Meadmaxxing with the Homies

03 Oct, 2026

A while ago, I expressed my desire to make a strong, still braggot -- a kind of mead that you make by fermenting honey and malted barley together. I'd meant to do it that weekend, but then some of my friends said they wanted to make mead with me, and they ended up wanting to do it last Friday. So, I went and started my braggot that day, but I also started three other meads (all of them in 1.5 gallon fermenters).¹

The braggot was the simplest. I'd meant to put in 1.25 pounds of dark dry malt extract and ~1.5-2 pounds of clover honey, but I just eyeballed it. You only live once, or whatever. The amount of water I put in was deeply vibes based as well, I just got it to a bit over a gallon. It has a beautiful dark amber color, bit like a darker brown ale.

It was pretty foamy, so I had a hard time determining the starting gravity, but it was around, 1.095, which would give us ~12.5% if everything ferments. That might not happen, since malt contains some non-fermentable sugars. But, if it doesn't, I'll probably backsweeten it a little -- I want this to be cold, sweet, and chocolatey, it's intended to be drunk with dessert. Part of me feels like it might be nice backsweetened with buckwheat honey, I feel like that'd either be great or terrible.

The others were all melomels. But, only one of them contained whole fruit. That was a blackberry mead. I ended up using orange blossom honey and 2 pounds of blackberries in primary. I might put some more in secondary -- I've never used whole fruit before, but I think I've heard you get more flavor and aroma if you put the fruit in secondary. I can't remember how much honey I put in it, but the starting gravity was ~1.085, and could come out to 11%. I dunno if I'll backsweeten it or not, depends on how tart the final product is. I don't want it to be super sweet, but it might need some honey for balance if the berries are too acidic.

The other two I just made from store-bought fruit juice. The first was made from tart cherry juice and a dark wildflower. It was 1.100, which could come out to ~13%. I've heard people say tart cherry meads read like light red wines if they're totally dry, and that sounds nice. I've also heard they're more overtly cherry-y and mead-y if you backsweeten them, and that also might be nice. Just depends what mood I'm in several weeks hence.

The other one was sort of a joke. In the past, I made Methodist Wine as a joke, fermenting Welch's grape juice for kicks and giggles. It was actually not bad, but it didn't taste particularly vinous -- it had a very strong "grape" note that red wines don't typically have (I think sommeliers use the word "foxy" for some incomprehensible reason?). Like, it sort of tasted like cheap wine, but it also sort of tasted like Welch's grape juice. I found myself wondering if I'd like it more if it was billed as "grapey alcoholic thing" rather than "sweet red wine." So, that's what we're doing here. I'm making a mead with Welch's, I'm gonna keep it sweet, and I'm going to bill it as "Grape Jelly Mead" rather than "Methodist Wine." We'll see how that goes -- I figure it'll either be lovely or horrible. The starting gravity was 1.12, which is awfully high, so it might finish sweet. But I'm using EC1118, and I gave it everything a growing yeast needs, so one can never tell.

All of them were fermenting vigorously for the first few days, now they've mostly quieted down to gentle bubbling. I tasted a bit of the blackberry while I punched down the fruit cap yesterday, and it was notably less sweet than it was when it started. I wouldn't be surprised if it were done soon. I'll probably do a reading tomorrow, if I'm in the right mood.