Raspberry Mead – Micro Batch Recipe (2024)

Every year I’m excited about fermenting up something tasty with raspberries. Raspberry wine, raspberry mead or even a light summery raspberry beer.

Just one problem…raspberries are wicked expensive. Do you know how many raspberries it takes to make even a gallon of raspberry wine?

For beer or mead, it takes about a quart in a one-gallon batch, or over a gallon of fresh fruit in a 5-gallon batch to really get the flavor to come through. Around these parts, even pick your own berries are pricey, and those from my own raspberry patch are gobbled before they hit the bowl.

So why not a micro-batch?

Raspberry Mead – Micro Batch Recipe (1)

There are a lot of greatreasons to make a micro-batch mead. For raspberry mead, a micro-batch is a great way to keep your costs down without sacrificing flavor. With just barely a handful of raspberries, you can make a quart batch of raspberry mead that is brimming with raspberry goodness.

It’s also a good way to see if a sweet and VERY fruity mead is your cup of tea.

All you need to start is a bit of honey, raspberries, a quart mason jar, and a mason jar fermentation kit. There are a number of brands to choose from. Try this one. Or this one.

I use a kit byFermentoolsthat looks a lot like a home brew setup, and if you choose to do bigger batches later you’ll need the rubber stopper and water lock that are included in the kit.

I’m hoping at some point to try out thesesilicone fermentation lidsfrom Mason Tops because they look super easy to clean.

Raspberry Mead – Micro Batch Recipe (2)

One quart batch of raspberry mead with a Fermentools fermentation kit (water lock).

Start by adding a bit of honey to the bottom of a quart mason jar. The basic instructions for a one-quart batch of mead have you add between 2/3 of a cup of honey and 1 cup of honey to get the right ratio of honey to water in your jar. With the added fruit sweetness, stick to 2/3 of a cup.

I’ve tried a full cup for this recipe, and it was cloyingly sweet and just a hair shy of cough syrup. Adding 2/3 of a cup is more than enough for a sweet dessert mead, and if you’re looking for something drier, go with 1/2 cup.

For raspberries, I had a half-pint (one cup) easily at hand. They were super fresh, about 10 minutes old from my patch. One cup is all I could keep from eating out of hand before I made it back to the kitchen, but it was plenty for this micro-batch.

Raspberry Mead – Micro Batch Recipe (3)

Quart mason jar with 2/3 cup honey and 1 cup raspberries for a micro-batch raspberry mead.

With honey and raspberries in the jar, getting your mead going is pretty effortless. Bring about 3 cups of water to a boil on the stove, then cool slightly for about 30 seconds before pouring it directly into the jar over the raspberries and honey.

Stir to dissolve the honey and incorporate the raspberries.

Once it’s cooled to room temperature, or at least cooled to 90 to 100 degrees so it won’t kill the yeast, add in a brewing yeast. For meads, I use packages of champagne yeast. One pack is enough to pitch a 5-gallon batch, so using the whole packet is overkill for a micro-batch.

I usually use about 1/4 of a yeast packet because it’s hard to actually extract less than that from a tiny packet. Dissolve it in room temperature chlorine-free water and pour it into your mason jar.

Related: How to Make One Quart of Mead (Micro Batch Method)

Raspberry Mead – Micro Batch Recipe (4)

Once it’s all said and done you should have 2/3 cup honey, 1 cup raspberries, a bit under 3 cups of water and about 1/4 of a packet ofchampagne yeast in your mason jar. Be sure to leave about an inch of headspace to allow for expansion and bubbling during fermentation.

Add on your mason jar fermentation kit and allow it to ferment at room temperature, out of direct sunlight for about 6 weeks.

The initial fermentation phase can be a bit intense, so after the first week if any fruit has made it into your water lock, pop it off and clean it out. Be sure to get it back on tight for the rest of your fermentation time.

When fermentation is complete, carefully pour off the mead into another jar, leaving the sediment behind.

I bottle mine, and allow it to age inGrolsch bottles for at least 2 weeks, preferably a bit longer.

Then, enjoy!

If you’re looking for more details on how to make a micro-batch mead, you can read an introduction to the micro-batch method here.

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Related

Raspberry Mead – Micro Batch Recipe (2024)

FAQs

How many raspberries for a gallon of mead? ›

You'll need 3 pounds of honey and roughly 6 ounces of raspberries per gallon.

How long does a small batch of mead take to ferment? ›

Fermentation: Keep fermentation temps up to around 70° or 75° F. Fermentation should last between 10 to 20 days. Rack into a conditioning vessel and bulk age for 3 to 6 months.

How much honey is needed for a batch of mead? ›

How Much Honey Should I Use? In this recipe, you can choose exactly how sweet you'd like your wine to be. We'll go over it in further detail later, but we recommend using between two and three pounds of honey per gallon of mead — 2 pounds if you want it on the dryer side, and 3 pounds if you'd like it to be sweeter.

What is the ratio for making mead? ›

The ratio of water to honey depends on the type of mead you want to make. For a dry mead, the ratio is 4 parts water to 1 part honey; a sweet mead is 2 to 1. Kluz likes his mead sweet, so he typically uses 1 3/4 gallons of honey and tops it off with 3 1/4 gallons of water.

How much berries to add to mead? ›

A good starting point with most fruits is about 3 pounds of fruit per gallon of mead, though I have been known to use 5 or even 6 pounds of fruit.

How long do you leave berries in mead? ›

Pour the fruit puree into the fermentation jar. Rack the mead from the carboy to the fermentation jar, taking care to leave as much lees as possible at the bottom of the carboy. Place the lid on the jar and refrigerate for 1 to 2 weeks.

Do smaller batches of mead ferment faster? ›

Keep in mind that a one-gallon batch will almost always ferment faster than a five-gallon batch, but there are a few techniques for speeding up both. To put it simply, mead has a lot of sugars.

What is the shortest time to make mead? ›

If you're using less honey to make more of a beer-like mead, those can be fully fermented and drinkable in under a month. Other types can take a few months. It just depends on the amount of honey. Amount of honey primarily is what it depends on, and some yeasts ferment honey faster than others.

What happens if I add too much honey to mead? ›

If you put in a bunch of honey and you get enough yeast (the right kind of yeast where it ferments all the way out) then you'll have a really dry, high alcohol champagne-like mead. You can use less honey to make a lower alcohol mead. Using less honey might make it a little bit more dry, though not necessarily.

Does more honey make mead stronger? ›

Potentially, using the most amount of honey can lead to up 18% ABV which makes it a strong beverage. Using one pound, or 1.3 cups, of honey tends to result in a very light drink in terms of both flavor and alcohol content. That is expected since the yeast will not have much to eat.

What is the best honey for berry mead? ›

So, out of the 300 types, what is the best honey for mead? Meaderies, whether commercial or homebased, agree that honey harvested locally is the best kind. As for a specific kind of honey, orange blossom came out as a highly popular one because of its consistent flavor as well as citrusy taste.

Why does no one drink mead anymore? ›

Why did it fall out of favor? There were some new tax laws, as well as an increased availability of West Indian sugar in the 17th century that made honey harder and less necessary to obtain. But it was also the rise of other alcohols—namely beer and wine—that really did it in.

How many cloves to add to mead? ›

1/2 a clove per gallon (These are quite strong, 1-2 in a 5 gallon batch is good – Though the flavour will mellow a lot during the ageing process.) This recipe will yield a medium bodied mead. adjust the volume of honey to your liking. Less will produce a dryer mead and more will produce a sweeter mead.

What happens if you add too much yeast to mead? ›

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In general, more yeast is actually better, at least at first. But you can, if you severely over-pitch, end up dosing your must with so many ravenously hungry yeast cells that they over compete for the sugar and nutrients, resulting in stressed yeast and resulting production of off flavors.

How much fruit per gallon of mead? ›

The numbers above are for fruit in secondary, as a guideline, if you want a strong sweet melomel, add up to 4 lbs/gal of berries or stone fruits to primary fermenter. If you prefer a dry mead, reduce the levels to 1 to 1.5 lbs/gal and keep the alcohol content below 10% ABV to reduce the harshness of the final melomel."

Can you add raspberries to mead? ›

The first thing you need to do is add raspberries. to your vessel. Freezing your berries before can help add more flavor. Just make sure they are thought when you add them. After that, you're gonna add your honey.

How many gallons of water do raspberries need? ›

A new planting in sandy loam soil requires 18 gallons per day per 100 feet of row. A mature planting in the same soil type requires 27 gallons per day per 100 feet of row. Increase the water rate for sandier soil, and decrease it for heavier soil.

How many raspberry plants per 5 gallon bucket? ›

Planting tips: Plant raspberries in a container that is at least 24 to 36 inches wide and deep. Half-barrels or five-gallon pots are ideal sizes that allow enough room for new canes to grow in future years. Start with three to six canes, depending on the size of the container.

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