Pick a recipe, get honey/water amounts scaled to your batch — or unlock Pro for water treatment, nutrient dosing, and stabilization/priming.
Click any mead recipe below. Each one has proven target gravity, honey type, and process steps.
Type how many liters you're making (e.g. 19 L / 5 gal). The calculator scales the honey weight and water volume to hit the same target OG.
You'll get the exact honey weight, water volume, and expected OG/FG/ABV, plus the process steps for that recipe.
OG — starting sugar density of the must, measured before fermentation. FG — density after fermentation finishes; compare it to this number to know when your mead is done. ABV — final alcohol strength.
Mead doesn't need mash-pH mineral engineering the way beer does — the one thing that matters is neutralizing chlorine/chloramine before the honey goes in. This calculates your Campden tablet dose.
The total water going into the must — not the finished batch size (honey adds a little volume of its own).
Most municipal tap water uses chlorine or chloramine for disinfection — both need neutralizing before yeast goes in, or they can produce harsh, medicinal off-flavors. Already-filtered or distilled/RO water skips this step.
If your source needs treating, you'll get the exact number of Campden tablets for your batch volume.
Want the chemistry behind chlorine, chloramine, and water hardness in mead? See Chapter 2: Water in Home Meadmaking Science →
Get the exact Campden tablet dose to neutralize chlorine/chloramine in your batch water. This is a Pro feature.
Unlock with Pro — $6/moDiluted honey has almost no assimilable nitrogen. This scales the book's practical dosing ratio to your batch size, split into a staggered addition schedule.
The total must volume you're fermenting.
You'll get the total DAP and Fermaid K (or similar complex blend) amounts, plus a Day 0/2/4 staggered dosing schedule.
Follow the three-part schedule rather than dosing everything at pitch — it keeps the yeast population in healthier conditions and lowers the risk of a rotten-egg (hydrogen sulfide) smell from an overwhelmed early colony.
Research points to ~267 mg/L YAN as the optimal target for mead fermentation, but hitting an exact YAN figure requires lab analysis most home mead-makers don't have access to — so this tool uses the book's practical ratio instead of back-calculating from a target. Want the full nitrogen-source comparison (DAP vs. pollen vs. Fermaid) and the science behind YAN? See Chapter 3: Yeast Nutrition in Home Meadmaking Science →
Get the exact DAP dose and a staggered addition schedule for your target YAN. This is a Pro feature.
Unlock with Pro — $6/moSulfite + sorbate dosing before bottling still mead, or a priming sugar dose for sparkling mead — pick which one you need below.
Bottling a still, back-sweetened mead needs sulfite + sorbate to stop renewed fermentation. Bottling a sparkling mead needs a priming sugar dose instead — these are two different jobs, so pick the one you're actually doing.
You'll get the sulfite and sorbate doses for your volume, plus the 24-hour wait between them.
Temperature matters because it sets how much CO₂ is already dissolved — use the warmest point your mead reached after fermentation, not the current room temperature.
You'll get exact gram doses either way — never estimate sulfite or priming sugar by eye.
Order matters: add potassium metabisulfite (sulfite) first, wait 24 hours, then add potassium sorbate. Adding sorbate before sulfite risks a distinctive crushed-geranium off-flavor from lactic acid bacteria metabolizing sorbic acid — there's no fix once bottled (see Home Meadmaking Guide Ch.5).
Want the full stabilization & carbonation chemistry? See Chapters 7-8 in Home Meadmaking Science →
Get exact sulfite/sorbate doses before bottling, or a priming sugar dose for sparkling mead. This is a Pro feature.
Unlock with Pro — $6/mo