This is about the simplest one-gallon mead recipe you can make: honey, water, and yeast, with nutrients to keep the yeast healthy. It makes a clean, honey-forward traditional mead of about 12–14% ABV, and it’s the ideal first batch because there’s nothing to hide behind — you taste exactly what your honey and fermentation give you.
The simple 1-gallon mead recipe at a glance
Everything you need and every step, in one scannable block. The full detail on each stage follows below.
- 1Mix Dissolve 2.5–3 lb honey into spring water, then top up to 1 gallon (3.8 L). Do not boil.
- 2Read gravity Take an original gravity reading — aim for about 1.100 — then pitch one sachet of D47 or 71B yeast.
- 3Add nutrients Add yeast nutrient in staggered (TOSNA-style) doses over the first week to prevent a stalled, stinky ferment.
- 4Ferment Ferment 2–4 weeks at 15–20°C until gravity is stable and near 1.000.
- 5Rack and age Rack off the sediment and age 3–6 months minimum — it is the single biggest quality upgrade.
Want a different size or sweetness? The mead recipe calculator gives exact honey, water, and nutrient amounts for any batch and target ABV.
What you'll need
This makes one gallon (3.8 L) of standard-strength traditional mead. Quantities are a starting point — the exact honey depends on your target gravity.
You’ll also need a sanitised 1-gallon carboy or jug, an airlock and bung, a hydrometer, and a racking cane or siphon.
Choose your target gravity
How much honey you add sets your original gravity (OG) — the starting sugar concentration — which determines potential alcohol. Traditional mead usually aims around 1.100.
Because your yeast will ferment most of the sugar, the mead finishes dry to off-dry unless you overshoot its alcohol tolerance. To dial in an exact number, run your batch size and target through the recipe calculator rather than guessing.
Mix the must
The unfermented honey-water mixture is called the must. Don’t boil it — boiling blows off the honey aromatics you’re paying for.
- 1Sanitise everything Carboy, airlock, spoon, hydrometer, funnel. Use a no-rinse sanitiser (Star San). Contamination is the number-one cause of a ruined first batch — heat is not a substitute for clean gear.
- 2Dissolve the honey Add your honey to the carboy, then pour in warm (not hot) water — around 2–3 quarts. Cap and shake, or stir, until no honey sits at the bottom. Warming the water slightly makes it dissolve faster.
- 3Top up to 1 gallon Add cool water until the total volume reaches the 1-gallon mark, leaving a few inches of headspace for foam. Let it settle to room temperature (18–24°C / 65–75°F) before pitching yeast.
- 4Take your OG reading Draw a sample and float your hydrometer. Record the original gravity — you need it later to calculate ABV. It should land near your target (e.g. 1.100).
Related calculator
Mead Recipe Calculator
Enter batch size, target ABV, sweetness, and yeast to get a full mead recipe — honey, water, OG/FG, nutrients, and yeast amounts.
Pitch the yeast
For the best start, rehydrate dry yeast rather than sprinkling it dry. Stir the sachet into about 50 ml of 40°C (104°F) water (ideally with Go-Ferm), wait 15 minutes, then gently combine with a little must to acclimate before adding it all to the carboy.
Fit the airlock with a little sanitiser or vodka in it, and set the carboy somewhere with a stable temperature in your yeast’s range — D47 is happiest around 15–20°C (59–68°F), 71B is more forgiving. Within 12–48 hours you should see bubbles. Not sure which strain to choose? The best yeast for mead guide compares D47, 71B, K1V-1116, and EC-1118 by alcohol tolerance and flavor.
Free Mead Brewing Playbook (printable PDF)
A printable PDF companion for the mead calculators and guides.
Feed the yeast (staggered nutrients)
Honey lacks the nitrogen yeast needs, so add nutrient in stages over the first week rather than all at once. This TOSNA-style approach makes a cleaner mead with fewer off-flavours.
- 124 hours after pitching Add the first dose of nutrient and gently stir or swirl to mix and release CO₂. Fermentation should be visibly active by now.
- 2Day 3 Add the second dose. Give the carboy a gentle swirl to rouse the yeast and knock out dissolved gas.
- 3Day 5–7 (about 1/3 sugar break) Add the final dose once roughly a third of the sugar has fermented (gravity has dropped about a third of the way toward 1.000). After this, stop adding nutrient.
Follow the dosage on your nutrient packet for a 1-gallon batch. Swirling to degas during the first week is one of the easiest ways to keep the ferment healthy.
Fermentation and racking
Active fermentation runs 2–4 weeks. Airlock activity slows and then stops, and the mead begins to clear from the top down as yeast drops out. Confirm it’s done by taking two hydrometer readings a few days apart — when the gravity is stable and near 1.000 (or below), primary fermentation is finished.
Once fermentation stops and a layer of sediment (lees) has formed, rack the mead — siphon it off the sediment into a clean, sanitised vessel, leaving the sludge behind. Racking off the lees prevents off-flavours and is the point where a rough young mead starts becoming a good one.
Sweetening, aging, and bottling
Traditional mead almost always finishes dry. If you want it sweeter, first stabilise with potassium sorbate plus potassium metabisulfite to stop the yeast, then backsweeten with more honey to taste — otherwise fresh honey will just re-ferment.
Then age it. This is the step beginners skip and regret: a two-week-old mead is hot and yeasty, but the same mead at 6–12 months is smooth and complex. Rack again if more sediment drops, keep it cool and dark, and bottle once it’s clear and stable.
Watch for
- Bottling before fermentation fully stops — bottles can over-carbonate or burst.
- Backsweetening without stabilising first — the yeast wakes up and re-ferments.
- Skipping aging — young traditional mead tastes harsh and unfinished.
- Leaving the mead on thick lees for months — can add yeasty, sulfury off-flavours.
