Mead is one of the easiest ways to start fermenting at home. At its most basic, all you need is honey, water, and yeast. A one-gallon juice jug with a piece of paper towel held over the top by a rubber band will make perfectly drinkable mead.

But if you want a clean, repeatable process, a few pieces of equipment make life much easier. This is the second part of a series that walks through making your first mead from start to finish. In this article I will cover the gear you actually need for a one-gallon batch, point out where you can save money, and flag the few upgrades worth making once you know you enjoy the hobby.

The Bare Minimum

You can make a drinkable one-gallon batch with just a few things. None of them are exotic.

A Fermenter

For one-gallon batches a glass gallon jug works, but I recommend starting with a 1.4–1.5 gallon fermentation vessel instead. The extra headspace catches the foam from active fermentation and makes temperature swings less dramatic. It also means you are not mopping krausen off your floor because you cut the headspace too close.

Glass fermenters are easy to find used at tag sales and thrift stores for a few dollars, and glass can be cleaned and reused almost indefinitely. Do not shy away from a used glass vessel as long as you inspect it for chips and clean it thoroughly before your first batch.

I highly recommend the Little Big Mouth Bubbler from Northern Brewer. It holds 1.4 gallons, has a wide mouth that actually fits a hand and a sponge, and is easy to clean without specialized brushes. At the time of writing it sells for $22.99. Get the plain version without the spigot — you do not need the spout for transferring liquid. I bought one with the spout, and over time I have regretted it; the spigot adds a place for leaks and gunk to hide, and a simple siphon is more reliable anyway.

The wide mouth is especially useful if you plan to add fruit during primary or secondary fermentation. Fishing chunks of fruit out of a narrow-neck jug is not something you want to do more than once.

An Airlock and Stopper

An airlock lets CO₂ escape while keeping oxygen and wild yeast out. I use one at every step, from primary fermentation through secondary fermentation, right up until bottling day.

I keep a Fastrack 10‑Pack Airlocks on hand. A 10‑pack is inexpensive enough that I am not worried if one gets lost or cracked mid‑batch, and they work fine for both primary and secondary fermentations.

Pay attention to the bung size your fermenter needs. The Little Big Mouth Bubbler takes a drilled size 5 bung, so make sure whatever stopper you order matches that spec. A size too small will leak; a size too large will fight you every time you sanitize and insert it. Different fermenters require different bung sizes, so whenever you buy a new fermenter, pick up several extra bungs in the matching size at the same time. They are cheap and easy to misplace, and you will not want to delay a brew day because one rolled under the fridge. The North Mountain Supply #5.5 drilled rubber stoppers work well and come in a pack of three for about $2.49 at the time of writing.

A Hydrometer

A hydrometer is the only way to accurately measure sugar content before and after fermentation, which lets you calculate ABV. They are fragile and only cost about ten dollars, so buy two while you are ordering.

Get one that comes with a hydrometer cylinder. The cylinder gives you a clean, narrow vessel to float the hydrometer in, which is much easier than trying to read it inside a fermenter full of foam. I like the Brewer's Elite Hydrometer Combo — it includes the hydrometer, a cylinder, and a hard case for about $21.99 at the time of writing.

You also need a way to fill that cylinder without making a mess. The best method I have found is a simple turkey baster — draw a sample from the fermenter, squirt it into the cylinder, and sanitize it just like everything else. You can pick one up cheap from almost anywhere.

Pour gravity samples back into the fermenter carefully to avoid oxidation.

A Racking Cane and Siphon Tubing

You need to move mead from the fermenter to bottles without dumping the yeast sediment in. A simple auto-siphon is easier than trying to start a siphon with your mouth, and it gives you much more control over what you transfer.

The Fermtech Mini Auto-Siphon is about $15.99 at the time of writing and is a game changer when moving mead from primary to secondary fermentation. This one is sized for small batches. If you ever scale up to larger volumes you will want a larger siphon.

For a cleaner setup that handles both the transfer and the fill in one go, the Dbgogo Auto-Siphon and Bottle Filler Set comes with both the auto-siphon and a bottle-filling wand, which reduces mess and speeds up the whole bottling process.

Bottles and Closures

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

For the ultra-budget minded, reusable beer bottles are perfectly fine. They are cheap to source, and the capping machine needed to seal them is typically under $20. A hand capper like the WENNING Bottle Capping Machine will handle crown caps without much fuss. Do not use twist-off bottles — the caps will not seal well and you will end up with flat mead.

I personally stick with a set of swing-top bottles that come in a few different sizes. The eispap swing-top bottles are about $23.99 at the time of writing. I mostly make still meads, so the swing-top seal is plenty strong for my needs. If I do bottle carbonate, I use crown caps and normal bottles because the pressure needs a stronger seal.

For a one-gallon batch you will fill about four of those swing-top bottles. If you are anything like me and want plenty of bottles in backup, you will want to buy a lot of them, and that is where a lot of the expense hides. I personally have eight large bottles and six small bottles on hand and still feel like I need about six times more than that.

Secondary Fermentation Vessels

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 fermentation. When I want to add fruit, spices, or oak, I use a wide‑mouth fermenter because the opening makes it easy to get additions in and out. For plain traditional meads that just need to clear, I use 1‑gallon glass jugs from North Mountain Supply. They are about $14.99 each at the time of writing.

Each of these jars needs its own airlock and drilled bung so gas can escape while the mead ages. I highly suggest looping a rubber band over the airlock and then around the handle on the neck of the jar to keep the airlock from working itself loose, especially when a jar sits untouched for months.

If you plan to keep more than one batch going at once, you will need a lot of these. Meads can sit in secondary fermentation for several months, and some stay there for a year or more. Having enough jars lets you keep several batches conditioning in secondary while still having free vessels for new primary fermentations.

The Nice-to-Haves

Once you know you like mead making, a few purchases make life easier.

Thermometer: Fermentation temperature matters. A stick-on thermometer on your fermenter gives you a quick reading. An inexpensive digital probe is useful if you are rehydrating yeast or adjusting must temperature.

Kitchen scale: Measuring ingredients by weight is more accurate than volume, especially for honey and additives. Pick one that can handle the weight of a full fermenter if you plan to set the vessel right on the scale and use the tare function. I use the Escali Primo Digital Kitchen Scale.

Funnel: A funnel with a strainer helps transfer must into a glass jug without spilling or clogging the neck.

Measuring cups and spoons: Get your own set early on. If you share a kitchen, your partner will get tired of you borrowing their tools.

What You Can Skip

• A kegging setup. Bottling is tedious but free if you save bottles. Kegging is great, but it gets expensive fast. A five-gallon Cornelius keg runs about $100–$130 each, and on top of that you need a CO₂ tank, a regulator, tubing, taps, connectors, a temperature controller if you convert a freezer into a keezer, and the freezer itself. It can quickly add up to $1,000–$2,000. It is not required to make good mead.

• A dedicated fermentation fridge. Temperature control matters for clean fermentation, but you can manage early batches by brewing styles that match your ambient temperature, or by using a swamp cooler setup with a tub of water and frozen bottles. I ferment primary on my kitchen counter at room temperature, which does fluctuate. Secondary aging jars sit on the same counter, out of direct sunlight but still in ambient light. At some point I really do need to set up a fermentation station, but I do not have the time or money for that right now.

• Fancy pH meters and lab gear. Useful later, completely unnecessary for your first few batches.

What This Actually Costs

Here is a realistic breakdown for a complete starter setup:

Core essentials (~$80):

• Fermenter (Little Big Mouth Bubbler): $23
• Airlocks (10‑pack) and stoppers: $10
• Hydrometer with cylinder: $22
• Turkey baster: $7
• Mini auto-siphon: $16

Bottling options:

Budget route (~$100 total): Reuse non-twist-off beer bottles and buy a bag of crown caps ($5–10). Add a handheld capper ($19) if you do not own one.

Swing-top route (~$145 total): Buy a set of swing-top bottles ($24) and get 2–3 sets for backups. This saves time on bottling day and works great for still meads.

Secondary fermentation vessels (~$15 each): Add one or two 1-gallon glass jugs if you plan to age or clear your mead separately. If you keep multiple batches going, you will want several.

Nice-to-haves (~$50–75): Kitchen scale ($25–35), stick-on thermometer ($10), funnel ($10), dedicated measuring cups and spoons ($15).

You can absolutely start for under $100 by borrowing kitchen tools, using saved bottles, and skipping the nice-to-haves. Or you can spend $200+ for a complete setup with backups and secondary vessels. Both approaches make the same mead.

The best tool in your brewery is patience. The second best is a notebook.