At a glance
- Style
- Metheglin
- Alcohol
- About 12.6% ABV
- Finish
- Semi-sweet
- Difficulty
- Beginner
- Honey
- Wildflower, optionally with a little buckwheat
- Yeast
- Lalvin 71B
- Ready in
- 4 to 5 months
- Batch
- 1 gallon, scalable
Ingredients
Quantities are for one US gallon (3.8 liters). Pick a batch size and every amount updates; one packet of yeast covers up to six gallons. Not sure how much honey your own twist needs? Use the mead calculator.
- 2.75 lb Honey, wildflower (or 2.5 lb wildflower + 0.25 lb buckwheat)
- 0.75 gallons Spring water (to make 1 gallon of must)
- 1 packet Lalvin 71B wine yeast (one packet covers up to 6 gallons)
- 6 g Go-Ferm (yeast rehydration nutrient) (optional but recommended)
- 4 g Fermaid O yeast nutrient (split into 4 doses, see steps)
- 1.5 oz Whole coffee beans, medium or dark roast (coarsely ground, for the cold brew)
- 1 cup Cold filtered water (for the cold brew)
- 0.5 tsp Potassium sorbate
- 1 Campden tablet
This recipe ferments dry and is sweetened at the end: how to backsweeten mead has the stabilizing doses and a honey chart for any batch size.
Equipment
- 2-gallon bucket and 1-gallon jug with airlock
- Hydrometer
- Pint jar with lid for the cold brew
- Fine strainer and paper coffee filters
- Measuring spoons or a small syringe for dosing trials
- Auto-siphon
New to this? Our mead making kit checklist covers what each piece does and what you can skip.
Step-by-step method
-
Make a traditional base
Sanitize, then dissolve the honey in water to 1 gallon. The gravity should read about 1.096. If you use buckwheat, keep it to about a tenth of the honey; its malty, molasses note flatters coffee but takes over fast.
-
Pitch the yeast
Rehydrate the 71B with the Go-Ferm in 50 ml of 104°F (40°C) water for 15 minutes, pitch, and keep it at 62 to 68°F (17 to 20°C).
-
Staggered nutrients
Add a quarter of the Fermaid O at 24, 48 and 72 hours and at the 1/3 sugar break (about 1.064). Degas gently before each addition.
-
Rack and clear
When the gravity has been steady near 1.000 for three days, usually after 3 to 5 weeks, rack into a clean jug and leave it 4 to 6 weeks to clear. A clear base makes it much easier to judge the coffee.
-
Make the cold brew
A day before you dose, stir the coarsely ground beans into the cup of cold filtered water in a sanitized jar and refrigerate for 18 to 24 hours. Strain through a fine strainer, then through a paper coffee filter to remove the oils and fine grounds. You get roughly 5 to 6 oz of concentrate.
-
Dose by taste
Pour 4 oz of mead into a glass and add concentrate a quarter teaspoon at a time, noting the amount, until it tastes right. Scale up: 1 tsp in 4 oz is about 5 oz per gallon. Most people land between 3 and 5 oz. Stir it gently into the jug.
-
Stabilize and sweeten
Add the crushed Campden tablet and sorbate, wait 48 hours, then sweeten with honey 1 oz at a time. About 7 oz lands near 1.014. Coffee needs that sweetness; a dry coffee mead tastes ashy and thin.
-
Bottle and drink young
Bottle and give it about a month. Coffee aroma is at its best in the first 6 to 12 months and slowly fades after that, so this is a mead to drink rather than cellar.
Timeline
- Day 0Mix and pitch
- Days 1 to 7Nutrient additions
- Weeks 3 to 5Rack to clear
- Weeks 8 to 9Make cold brew, dose by taste
- Week 10Stabilize, sweeten, bottle
- Month 4 and onDrink; best within a year
Why this recipe works
Cold brew rather than hot coffee or whole beans. Hot brewing pulls more of the bitter, acidic compounds out of the grounds, and beans or grounds left in the mead keep extracting at a rate you cannot predict. Cold brew is smooth, it is a measured concentrate, and you can dose it a teaspoon at a time.
Coffee goes in after fermentation for the same reason fruit does. Fermentation carries volatile aroma out through the airlock with the CO2, so coffee added to primary loses most of the roasted aroma you paid for.
The base is a straightforward semi-sweet traditional: wildflower honey, 71B for a soft, clean ferment, and enough sweetness at the end to round off the roast. Coffee in a dry mead reads as bitter and ashy; with some sweetness it reads as mocha and caramel.
Cold brew is not sterile, so sanitize the jar and strainer and use filtered water. The mead itself, at around 12% alcohol with sulfite added at stabilizing, is a hostile place for most spoilage organisms, which is why dosing after fermentation is safe in practice.
Variations
- Chocolate mead: skip the coffee and add 2 oz of roasted cacao nibs in a bag for 1 to 3 weeks, tasting weekly. Nibs clear far better than cocoa powder, which leaves a sludge that is hard to rack off. Some mead makers soak the nibs in a little vodka for a day first.
- Vanilla mead: add 1 to 2 split vanilla beans for 2 to 4 weeks. Madagascar beans give classic creamy vanilla; Tahitian beans are more floral and cherry-like.
- Mocha: use half the coffee dose plus 1 oz of cacao nibs and half a vanilla bean for 1 to 2 weeks.
Troubleshooting
| Problem | What to do |
|---|---|
| It tastes harsh or ashy | Too much coffee, or not enough sweetness. Sweeten by another ounce or two and give it a month. Next time dose less or use a medium roast. |
| There is an oily film on the surface | Coffee oils. Filter the cold brew through a paper filter next time; for this batch, rack from below the surface. |
| The coffee flavor faded | Normal over months. Drink it younger, or add a small extra dose of fresh cold brew before bottling. |
More mead recipes to try
- Bochet (caramelized honey mead) recipe: Honey cooked to dark caramel before it ferments. Toffee, marshmallow and dark fruit.
- Spiced mead (metheglin) recipe: Cinnamon, clove, orange and vanilla added by taste in secondary. The holiday mead.
- Acerglyn (maple mead) recipe: Honey and dark maple syrup in primary, more maple to sweeten. Tastes of maple, not just sugar.
More spiced and herbal mead recipes: Viking-style mead, Lavender mead, Hibiscus mead, Ginger mead.
Or browse all our mead recipes. If this is your first batch, start with the traditional mead recipe or the step-by-step guide to making honey wine.
Frequently asked questions
When should I add coffee to mead?
After fermentation, in secondary, as cold brew concentrate. Coffee in primary loses most of its aroma, and cold brew lets you add exactly as much as you want.
How much coffee do I need per gallon of mead?
About 3 to 5 oz of cold brew concentrate, made from roughly 1 to 1.5 oz of coffee beans. Dose a small sample first and scale up.
How do you make chocolate mead?
Add roasted cacao nibs, about 2 oz per gallon, to a finished mead for 1 to 3 weeks and taste weekly. Avoid cocoa powder, which clouds the mead and is hard to clear.
How do you make vanilla mead?
Split 1 or 2 vanilla beans, add them to a finished mead in secondary and taste weekly for 2 to 4 weeks. A little sweetness at the end makes the vanilla read much stronger.
Does coffee mead have caffeine?
Yes, some. How much depends on the beans and how much concentrate you add, so treat it as a caffeinated drink.
How strong is coffee mead?
About 12 to 13% ABV, depending on how dry it ferments before sweetening. It takes 4 to 5 months from mixing to drinking.