Meadmaking With Ken Schramm: Honey & Fermentation

Honey. Water. Yeast. Plenty to explore.

Mead is an alcoholic beverage made by fermenting honey with water. The ingredient list can be short, but the possibilities certainly aren’t. Honey varieties, yeast selection, fruit additions, and fermentation techniques all give meadmakers room to experiment.

Explore three articles by Ken Schramm, author of The Compleat Meadmaker, including two written with Daniel S. McConnell. From choosing honey to understanding yeast nutrition, this collection digs into what happens between the honey jar and your glass.

Where should you start? For a broad introduction, try Mead Success. For a closer look at honey’s composition, explore An Analysis of Mead. For yeast health and nutrient management, head to Optimizing Honey Fermentation.

From the archives: These articles reflect the research, terminology, and practices of their original publication periods. Meadmaking methods have continued to evolve, and recommendations differ across the collection.

Optimizing Honey Fermentation Download

Mead Success: Ingredients, Processes and Techniques

By Daniel S. McConnell and Kenneth D. Schramm

Great mead starts with curiosity and good ingredients. This article explores honey selection, yeast, nutrients, acidity, and the choices that shape fermentation. It also includes recipes for dry sparkling and medium-sweet still meads, approaches to adding fruit, and results from an experiment comparing different honeys and yeast strains.

Read this for: A broad introduction to meadmaking ingredients and techniques, with recipes and tasting notes to explore.

An Analysis of Mead, Mead Making and the Role of its Primary Constituents Download

An Analysis of Mead, Mead Making and the Role of its Primary Constituents

By Daniel S. McConnell and Kenneth D. Schramm

What’s really in that jar of honey? More than sugar, as it turns out. This detailed reference examines honey’s sugars, acids, minerals, enzymes, and aroma compounds, then connects those characteristics to meadmaking decisions.

The authors explore differences among floral varieties, honey storage, must preparation, yeast nutrition, and fermentation. An experimental comparison of honey varieties and yeast strains brings those questions into the fermenter.

Read this for: A deeper understanding of honey composition and how ingredients and process choices influence mead.

Optimizing Honey Fermentation Download

Optimizing Honey Fermentation

By Ken Schramm

Honey brings the fermentable sugars. Yeast needs a little more on its plate.

Ken examines the nutritional challenges of honey fermentation, drawing on laboratory analyses of several honey musts. The article explores free amino nitrogen, vitamins, minerals, yeast membrane health, pH, and staggered nutrient additions. It also considers the challenges that fruit and spices can introduce during fermentation.

Read this for: A closer look at yeast health, nutrient management, and the factors behind sluggish mead fermentations.

About Ken Schramm

Ken Schramm is the author of The Compleat Meadmaker, published by Brewers Publications in 2003, and a co-founder of the Mazer Cup Mead Competition. His connection to homebrewing began with a Christmas gift: a brewing kit from his brother in 1987.

Since then, Ken has shared his knowledge through articles, conference presentations, and service to the American Homebrewers Association. He served on the AHA Board of Advisors from 1994 to 2002 and received the AHA Governing Committee Recognition Award in 2014.

Ken Schramm developed a strong love of good beer in his early alcohol consuming years around Detroit, MI, and was a dyed-in-the-wool “beer snob” by the time he graduated from Eastern Michigan University in 1981. He got interested in homebrewing when his brother, Mike, gave him a brewing kit for Christmas in 1987. In less than a year, he had joined the AHA, befriended meadmaking and brewing savant Bill Pfeiffer, and joined the Ann Arbor Brewers Guild. In 1992, he co-founded the Mazer Cup Mead Competition, the world’s oldest mead-only competition, with Michigan craft icons Dr. Dan McConnell and “Brewguyver” Mike O’Brien. In 1993, the group also co-founded the Michigan State Fair Homebrewing competition. Schramm served on the AHA Board of Advisors from 1994-2002, and was instrumental in bringing the 2000 AHA Conference to Livonia, MI. He has presented at brewing, meadmaking and winemaking conferences from Delaware to Alaska over the past 30+ years, kicked off in Denver in 1994 with the groundbreaking “Mead Matrix” with McConnell: twelve meads from one recipe – six from the same honey using different yeast strains and six with the same yeast strain using different varietal honeys. Ken and Dan penned a number of articles on brewing, meadmaking and equipment for Zymurgy Magazine in the 1990s. Ken wrote “The Compleat Meadmaker,” which was published by Brewers Publications in 2003. The book has been a foundational part of the mead revolution that is still gaining momentum across the country. Schramm received the AHA Governing Committee Recognition Award in 2014.He lives in Troy, Michigan.

Ken and his daughter Alyson co-founded Schramm’s Mead, a family owned and operated meadery, with a tasting room and production facility in Ferndale, Michigan. They also owned a six-acre orchard a few miles north in Rochester Hills. The family goal is to make memorable mead experiences for consumers interested in exploring the limits of quality in mead.

Schramm’s Mead got the keys to its first space in January of 2013 and opened its doors to the public in late September that year. Schramm’s specializes in fruit meads flavored with real, whole fruits such as tart cherries, boysenberries, currants and raspberries, among others. Schramm’s Mead also makes meads spiced with real ginger and nutmeg, and barrel aged meads, including some aged with premium cocoa nibs and vanilla beans. Schramm’s Mead makes a few “traditional” meads from curated honey blends, and from unique and deeply complex honeys such as Tasmanian Leatherwood and Scottish Heather.

Keep the Fermentation Conversation Going

Have a honey variety you love or a meadmaking experiment to share? Bring your questions and discoveries to the AHA Forum. There’s always more to learn when we compare notes.

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