If using fruit, prepare the bucket by stretching the straining bag over the bucket.

Clean the fruit & squish with your hands or a potato masher or use a grater for hard fruits.  Then put in straining bag in the bucket. If your fruit has stones (like cherries & plums) remove the stones.

Tie up the straining bag with a knot, so the fruit is enclosed in the bag.

If not using fruit, continue from this step

Pour the boiling water into the bucket.

Pour in the honey and stir until all the honey is dissolved.  Use some hot water to swill out the honey jars.

Leave to cool to 20°C

Add the pectic enzyme and 1 crushed campden tablet and stir.

Pop the lid on, put the airlock in the lid and fill ½ way up the first bubble with water. Now leave for 24 hours at 20°C

Take a sample of the juice in the trial jar and with the hydrometer take a Specific Gravity reading and keep the reading safe.

Add the yeast and yeast nutrient and stir.

Pop the lid on, with the airlock, and ferment for 7 days. Do not lift the lid. Keep the temperature at 20°C

After 7 days have passed, remove the lid. If you have used fruit, remove the straining bag of fruit and gently massage it to extract as much juice as possible from the fruit in the bag.

Using the syphon, syphon the mead from the bucket into a demi-john, trying to avoid sucking up the sediment at the bottom of the bucket.

Leave for 2 more weeks at 20°C to finish fermenting. Even if no bubbles are seen through the airlock, leave for the full 2 weeks.

Check the mead with a hydrometer to make sure the specific gravity is below 1.000 (ideally 0.996). If not leave for another couple of weeks.

Syphon the mead off the sediment into the cleaned bucket.

Clean out the demi-john, then syphon the mead from the bucket back into the demi-john. Put the airlock in.

Swirl the mead for 1 minute. This will knock out any CO2 dissolved in the mead. You are not trying to mix air in, so make sure you do not create a vortex or splash the mead. The gas should escape through the airlock.

Swirl the mead around again for 3 more times leaving 5 mins in between each swirling.

Leave for 2 days giving 3 x 1 minute swirls each day.

After 2 days, put the demi-john somewhere cool to start the clearing process.

Leave to clear. Depending on the fruit used, it can take anywhere from 2 weeks to 2 months for the mead to clear. But it will clear. You can speed the process up using finings, which is available to purchase on our website.

Once clear rack the mead off the sediment into the bucket.

We recommend filtering your wine before bottling using a Harris Mark III filter to remove any microscopic particles.  This helps remove any yeasty homebrew flavours.

Bottle.

Store for 3 months in the bottles to condition.

If you want to make more than 4.5 litres (6 bottles) then just make more and adjust the quantities accordingly.

Happy brewing.