sort of a home made version nof the S-Curve.

Stoppers

While plastic fermentors have their locking lids, every other kind of vessel will probably need something to closing it up. The solution is usually a cork or rubber stopper. Some will have holes drilled in them for the airlock

Brewpot

In order to mix your ingredients you need a brew pot. There is nothing special about this. You can use any type of cooking pot. It just needs to be big enough to hold your must. It's probably a good idea that it be made of a non corrosive, non poisonous metal.

Siphoning kit

You can't just poor your mead from one vessel to another (whether it be a secondary fermentor or a bottle). If you do, then you mix it with oxygen which will mess up the taste. What you do instead is to siphon your mead into the second vessel. This gently transfers the liquid. At a minimum, it's just a plastic tube, but a racking cane is usually included. The racking cane is a stiff plastic tube that is connected to the sucking end of the siphon system with a protective cap on the end that keeps you from slurping up the sediment at the bottom of the fermentor

Thermometer

You don't need one, but it's really handy to have. If you are pasturizing rather than boiling your must, you will definitly need this. Also, it's useful to know exactly the best time to throw in the yeast.

Hydrometer

This handy little gadget tells you how far along your fermentation is. You can also use it to determine how much alcohol you have made. It works on the prinicple of specific gravity, that is, how much a liquid makes things float. A liquid with a lot of sugar makes the hydrometer float high, a liquid that has a lot of alcohol makes it float low. The numbers on the side give you exact measurements of the floatiness of you must or mead.

Autosiphon

One of the problems with siphoning mead from one vessel to another is that you have to get the siphon started. The old fashion way is to suck the mead up until you fill the tube. This however could contaminate your mead with the germs in your mouth. Another way is to fill the siphon tube with water before inserting the sucking end into the mead, but this is more difficult to do than you might think. Getting all the air bubbles out can be a real bitch. The answer to these problems is the autosiphon. Essentially the autosiphon is a racking cane that allows the user to pump the mead through until the siphon process can get going.