Mead Making Glossary
What is Mead?
Mead is an alcoholic beverage made by fermenting honey with water.
That was most likely the first question you had when you began your homebrewing journey. This page has all the common terms you hear thrown around in one place. All terms in this glossary are in reference to homebrewing only. Definitions vary on application.
A
Alcohol By Volume (ABV) - Standard measure of how much alcohol is contained in a given volume of an alcoholic beverage.
B
Backsweeten - A process commonly used in mead-making to sweeten the finish of a fermented drink.
Bottle Bomb - A bottle of mead exploding due to excess pressure.
Brix - Measurement that reads the sugar content of a solution, usually measured with a refractometer.
C
Carboy - Container for mead, ideally glass. Known as a demijohn in Europe.
Carbonated - A beverage with additional carbon dioxide, creating a fizzy drink.
Cold Crash - The process of using cold temperatures to make yeast fall out of solution or “crash” out.
Contamination - Unwanted bacteria being present on equipment/in mead.
D
Demijohn - Container for mead, ideally glass. Known as a carboy in Europe.
E
Esters - Aromatic compounds created by yeast as a by-product of fermentation.
F
Ferment - The process of the yeast turning sugars into alcohol.
Fusels - Alcohol molecules that contain more than two carbons that when present in mead produce undesirable flavors.
G
Gravity - Relative density of a beverage compared to water of the must at various stages of fermentation. This is measured with a hydrometer. Can be used to calculate ABV.
H
Hydrometer - An instrument that measures the gravity of a beverage.
L
Lees/Sediment/Yeast Cake - The accumulation of yeast cells and proteins at the bottom of a vessel.
M
Mead - An alcoholic beverage created by fermenting honey with water.
Meniscus Line - The surface level of a liquid.
Metabolize - The process yeast carries out when changing fermentable sugars into alcohol.
Must - An unfermented mixture of ingredients in mead and wine making.
O
Oxidised - The process of a mead being united with oxygen, increasing the aging process and producing undesirable flavors such as cardboard.
P
Pasteurise - An alternative method of stabilising. Requires heating a mead to 60 C for 22 minutes, usually in a hot water bath.
pH - Expresses the acidity or alkalinity of a beverage on a logarithmic scale on which 7 is neutral, lower values are more acidic and higher values are more alkaline.
Pitch - The process of adding yeast to a must.
R
Rack - The process of using a siphon to move liquid from one container to another.
Refractometer - An instrument that measures the brix of a beverage.
S
Sanitise - The process of reducing surface bacteria along with any contaminants.
Siphon - Synonym for rack.
Skunking - A mead that’s been compromised by exposure to UV rays. This is only really an issue with meads that contain herbs or hops.
Stabilise - The process of adding potassium metabisulfite and potassium sorbate to mead to ensure fermentation does not restart.
Staggered Nutrient Addition (SNA) - A protocol that clearly defines at which intervals to add yeast nutrients, as well as the amount of yeast nutrients to be added at each interval.
Y
Yeast - Microscopic fungus used in homebrewing to create alcohol.
Yeast Nutrients - Ingredients that are designed to aid yeast health, leading to faster ferment times and less stressed yeast.
