Notes:

• 3lbs honey to 1 gallon of water ratio (can be scaled to however much you want to make; just remember that honey also has volume, and you will need a 6.5 gallon carboy for a 5 gallon batch of mead. This ratio makes a mead of medium sweetness.)

• Lallemand Voss Kveik Ale Yeast (preferred, can use other kveiks, but not other ale yeasts. They leave a musty aftertaste in the mead that kveiks do not.)

Steps:

• After sanitizing all equipment, combine honey and water in an appropriate vessel, mixing thoroughly. You can boil the honey if you want to, but it is not necessary unless it is raw honey straight from the comb. In that case, you want to wash the comb out in the water by squeezing it, and then boil it to skim any wax or impurities. Your water should be between 95-105 degrees F. This yeast prefers a warmer pitch temp than something like D47.

• Bloom the kveik yeast in a sanitized jar or cup (I use a mason jar or pyrex cup) by mixing it with the honey water. You will know it is bloomed and ready when there is a layer of thick, fluffy yeast sitting atop the liquid. When you have this layer, pitch it into the rest of the honey water. Shake/stir well to oxygenate the honey water and the yeast, then close with an airlock.

• This will be a very strong, very quick primary ferment. In the summer, under two days. In the winter, between 2-3 days. Keep it in the warmest place in your house, by a heat vent, or with a heating pad (I have kept mine by my gaming computer). You will know the primary ferment is finished when the big fluffy yeast raft (also called krausen) settles and falls to the bottom of the fermenting vessel.

• You can do two things now. If you intend to drink this soon, you can bottle this and it will carbonate and be fizzy and light. You can also age this in secondary ferment, which will require pouring off the mead into a new, clean fermenter with a new airlock.

• Be aware though, if you bottle it young and do not drink it within a week or so, it will continue to carbonate and be explosive. Think mead fountain. When serving it young, I like to bottle it the day before I intend to serve it. It also ages very well. I have bottles of this recipe that are now two years old [January 2026] and I just opened one to good success.

• Note: you can keep the yeast you use in the first ferment. It's not dead! Just dormant. I keep mine in a jar in the fridge and re-use it. It's been running strong for four years now, I just feed it sugar periodically.