At a glance
- Style
- Pyment
- Alcohol
- About 13.7% ABV
- Finish
- Off-dry
- Difficulty
- Beginner
- Honey
- Orange blossom
- Yeast
- Lalvin QA23
- Ready in
- 4 to 6 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.
- 0.8 gallons White grape juice, 100% juice, no preservatives (or fresh white wine-grape juice)
- 1.5 lb Honey, orange blossom
- 1 cup Spring water (to top up to 1 gallon)
- 1 packet Lalvin QA23 wine yeast (5 g; one packet covers up to 6 gallons)
- 6 g Go-Ferm (yeast rehydration nutrient) (optional but recommended)
- 5 g Fermaid O yeast nutrient (split into 4 doses, see steps)
- 0.5 tsp Tartaric acid (only if needed, to taste)
- 0.5 tsp Potassium sorbate
- 1 Campden tablet (potassium metabisulfite)
Swapping the fruit or changing the amount? Adding fruit to mead covers how much to use per gallon, when to add it and how long to leave it. 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 with lid for primary
- 1-gallon glass jug
- Airlock and drilled bung
- Hydrometer
- Auto-siphon and tubing
- No-rinse sanitizer (Star San)
New to this? Our mead making kit checklist covers what each piece does and what you can skip.
Step-by-step method
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Check and measure the juice
Make sure the juice has no potassium sorbate or sodium benzoate; ascorbic acid is fine. Take a gravity reading of the juice alone. Supermarket white grape juice usually reads around 1.060 to 1.070.
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Mix the must
Pour the juice into the sanitized bucket, stir in the warmed honey until dissolved and top up to 1 gallon with water. The reading should be close to 1.104. If your juice read differently, adjust the honey: each 1/4 lb moves the gravity about 0.009.
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Pitch cool
Rehydrate the QA23 with Go-Ferm and pitch. Keep it at 59 to 64°F (15 to 18°C), the same range you would use for a white wine, to keep the aroma fresh and the fermentation clean.
-
Feed the yeast
Add a quarter of the Fermaid O at 24, 48 and 72 hours and at the 1/3 sugar break (about 1.069) or on day 7. Grape juice has more yeast nutrients than a plain honey must, but honey dilutes them, so still feed.
-
Rack when dry
When the gravity holds near 0.996 for three days (usually 2 to 4 weeks), rack into the glass jug and top up to reduce headspace.
-
Clear and cold stabilize
Leave it 2 to 3 months to clear. Grape juice contains tartaric acid, which can form harmless crystals in the cold; if you want to avoid them in the bottle, put the jug in the fridge for 2 weeks before bottling and rack off any crystals.
-
Acid, stabilize, sweeten
Taste. If it seems flat, add tartaric acid 1/4 tsp at a time; it is the grape's own acid, so it fits. Add the crushed Campden tablet and sorbate, wait 48 hours, then sweeten with honey: about 4 oz takes it from 0.996 to 1.004.
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Bottle and age
Bottle and give it at least 2 months. Serve it chilled, as you would a white wine.
Timeline
- Day 0Check juice, mix, pitch yeast
- Days 1 to 7Four nutrient additions
- Weeks 2 to 4Ferments dry, rack
- Months 1 to 3Clear, cold stabilize
- Month 3Acid, stabilize, sweeten, bottle
- Month 5 and onDrink chilled; keeps 2 to 3 years
Why this recipe works
The balance between grape and honey decides what a pyment tastes like. Here 0.8 gal of juice at about 1.065 brings roughly 52 gravity points and 1.5 lb of honey brings about 52 more, so it is close to half and half: you can taste both the grape and the honey. More honey pushes it toward a mead with a grape accent; more juice toward a honeyed white wine.
Supermarket white grape juice is often made from American grapes such as Niagara, which have a distinctly "grapey" aroma. That makes a pleasant, fruity pyment. For something closer to wine, buy fresh or frozen white wine-grape juice (Chardonnay, Muscat or Riesling, for example) from a home winemaking shop in season.
QA23 is a white-wine yeast used for crisp, aromatic whites. It has a low nitrogen demand, ferments cleanly at cool temperatures and tolerates about 16% alcohol, so it will take this must fully dry and leave you in control of the final sweetness.
The off-dry finish is a middle path. A bone-dry pyment can taste austere, like a lean white wine with a faint honey smell; a small amount of honey added back at the end brings the floral character forward without making it a dessert wine.
Variations
- Red pyment: use red grape juice (Concord for a bold grape-juice character, or red wine-grape juice for something closer to red wine) with 71B, and add 0.5 oz of medium-toast oak for 3 to 4 weeks.
- Hippocras (spiced pyment): add a cinnamon stick, a few slices of fresh ginger and two cloves in a bag during clearing for 5 to 10 days, tasting as you go.
- Sparkling pyment: finish dry, skip the sorbate and prime with 1 oz of honey per gallon in pressure-rated bottles (see our sparkling guide).
Troubleshooting
| Problem | What to do |
|---|---|
| Glassy crystals in the bottle | Tartrate crystals from the grape juice, harmless and tasteless. Cold stabilize in the fridge for 2 weeks before bottling next time. |
| No fermentation after 48 hours | Check the juice label for sorbate or benzoate. If they are there, start again with preservative-free juice. |
More mead recipes to try
- Cyser (apple mead) recipe: Apple juice replaces the water. Crisp, easy and ready sooner than most meads.
- Spiced mead (metheglin) recipe: Cinnamon, clove, orange and vanilla added by taste in secondary. The holiday mead.
- Session mead (hydromel) recipe: Half the honey, a clean ale yeast and a crisp finish. Drinkable in six weeks, excellent sparkling.
More fruit mead recipes: Strawberry mead, Raspberry mead, Blueberry mead, Blackberry mead, Cherry mead, Peach mead, Mango mead (and pineapple mead), Joe's Ancient Orange Mead (JAOM), Elderberry mead, Banana mead, Pomegranate mead, Pumpkin mead, Cranberry mead, Apple pie 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
What is a pyment?
A pyment is a mead made with grapes or grape juice. It sits between mead and wine and can be white or red depending on the grapes.
Is pyment a wine or a mead?
Both, in a sense. It is classed as a mead (a melomel made with grapes) because honey is a main fermentable, but it has the acid and structure of a grape wine.
Can I make pyment with store-bought grape juice?
Yes. Use 100% juice with no potassium sorbate or sodium benzoate. White grape juice makes a crisp white pyment; Concord or other red juice makes a red one.
How much honey do you need for pyment?
About 1.5 lb per gallon when most of the liquid is grape juice, as here. With less juice and more water, you need more honey to reach the same strength.
How long does pyment take to make?
About 3 months to bottle and 4 to 6 months to drink. Like white wine, it keeps well for two to three years.
How strong is pyment?
This recipe is about 13.7% ABV, the strength of a full-bodied white wine.