Mead is one of the easiest ways to start fermenting at home, but the equipment list can still feel overwhelming when you are staring at a catalog for the first time. This is the second part of a series that will walk through making your first mead from start to finish.

In this article I will cover the gear you actually need to make your first one-gallon batch. I will keep the list tight, point out where you can save money, and flag the few upgrades worth making once you know you enjoy the process.

What Mead Requires

The only real requirement for making mead is a vessel for fermentation. This can be as simple as a one-gallon juice jug. You just need a way to keep bugs out while allowing CO2 to escape; a rubber band and a piece of paper towel secured over the top of the vessel works perfectly fine.

All equipment listed below is what I personally use and have collected over the years. You are free to use any equipment you choose; this is the gear I’ve found makes my process easy.

Ultimately, you can make mead in your kitchen without spending a penny beyond the ingredients and the yeast. At its most basic, all you need is honey, water, and yeast.

Mixing and Measuring Tools

Grab a slotted paddle or a slotted spoon from your kitchen drawer. You only need this to stir in your ingredients. Technically, you don't even have to mix—the brew will ferment just fine without it—but if you're using a hydrometer for an original gravity reading, you need a good mix or your numbers will be off.

If you're serious about tracking your ABV, get a triple‑scale hydrometer. It's the only way to accurately measure your gravities as the brew progresses.

Get yourself some measuring cups and spoons early on. If you have a significant other, they’ll get tired of you borrowing their kitchen tools pretty fast, and having your own set keeps the peace.

A kitchen scale is another upgrade worth making. You’ll want one that can handle heavy weights, because you may end up setting a fermenter full of liquid right on it and using the tare function to weigh your additions. I personally use the Escali Primo Digital Kitchen Scale, and it’s what I suggest.

Fermentation Equipment

I’ve gathered a core set of tools that gets the job done with minimal mess—most of it is essential, though you don’t have to own every piece. This is what I personally use, and it covers the basics so you can focus on the mead rather than the cleanup.

Airlocks

I use an airlock at every step of the fermentation process—from primary through secondary fermentation—right up until bottling day. I keep a Fastrack 10‑Pack Airlocks (BPA‑Free) on hand; a 10‑pack means they’re inexpensive enough that I’m not worried if one gets lost or cracked mid‑batch. They work fine for both primary and secondary fermentations.

Primary Fermentation

I personally use a 1.4 to 1.5 gallon wide-mouth fermenter such as the Little Big Mouth Bubbler. The extra room is great, and the wide mouth makes it painless to add fruit or other additions without having to fish them out of a narrow‑neck jug.

Secondary Fermentation

After primary fermentation I transfer the mead into a clean vessel for secondary fermentation. This is the long conditioning and aging step where the mead clears and the flavors mellow. The vessel stays sealed with an airlock or rubber stopper.

I keep two different vessels on hand for secondary. When I want to add fruit, spices, or oak, I use a wide‑mouth fermenter because the wide opening makes it easy to get additions in and out. For plain traditional meads that just need to clear, I use 1‑gallon jugs. Both work; the choice depends on whether I am adding solids during secondary.

Racking and Bottling

You can bottle your mead in any type of container you like. Premium wine bottles work beautifully with cork stoppers, and if you don't mind spending a bit, a Portuguese Floor Corker makes the job smooth. I don't cork my bottles myself and I don't own this style of corker yet; I may pick one up down the road as my collection of filled bottles grows, but I haven't made that move so far.

For the ultra-budget minded, reusable beer bottles are perfectly fine. They're cheap to source, and the capping machine needed to seal them typically under $20. A hand capper like the WENNING Bottle Capping Machine will handle crown caps without much fuss. I personally stick with a set of swing-top bottles that come in a few different sizes, which I've found works best for my workflow.

When you're ready to bottle, a fermenter equipped with a spigot and a hose makes filling a breeze—just open and close the valve for each fill. If you want a cleaner setup that handles the transfer and fill in one go, I suggest the Dbgogo Auto-Siphon and Bottle Filler Set. It comes with both the auto-siphon and the bottle-filling wand, which reduces mess and speeds up the whole bottling process.

My Starter Setup

If I were putting together a starter kit today, I would begin with one of each of the core items below. Yes, that means buying the 10‑pack of airlocks even though it sounds like overkill. They’re cheap, and you’ll eventually reach for one only to find every other fermenter already has one in use.

• Little Big Mouth Bubbler
• Fastrack 10‑Pack Airlocks (BPA‑Free)
• Wide‑mouth fermenter for secondary
• 1‑gallon jugs for secondary fermentation
• Triple‑scale hydrometer
• Escali Primo Digital Kitchen Scale
• WENNING Bottle Capping Machine
• Dbgogo Auto-Siphon and Bottle Filler Set

Taken together, this puts the entry cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $180–$260 for the essential gear. Prices shift around, so treat that figure as a snapshot based on what I’m seeing at the time of writing rather than an exact quote. You can absolutely spend less by borrowing kitchen tools, skipping the scale, or using swing‑top bottles instead of a capper, but this set gives you a solid, repeatable workflow from the first batch.