Mead Happens
What I learned from making mead without really knowing what I was doing
The first thing I asked chatGPT wasn’t about yeast or ratios.
It was this:
“I want to try making mead. how do you pronounce mead, by the way?”
That pretty much captures where I was.
Curious.
Uncertain.
Already smiling at the absurdity of it.
Starting Without Knowing the Destination
I had never tasted mead before.
Not once.
So when I decided to make it, I wasn’t trying to recreate anything.
I wasn’t chasing tradition or authenticity.
I was following a feeling.
Honey. Water. Yeast. Time.
That felt like enough.
I remember sending a message to my Fermenters WhatsApp group:
My first mead experiment is underway. Blueberry mead. Let’s see how it goes.
No confidence. No claims.
Just let’s see.
No Gear, No Problem
I didn’t have a brewer’s setup.
No airlocks. No fancy vessels.
Just a one-gallon glass jar sitting quietly in my kitchen cupboard.
I followed a tutorial, vaguely.
Adjusted instinctively.
One kilo of honey in a gallon of water.
Some blueberries — 100 grams? Maybe 200? I honestly don’t remember.
Wine yeast.
I told the group:
I have no idea how this will turn out. Planning to ferment for about six weeks. I think it’ll be a bit tangy.
That sentence alone says everything.
Guessing. Predicting. Learning out loud.
When It Started Moving
A week in, something changed.
The mead was alive.
Bubbles rose constantly — tiny, joyful streams.
The yeast responded visibly every time I fed nutrients.
So I posted again:
Mead is one week old now. Happy and dancing when I feed the yeast nutrient.
It sounds silly written down.
But watching those bubbles genuinely made me happy.
This wasn’t chemistry anymore.
It was companionship.
Smell as a Signal
A few days later:
Healthy and active… smelling great already.
That was when I realized something important.
I didn’t have numbers.
I didn’t have measurements.
But I had my senses.
If it smelled alive, clean, promising — I trusted it.
The First Taste
Eventually, curiosity won.
I poured a small glass.
Mead happens.
That’s literally what I wrote.
It was aromatic.
Clear.
Somewhere between sweet and tangy.
Definitely alcoholic.
I had no idea what the ABV was, but I guessed — maybe 10%.
It felt right.
I called it a preview tasting and decided to let it go for two more weeks before bottling.
Pretty satisfying so far.
Understatement of the year.
What This Mead Taught Me
I still don’t know if this is what a “proper” mead is supposed to taste like.
And I’m okay with that.
Because what I do know is this:
I trusted intuition.
I learned patience.
I watched something invisible become visible.
I fed yeast and celebrated bubbles.
I waited without rushing.
And in the end, I poured myself a glass of something I made — without fully knowing what I was doing — and genuinely liked it.
That feels like success.
Epilogue
I started this journey asking how to pronounce mead.
Now I’m thinking about my next batch.
Honey has a way of doing that.