Tried commercial mead - Can it be better?

[JPicasso]

Saw a quick video of mead-making while perusing my normal beer homebrew channels and thought it looked interesting. Having never had mead, I wanted to try it before I invest the 5 minutes it takes to prepare a batch. :cross:
(Holy easy, batman!)

So off to the local mega-spirit store I go, and picked up a bottle of Chauncy's and Oliver meads to try over the holiday weekend. Turns out, nobody enjoyed them. Way too sweet and honey-ey. The only way to make them drinkable was with a splash or 7 of orange juice.

Before I go out and prepare my own batch or two, can anyone verify that homemade mead can be made much better than these to commercial examples of it? Both were super-honey-sweet to the point of being non-enjoyable. Or, even better, is there a commercial brand of mead that is dryer or just less sweet?.

Thanks

 

[bernardsmith]

Yes! You can make mead to suit your own taste.
There is no reason for any mead to be sweet other than the mead maker wants it that way or she or he believes their customers want a sweet drink. If you use about 2.5 - 3 lbs of honey in every gallon of mead your potential ABV will be 12% - 13% (SG = between 1.090 - 1.100). Every wine yeast should be able to ferment that dry without blinking and if then you wanted some additional sweetness (Americans prefer sweet to dry wines at least that is what they buy even if they claim to prefer dry) you can stabilize and back sweeten but then you have absolute control over how sweet you want the mead to be to balance the ABV and perhaps the acidity.
Mead makers, however, often use 4 or 5 lbs of honey per gallon - why? because they can ? or because more is somehow better? Personally, I have no idea how they scrape that mead off their teeth (or what's left of the enamel) - It's mind numbingly sweet - and that sweetness HIDES the flavor but I guess they assume that since all the flavor of the honey is in the honey and since all the sugar of the honey is potentially fermentable then having the yeast die of alcohol poisoning with about a pound of unfermented honey in each gallon is a good thing. Me? I learned wine making was all about balance ... so flavor, sweetness, acidity and ABV all need to be in balance and as a home winemaker you can do that perhaps more easily than a commercial mead maker.

 

[valverij]

I've never had Oliver or Chaucer's, but I have heard that they are overly-sweet, not-so-great examples of mead (especially the Oliver, which has a whopping 40/100 score over at RateBeer).

That said, if you know where to look, you can find great examples of commercial meads. In the Cleveland area, for example, I can typically find things by Brothers Drake (Columbus, OH), Crafted (Mogadore, OH), and B. Nektar (Ferndale, MI) at most wine stores and Whole Foods. Occasionally, you'll hit the jackpot and find a wine store that has an actual mead section.

As for making mead yourself, you can definitely make a great mead at home. JAOM is most people's first run, as it produces consistent results with minimal effort, but it can run on the sweet side. Of course, after a year of age, the flavors should blow Oliver and Chaucer's out of the water. There should also be plenty of dry and semi-sweet recipes around here and over at GotMead that you could try, if you wanted to give it a go.

 

[phil74501]

I've had Chaucers, it is waaay sweet. It's the only brand I could get at the local stores though. I have had some that I got from a winery here in this state. Much better stuff, more variety of sweetness and flavors. Unfortunately, because of laws in this state, it can't be shipped to me. So I have to drive about 120 miles to purchase it. Look around on the net for mead and winerys in your area. You should be able to get much better mead than Chaucers.

 

[bernardsmith]

I am no expert and I am sure that many on this forum will disagree with me but IMO, you can make absolutely delightful mead by selecting a good varietal honey from a local beekeeper, (the less processing the better) use spring water to dilute the honey to a gravity of about 1.100 (about 13 % ABV), do not use any heat with the honey, select a slow acting , non aggressive yeast (I like 71B), add DAP (nutrient), monitor pH , and ferment at low temperatures preferred by the yeast - oh, and aerate the must several times a day until the gravity drops close to 1.010. (so ferment in a bucket loosely covered to protect the must from dirt and pets and bugs - aeration in wine making ain't the one-off event that brewers talk about - In wine making (mead is a wine) yeast benefit from and need oxygen to bud (reproduce) and repair cell material).

 

[madscientist451]

I've tried to make my own mead a few times, the last time trying the WL sweet mead yeast and some other experiments.
I guess its an acquired taste or my mead just didn't come out that good, because I just don't like the flavor. When I saw this post I got out some mead I made in Sept 2014, so its about 9 months old, and its drinkable, but after a few small sips, I usually dump the rest.
Since then, I've learned a few meadmaking techniques from books and by listening to podcasts, but haven't had time to try again.
Before you make your own, I'd try some more commercial examples like Moonlight mead, or B. Nektar makes some meads with hops, which sounds interesting. The B. Nektar Zombie killer is made with apple juice, tart cherry juice and honey and is very enjoyable.
I think a better use of the honey is to use it with apple juice to make a cyser, which is something I've made and I do like.

 

[worlddivides]

I think it mainly comes down to personal taste.

The first mead I ever had was imported from Germany. It was very dry, but I thought it was pretty decent. Nothing particularly special, but not bad. The next mead I had was imported from France. It was semi-sweet. I thought it was good. The next mead I had was local, from somewhere in Northern Japan. Well, semi-local, I guess, since I lived in Tokyo at the time. It was the sweetest of the meads and was, by far, my favorite. It ended up being the one I bought the most frequently until I eventually moved back to the states (and they obviously don't have it here). There's a local meadery that I've been to once. The mead there is decent, but nothing remotely like any of the commercial meads I'd had before ("craft mead" I guess? Their mead has less of the honey character I found in the European or Japanese meads I had in the 10+ years I lived in Tokyo).

Most of the people I meet have never tasted mead before, but of the ones who have, they are pretty much split in half with people who LOVE mead and people who HATE mead. I don't really ever see any middle ground. I happen to have liked every style of mead I've had so far and put myself in the "love" camp, but you can't deny that some people really hate mead. I'm reminded of the Neil Gaiman novel "American Gods" where the main character, Shadow, constantly comments on how he hates mead and how it tastes like "piss." Obviously I don't agree, but I've met people who feel that way.

 

[gratus fermentatio]

I don't think Chaucer's is really mead, it certainly doesn't taste like it. I've tried it a couple times & as far as mead goes, it's pretty bad. You can make better at home, I do & if I can do it, so can you. Pick up a copy of this:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0937381802/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

Read the mead forums here, ask questions, find a recipe you like & have at it. Keep your temps on the low end & steady. And be patient, think of mead in terms of years, not months.
Regards, GF.

 

[JPicasso]

They did carry the Nektar meads, but for the same price as a 12 oz, I got the 750 ml... wait a minute, I see where I went wrong . I've got 3, one gallon jugs that I have never used, wanted to fill them with something. Sounds like it's time for another trip to the liquor store. Maybe also to the local fresh food market to get some honey. Thanks for the feedback.

 

[Homercidal]

There are a lot of different flavors and styles of mead. Well, not like beer, but...

I don't care for overly sweet mead. My favorites have been tastes at the NHC from homebrewers last summer. They were some nice, drier, flavored meads.

I've tasted some commercial meads that were ok. Some are drier than others. But they are more expensive than I care to buy regularly. I think we have like 8-10 meaderies in Michigan. You can probably find what you like if you look hard enough.

So although I can't point you to a particular meadery, or a particular mead, and I can't explain how to make it how you like it since I'm not that well verse at it myself, I CAN tell you that it's possible to make a lighter, drier mead that I think you would like.

 

[JPicasso]

So I made a gallon JOAM last night. (no cloves in house, so skipped that part)
But I forgot to shake it up before the yeast. So I shook it up after adding the yeast. I did not see any airlock activity. Hopefully it's going this morning.

I know it's going to be on the sweet side, fingers crossed that the oranges included are what it needs to be more drinkable.