The Mead House

Chris shares some thoughts and recipe ideas regarding making meads inspired by popular sodas like Mountain Dew and Dr Pepper. The guys discuss their thoughts on making a mead that tastes like a soda without the high degree of processed ingredients that come with commercially available sodas. Chris’ Mountain Dew Base (for 1 gallon of mead) 12 Oranges 8 Lemons 8 Limes 2 cups sugar (or honey?) Zest fruit, careful to avoid pith. Combine with sugar, making sure zest is completely coated. Allow to rest at least a few hours, but a day or more is better to extract oils […]

Jeff gives Chris a rundown on a handful of tools and processes to go beyond single use yeast packs at your local homebrew store. From freezing for long term storage, reuse, collecting, and even capturing wild yeast, the guys cover a bunch of techniques for the rare instance when it makes sense to take that effort into your own hands. The Mead House Podcast is sponsored by Bacchus & Barleycorn! Use our discount code MHP10 for all your shopping and supply needs! Thank you Bacchus & Barleycorn!

Chris and Jeff take some time to walk through their own process for planning and developing a recipe including ingredients, thought process and planning – and of course a few anecdotes and tangents along the way. The Mead House Podcast is sponsored by Bacchus & Barleycorn! Use our discount code MHP10 for all your shopping and supply needs! Thank you Bacchus & Barleycorn!

Chris and Jeff take a deeper dive into the world of tinctures, what they are, how to make them, why to use them, and different approaches above and beyond a base spirit and an herb or spice. Then, inspiration strikes Jeff in the oddest times and he walks away with the idea of making… mead boba pearls? Jeff and Chris throw around some further ideas to make the presentation side of serving more fun and enjoyable. The Mead House Podcast is sponsored by Bacchus & Barleycorn! Use our discount code MHP10 for all your shopping and supply needs! Thank you Bacchus […]

It’s a content packed episode this week on The Mead House, Jeff and Chris reflect on some of the differences between the process of making a mead versus making a beer or a wine. Chris tries a taste of Jeff’s partigyle bonus braggot. The guys switch gears to talk general rules about estimating how much fruit, spice, etc. to add to a new batch. Stories about their first batches and a few entertaining tangents get shared along the way. The Mead House Podcast is sponsored by Bacchus & Barleycorn! Use our discount code MHP10 for all your shopping and suppl...

Jeff and Chris walk through a few different methods for caramelizing honey and making bochet style meads, along with a little discussion of their successes and failures along the way. Then, Jeff gives a series of tips for diagnosing and dealing with a stalled ferment. The Mead House Podcast is sponsored by Bacchus & Barleycorn! Use our discount code MHP10 for all your shopping and supply needs! Thank you Bacchus & Barleycorn!

It’s a listener request episode! First the guys discuss various options for labeling mead for home mead makers, from elaborate to extremely simple. Then, they discuss adding hops, from why, to how, and what kinds of flavors and types of hops lend themselves best to a good mead. The Mead House Podcast is sponsored by Bacchus & Barleycorn! Use our discount code MHP10 for all your shopping and supply needs! Thank you Bacchus & Barleycorn!

It’s another longer topic this week as the guys dig into getting ready to get meads to competition. They talk finishing your meads with an eye for entering, packaging your mead, options for shipping and the ins and outs of getting it entered! The Mead House Podcast is sponsored by Bacchus & Barleycorn! Use our discount code MHP10 for all your shopping and supply needs! Thank you Bacchus & Barleycorn!

The guys take a deep dive into the various faults one can encounter while making mead, and talk steps to mitigate and deal with them as they spring up. The Mead House Podcast is sponsored by Bacchus & Barleycorn! Use our discount code MHP10 for all your shopping and supply needs! Thank you Bacchus & Barleycorn!

It’s a three-topic Thursday at the Mead House. In the first topic, Jeff discusses his experience beekeeping and things a home mead maker should think about before getting into the hobby themselves. Then, the guys discuss PUT SOME SEEDS IN YOUR POCKET, Jeff’s lemon mead recipe that he finished based on the Mead House 8% mead recipe. Finally, the guys discuss options for making a sour mead for the hot summer months. The Mead House Podcast is sponsored by Bacchus & Barleycorn! Use our discount code MHP10 for all your shopping and supply needs! Thank you Bacchus & Barleycorn!

Chris’ son Roane has undertaken an experiment making the cheapest mead possible, comparing mead made with wine yeast and mead made with bread yeast. Chris and Jeff try an experiment to see if they can tell one from the other, with surprising results. Then, Chris drops some knowledge on growing berries in containers, a topic near and dear to his heart. The Mead House Podcast is sponsored by Bacchus & Barleycorn! Use our discount code MHP10 for all your shopping and supply needs! Thank you Bacchus & Barleycorn!

With the calendar turning over to June and the temperatures climbing, we’re definitely in the summer months. Usually that means making mead gets tricky but Jeff throws out some ways to make your summer meads fast and tasty using kviek yeast strains, and uses one to make a juicy orange mead that’s sure to be a favorite summer sipper – Jeff’s Modern Orange! The Mead House Podcast is sponsored by Bacchus & Barleycorn! Use our discount code MHP10 for all your shopping and supply needs! Thank you Bacchus & Barleycorn!

Jeff and Chris talk in more depth about using whole fruit for making mead, including process and procedures, cautions and best practices, along with why it might be preferable to several of the easier ways to add fruit flavor they’ve covered in previous episodes. Then, the two of them discuss approaches to refining favorite recipes and building up ‘house mead’ recipes. The Mead House Podcast is sponsored by Bacchus & Barleycorn! Use our discount code MHP10 for all your shopping and supply needs! Thank you Bacchus & Barleycorn!

It’s another two topic episode! In the first part, Jeff gives Chris a deeper dive into the ins and outs of carbonation, discussing the pros and cons of bottle conditioning versus kegging. In part two, the guys take a look through a handful of easily accessible mead recipes online and point out some red flags that might be a good sign for new mead makers to be cautious of using those recipes, discuss the red flags and the logic behind why those are in the recipe in the first place, as well as what to do instead. The Mead Ho...

Jeff lays out the basic recipe for a 12% starter mead recipe along with some discussion on what makes this different than the previous 8% recipe and what extra techniques we need to use to get the end results we’re looking for. Mead House 12% Mead Recipe Start with approx 1/4 cup warm (80-90 degrees Fahrenheit) water. Add 2g 71B yeast and 2.5g GoFerm and set aside to proof. Add honey and water to a volume of 1 gallon and a starting gravity of 1.090. Add yeast and GoFerm mixture after the yeast has proofed. Degas the mead by gentle […]

Jeff and Chris spend a bit talking about an easy way to get started in making new kinds of meads – utilizing kits. Whether it’s fruit wine, regular wine, cider, or beer, it’s a great way to get started making melomels, pyments, cysers or braggots with a pretty high probability of yielding good returns! The guys spend a while talking different strategies for utilizing kits and share some of their own experiences using them. The Mead House Podcast is sponsored by Bacchus & Barleycorn! Use our discount code MHP10 for all your shopping and supply needs! Thank you Bacchus & Barleycorn!

The guys spend some time reviewing historical ingredients used across a variety of historical cultures all around the globe. Chris issues a friendly challenge to brew a historical mead recipe (see the link below) and the guys sample some obscure herbs and spices for making meads getting ideas for future projects. The Queen’s Mead recipe (Courtesy of Brew Your Own Magazine) Jeff’s Editorial Note – The fruit I was thinking of but couldn’t remember the name of off the top of my head was medlars! However, persimmons and the quince which we mentioned elsewhere in the episode also fall int

Jeff and Chris wander deep in the weeds this week, broadening the possibilities of making good meads and giving themselves even more mead ideas to work on in the process. First a discussion on fortifying meads and all the dimensions that fortification process could take, then a brief discussion on using meads in cocktails! The Mead House Podcast is sponsored by Bacchus & Barleycorn! Use our discount code MHP10 for all your shopping and supply needs! Thank you Bacchus & Barleycorn!

By listener request! How to get started making mead with a smaller initial investment to find out if this hobby is right for you. Naturally, these guidelines come from the assistance of our sponsor Bacchus & Barleycorn. Use our discount code MHP10 for all your shopping and supply needs. Then, Jeff and Chris spend some time throwing around ideas for seasonal mead flavors and give some hints as to what might be coming down the line from each of their to-brew lists!

Jeff and Chris take some time to talk about oaking as a process in the finishing of meads, kinds of oak, toast levels, the various products that are available for getting oak into mead, and it wouldn’t be Jeff and Chris if they didn’t throw around some out there ideas for using oak as well! The Mead House Podcast is sponsored by Bacchus & Barleycorn! Use our discount code MHP10 for all your shopping and supply needs! Thank you Bacchus & Barleycorn!

From nutrients, stabilizers, acids & tannins, the guys talk through the various substances at our disposal to help make mead making easier and give us better results. The Mead House Podcast is sponsored by Bacchus & Barleycorn! Use our discount code MHP10 for all your shopping and supply needs! Thank you Bacchus & Barleycorn!

The guys spend a little time chatting about carbonated meads – ways to do it, cautions needed during the process, why and what to expect. The Mead House Podcast is sponsored by Bacchus & Barleycorn! Use our discount code MHP10 for all your shopping and supply needs! Thank you Bacchus & Barleycorn!

The guys spend an evening breaking down all the different ways to get fruit flavor into your mead, and the pros and cons for each – from fresh, frozen, concentrates and purees, to other odd options like freeze dried and flavorings. The Mead House Podcast is sponsored by Bacchus & Barleycorn! Use our discount code MHP10 for all your shopping and supply needs! Thank you Bacchus & Barleycorn!

The guys returned to Minneapolis/St Paul for the annual Valkyrie’s Horn mead competition this weekend and spend about an hour chatting over the events and things they liked, sharing some of their favorite experiences and some of the goals they have moving forward. The Mead House Podcast is sponsored by Bacchus & Barleycorn! Use our discount code MHP10 for all your shopping and supply needs! Thank you Bacchus & Barleycorn!

Jeff and Chris taste a few varietal honeys the two of them have collected, giving some notes and thoughts, as well as talking about some strategies for using varietal honeys in their meads. Chris gets a proud father moment as the guys sample a mead made by his son Roane! The Mead House Podcast is sponsored by Bacchus & Barleycorn! Use our discount code MHP10 for all your shopping and supply needs! Thank you Bacchus & Barleycorn!

This week Jeff and Chris talk about keeping your must’s microbiome clean talking about the sanitization process, what it is, methods for doing it and making it work, as well as similar but different terms like sterilization and pasteurization. Then the boys go into some of their favorite yeasts for making mead, and chat about a mead Chris’ son is putting together. The Mead House Podcast is sponsored by Bacchus & Barleycorn! Use our discount code MHP10 for all your shopping and supply needs! Thank you Bacchus & Barleycorn!

This week Jeff and Chris chat about what to do when your batch just isn’t going your way. Topics include how to diagnose a bad batch, what kind of problems you can correct and what kind you simply have to walk away from, as well as a handful of approaches to enhancing a batch when it could be going better. The Mead House Podcast is sponsored by Bacchus & Barleycorn! Use our discount code MHP10 for all your shopping and supply needs! Thank you Bacchus & Barleycorn!

Jeff and Chris dive into a wide variety of topics related to how to store your mead – with opinions on closures, types of bottles, labels. wax seals and heat shrink closures, plus a sidebar on bulk aging your meads as well. The Mead House Podcast is sponsored by Bacchus & Barleycorn! Use our discount code MHP10 for all your shopping and supply needs! Thank you Bacchus & Barleycorn!

Jeff and Chris take a deeper dive on fermentation vessels for making mead – Preferences, pros and cons, the whole nine yards. The Mead House Podcast is sponsored by Bacchus & Barleycorn! Use our discount code MHP10 for all your shopping and supply needs! Thank you Bacchus & Barleycorn!

In this episode, Jeff walks Chris through the process of how to judge a mead at competition, giving all kinds of insights on processes, flavors, faults and philosophy for judging and appreciating meads along the way. But what unlabeled surprise does Chris have in store for both of them?! The Mead House Podcast is sponsored by Bacchus & Barleycorn! Use our discount code MHP10 for all your shopping and supply needs! Thank you Bacchus & Barleycorn!

Jeff and Chris talk about entering, volunteering and judging at competitions, how to enter, how to get involved, and how much fun it can be to be a part of the event! Stories and anecdotes get shared, and then the guys move on to covering the specific categories used by the BJCP for competition as well as some tips to make sure you get entered into the right one. The Mead House Podcast is sponsored by Bacchus & Barleycorn! Use our discount code MHP10 for all your shopping and supply needs! Thank you Bacchus & Barleycorn!

Jeff and Chris dive in to the topic of what it takes to get started making mead, a topic both of them have been asked about countless times recently. They start with a run down of the gear it takes to get rolling, all of which is available at your local homebrew store, or at our sponsor Bacchus & Barleycorn! Use our discount code MHP10 for all your gear and brewing related needs! Big thank you to Bacchus & Barleycorn! Then Jeff runs down the Mead House 8% Starter Mead – a simple recipe you can follow to get started making […]

Same episode as debuted Thursday – reposting to try and downstream it to Spotify and our podcast distribution network New Year, New Mead House Episodes coming now! Jeff returns to the Mead House with new co-host Chris. The guys introduce themselves, talk about their history with making mead and plans for the podcast moving forward. The Mead House Podcast is sponsored by Bacchus & Barleycorn! For all your homebrew related needs, use our discount code MHP10 for all your shopping and supply needs! Thank you Bacchus & Barleycorn!

This week we talk to John Jacob, 2nd place winner of the Iron Bee 2021. Visit John at https://oldsolbees.com/ Please continue to support the show... Thanks for keeping the Mead House podcast free with your continued support, we appreciate all our listeners. Get a set of keys to the mead house, help keep the Mead House podcast free by subscribing to Patreon, when you do, Jeff will send you some great gifts! When you become a subscriber, you'll have access to some great interviews from guests here at the Mead House.  Get the apps here for your listening pleasure o...

This week we speak with Michael Labonte, third place winner of the Iron Bee 2021. You can now listen to The Mead House Podcast on iTunes, Stitcher Radio, Spotify, iHeart Radio, YouTube, and now on Amazon Music. Check the front page of the website for more locations and be sure to subscribe and rate us 5 stars! Please continue to support the show... Thanks for keeping the Mead House podcast free with your continued support, we appreciate all our listeners. Get a set of keys to the mead house, help keep the Mead House podcast free by subscribing to Patreon, when you...

In this episode, Jeff chats with listener Carlos Herrera. See Carlos' YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnGsv4bfDKg_LjBJpe74E6Q Jeff and Carlos referenced a series called "Better Judge a Mead" by Chop and Brew, the playlist is available here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZK8QLGRuS_XeOqCjYWfMZEWm526l9mDx You can now listen to The Mead House Podcast on iTunes, Stitcher Radio, Spotify, iHeart Radio, YouTube, and now on Amazon Music. Check the front page of the website for more locations and be sure to subscribe and rate us 5 stars! Please continue to support...

In this episode, Jeff speaks to the winner of the Mead House's Iron Bee 2021, Kyle Ducharme. You can now listen to The Mead House Podcast on iTunes, Stitcher Radio, Spotify, iHeart Radio, YouTube, and now on Amazon Music. Check the front page of the website for more locations and be sure to subscribe and rate us 5 stars! Please continue to support the show... Thanks for keeping the Mead House podcast free with your continued support, we appreciate all our listeners. Get a set of keys to the mead house, help keep the Mead House podcast free by subscribing to Patreon...

It's been a long wait, but Jeff is back to talk the future of the Mead House, or at least his first several future projects. Included in this episode is the first in a series of mead recipes for you to play with and enjoy at your leisure! Sangria Mead 1 bottle Vinter's Best Blackberry Wine concentrate 1 Winexpert Merlot 1 gallon kit Water to 6 gal Honey to 1.090 SG 10g 71B wine yeast Optional Bentonite and FT Rouge Berry (per manufacturer's directions) 9g Fermaid K Dual Fine Potassium Metabisulfite and Potassium Sorbate (per manufacturer's recommended dosage) Varietal Honey and Fruit Juice concentrates of...

The Final Chapter

By JD Webb

This episode we wrap up what has been an almost 5-year commitment to provide inspiration and motivation to our listeners in the meadmaking/brewing community. I have decided to retire from the podcast to attend to some health issues that I need to focus on. It’s been tremendous ride, one that I will not forget. Ryan has also made the decision to leave the show, he is a father of 4 young beautiful children that require more and more of his time now. He has been a valuable resource an...

The results are in! The Iron Bee 2021 is over, and we have some incredible submissions to talk about. But first, a big thank you to Matt Weide, a long time friend of the Mead House, also a BJCP certified mead judge, for assisting in the judging off all the meads that were submitted.

The secret ingredient this year was Passionflower, sponsored by a long time supporter of the Iron Bee, Mountain Rose Herbs. Also, Ryan leads the discussion in the Braggot Shootout category where some surprising braggots made the awards table. Matt sticks around for the whole...