How Long Does It Take To Make Mead?

Patience is a key requirement in homebrewing any drink but we all like to get things done quickly, right?

Making mead is one of the easiest home brewed beverages to make but how long does it take to make it?

This is down to a number of factors so depending on what kind of mead you are making could have a number of answers. In this post, we will explore roughly how long it is going to take to get the mead into a glass ready to drink.

Spoiler: A traditional sack mead at around 14% is going to take 8 – 12 months to be ready

The Mead Making Process

Each stage of making a mead will take a certain amount of time. The parts where you are actively involved in the process don’t take much time at all. The parts of the process where you are waiting patiently for things to happen take a lot longer.

The process of making a mead goes something like this:

Preparing the Must: The first part of the mead making process is to actually mix the ingredients according to a recipe. This may include pasteurizing the honey but this is not always necessary, it could also include prepping other ingredients like fruit or spices as well as adding any additives like nutrients or acids.

Pitching Yeast and Primary Fermentation: This is where the sugars in the honey get consumed by the yeast to make alcohol. This first phase of fermentation is when the yeast is added, they reproduce and grow and then consume all the available sugars.

Conditioning & Maturing: By now all the sugars available to the yeast will have been metabolised as food and the level of alcohol will have reached your target. The mead will now need time to condition and age. The mead is racked to a new vessel and allowed to clear and for any harsh flavours to fade or be cleaned up by the yeast.

Bottling: Once the mead is ready it is bottled, ideally bottles will be stored for a period before being opened, some people suggest another 6 months or more.

How Long To Make A Traditional Mead?

Mead can come in all shapes and sizes ranging from strong high ABV versions down to lighter iterations that are about as strong as beer. It is going to take longer to make one of these than the other due to fermentation.

A traditional mead though which is probably the first one most people will make is around the same strength as wine at around 12 – 16% ABV. This sort of ABV is going to mean the mead will require a certain amount of time conditioning.

This is not to say you cannot drink it before this amount of time, yeast will ferment all the sugars in just a couple of weeks. It is the time conditioning and allowing the flavours to mellow and any rough edges to settle that takes time.

There will be certain brewers that never touch a bottle of mead of this strength before it has aged a year or more others who may sample after 2 – 3 months.

How Long To Make A Light Mead or Hydromel

If you don’t feel like you can wait that long to make a mead there is some good news. Lower ABV meads or Hydromels as they are often referred to are usually in the 4 – 7% ABV range and take a lot less time conditioning.

At a lower ABV, there is a lot less stress on the yeast and less undesirable compounds that need cleaning up during the conditioning phase.

The recipes for traditional meads and hydromels can be virtually the same except you use less honey. Less honey means there is less sugar so the ABV will be lower.

As with all things, brewing is best if you are patient. It is an investment in time and a little space to keep meads around ageing until they finally peak but the wait is well worth it. If you think you have the patience then I highly recommend trying out this mead recipe first and then trying a hydromel whilst you are waiting.