Homemade Mead
Everything for making mead at home: a complete starter kit with equipment, ingredients and instructions, plus mead yeast, yeast nutrient and small-batch fermenting gear. Browse the range below.
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Making mead at home
Mead is fermented honey, and it is almost certainly the oldest alcoholic drink humans make. No grain, no hops, no mash. Honey, water, yeast and time.
What draws people to it is how much the honey shows through. Where beer is built from four ingredients working together, a mead tastes overwhelmingly of the honey you chose. A leatherwood mead and a clover mead made identically are recognisably different drinks. That makes it a rewarding thing to make in small batches, and a good use for honey worth paying for.
What you need
- Mead Making Starter Kit. The straightforward way in. Equipment, ingredients and instructions together, so there is nothing to work out or assemble from parts.
- Mangrove Jack's M05 Mead Yeast. A strain selected for fermenting honey rather than grain or fruit. Worth using in place of a general-purpose yeast. Our guide to brewing yeasts covers what a strain choice actually changes.
- Mangrove Jack's Mead Yeast Nutrient. Honey is low in the nutrients yeast needs, which is the main reason mead ferments differently to beer or cider. Nutrient is not optional here in the way it often is elsewhere.
- Glass Bottle 5L Brewing Kit. A 5 litre glass fermenter with syphon, bung, airlock and tap. Mead suits small batches, and glass lets you watch it clear.
- Syphons. A mini automatic syphon sized for 5 litre batches, and a syphon with racking cane and tubing. Mead is usually racked off the sediment more than once as it clears.
Small batches make sense here
Mead rewards patience more than volume. A 5 litre batch uses a manageable amount of good honey, clears in a vessel you can keep somewhere out of the way, and lets you try a second honey without committing to 23 litres of the first. Most people who keep making mead ended up there by making several small different ones rather than one large one.
Ships Australia-wide from our Melbourne store. We have been supplying Australian fermenters since 1968, so if you are choosing a honey or working out how to treat it, come and ask.
Buying from us
Quick answers
Shipping and orders apply to everything in this collection. See the FAQ page for more topics.
Monday to Friday, 9-4pm AEST.We normally get back to you within a day—often sooner.
What is mead made from?
Honey, water and yeast. There is no grain, no hops and no mash, which makes it mechanically one of the simplest things to ferment. The honey you choose drives the flavour of the finished mead more than any other decision.
Do I need a special yeast to make mead?
It is worth using one. Mangrove Jack's M05 Mead Yeast is selected for fermenting honey rather than grain or fruit. A general-purpose yeast will ferment honey, but a mead strain is better suited to it.
Why does mead need yeast nutrient?
Honey is low in the nutrients yeast needs to work well, which is the main way mead differs from beer or cider. Wort and fruit juice supply much of what the yeast requires, and honey largely does not. Mead yeast nutrient makes up the difference, and it is not really optional here.
What size batch should I start with?
Small. A 5 litre batch uses a manageable amount of good honey and lets you try a second honey without committing to a large volume of the first. The Glass Bottle 5L Brewing Kit includes the fermenter, syphon, bung, airlock and tap for exactly this, and glass lets you watch it clear.
How long will my order take to arrive?
Metro: usually a few business days. Regional: often a bit longer. You get tracking when it leaves the warehouse.
What is your returns policy?
If something isn't right, tell us. We'll sort returns or replacements under Australian Consumer Law and our written policy. No drama.
Monday to Friday, 9-4pm AEST.We normally get back to you within a day—often sooner.