
Bottling Day: The Final Stretch
From siphon setups to pasteurization and the danger of bottle bombs, here is my guide to successfully bottling a 1-gallon batch.
Home brewing recipes, techniques, and fermentation experiments with beer, wine, and mead.

A complete beginner's guide to making mead at home, from equipment and ingredients through fermentation, back-sweetening, pasteurization, and bottling.

From siphon setups to pasteurization and the danger of bottle bombs, here is my guide to successfully bottling a 1-gallon batch.

The Tilt Hydrometer promises 24/7 gravity and temperature readings straight from your fermenter. I wanted to love it, and in some ways I do—but a few...

How I started home brewing in 2022 with a 1-gallon mead kit and ended up with a full keezer setup in my kitchen thanks to a chance encounter at a...

A sweet cherry mead made with Maker's Mark Premium Wildflower Honey, whole frozen cherries, and Red Star Premier Blanc yeast. Primary fermentation...

A deep purple blackberry mead started without an original gravity reading, fermented to dryness, then sweetened back and bottle-pasteurized. Lessons...

A bright, floral mead made with foraged dandelion flowers and Ambrosia honey. The dandelion tea brings a subtle herbal quality that pairs beautifully...

A fresh strawberry wine made with pureed strawberries and a unique Camden tablet treatment to eliminate wild yeast before fermentation.

The PLAATO Airlock promised smart fermentation tracking through a sleek bubbler. For a few months it worked. Then the company abandoned homebrewers,...