Joe's Ancient Orange Mead Recipe
Joe's Ancient Orange Mead Recipe
Joe's Ancient Orange Mead Recipe (also known as JAO) is the mead recipe you'll find all over the internet. It was originally posted by Joe Mattioli on a website called Got Mead many years ago and went viral.
I hooked up with Steve Gibson at the Sussex Bee Festival this year. Steve (aka Steve The Mead Guy on Instagram) gave a demonstration on Mead Making for Beginners, and Joe's Ancient Orange Mead Recipe is the one he generally demonstrates with. It's quick, simple and it works so it's the perfect recipe if you haven't made Mead before.
We now sell Mead Starter Kits, and this is the recipe we include in the kit on Steve's recommendation.
We couldn't put a link to Joe's website here because we couldn't find one, but we did find an interview with Joe Mattioli here! The interview was with GotMead.com which is a fantastic resource for Mead makers everywhere, and the interview starts around 10 minutes into the programme.
Joe's Ancient Orange Mead Recipe
Ingredients
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- 3.5 lbs Clover or your choice honey or blend (will finish sweet)
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- 1 large orange (later cut in eights or smaller rind and all)
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- 1 small handful raisins (25 if you count but more or less ok)
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- 1 stick cinnamon
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1 whole clove (or 2 if you like, these critters are potent!)
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1 whole clove (or 2 if you like, these critters are potent!)
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- 1 pinch nutmeg or allspice (very small)
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- 1 package Fleishmann’s bread yeast ( now don't get holy on me--- after all this is an ancient mead and that's all we had back then) <Steve recommends Mangrove Jack's Mead Yeast M05 as he thinks it gets a better result>
- water to 1 gallon.
Instructions
- Use a clean 1 gallon carboy.
- Dissolve honey in some warm water and put in carboy.
- Wash orange well to remove any pesticides and slice in eights --add orange (you can push em through opening big boy -- rinds included -- its ok for this mead -- take my word for it -- ignore the experts)#
- Put in raisins, clove, cinnamon stick, any optional ingredients and fill to 3 inches from the top with cold water. (Need room for some foam -- you can top off with more water after the first few day frenzy.)
- Shake the heck out of the jug with top on, of course. This is your sophisticated aeration process.
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When at room temperature in your kitchen, put in 1 teaspoon of bread yeast
Mead Yeast - see above>. (No you don't have to rehydrate it first-- the ancients didn't even have that word in their vocabulary-- just put it in and give it a gentle swirl or not - the yeast can fight for their own territory.) - Install water airlock. Put in dark place. It will start working immediately or in an hour. (Don't use grandma's bread yeast she bought years before she passed away in the 90's. Wait 3 hours before you panic or call me.) After major foaming stops in a few days add some water and then keep your hands off of it. (Don't shake it! Don't mess with them yeastees! Let them alone except its okay to open your cabinet to smell every once in a while.
Recipe Notes
Racking --- Don't you dare
additional feeding --- NO NO NO
More stirring or shaking -- You're not listening, don't touch
After 2 months and maybe a few days it will slow down to a stop and clear all by itself. (How about that - You are not so important after all).
Then you can put a hose in with a small cloth filter on the end into the clear part and siphon off the golden nectar. If you wait long enough even the oranges will sink to the bottom but I never waited that long. If it is clear it is ready.
You don't need a cold basement. It does better in a kitchen in the dark. (Like in a cabinet) likes a little heat (70-80). If it didn't work out... you screwed up and didn't read my instructions (or used grandma's bread yeast she bought years before she passed away).
And that's the mead recipe! With thanks to Joe Mattioli, the man who originally posted it on GotMead.com.
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Hi there, I’ve just received my mead starter kit and very much looking forward to getting stuck in :) Just one question (maybe two).. if I wanted to attempt making my first batch more ‘dry’ rather than with a sweet finish, do I just use less honey and if so, how much would you recommend rather than using 3.5lbs ? Or am I getting ahead of myself and I should just stick to the JAO recipe and not mess with it, especially being my first attempt? Cheers
Hi Rob. If it’s been a few hours, it may just not have got started yet. Or it may have started, but you can’t see it. If you’re making it in a bucket, gently lift the lid a bit and see if you can see any activity on the surface, like foam or movement. If you can, it’s fermenting but not strongly enough yet to push the water through the airlock, or the bucket isn’t sealed properly so the air is escaping that way instead of through the airlock. If you can’t see any sign of life, it could either be that something in the process has gone wrong. If you’ve made the mead with our kit you will have yeast left. So you can test a bit of that to check the yeast is alive (see my post under brewing category for testing old yeast or put this link into your browser, sorry I can’t make it clickable here https://www.almostoffgrid.com/blogs/almost-off-grid/homebrew-tips-is-it-ok-to-use-expired-yeast) – your yeast is likely still in date but you can still check it to make sure it’s not a yeast issue. Hope this helps.
I’ve followed the recipe to the letter, but nothing is bubbling through the airlock. I’ve checked to make sure the end is below the surface. What’s wrong?
Hi Rob, when bottling time comes, you need to sterilise your bottles the same way as you did all the other equipment, with a cleaner/steriliser such as VWP, along with the food grade syphon that you’ll need to move the mead from the demijohn/bucket to the bottle. We recommend the simple syphon because it gives you more control over the stream, with a little tap which you can turn on and off between bottles.
You can use plastic screw top bottles if that’s what you have, a nicer option is glass with a stopper or swing top. Since all fermentation should have totally stopped before bottling, there should be no issues with fermentation (exploding bottles in other words!). If however you decided to make a sparkling mead then I would use either PET and loosen the top occasionally to release the pressure, or swing top bottles. So all manner of answers really (that’s home brew for you) but whichever you choose, be sure to sterilise everything so your lovely mead doesn’t get contaminated right at the end.
I’ve just received my kit and look forward to using it. When it comes to bottling, what are the best type of bottles to use and what is the easiest way to go about it?