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Thought I would share a personal story of forgetting a mead for a long time. My very first endeavor of mead making was in 2020, after reading and studying Jereme Zimmerman’s “how to make mead like a Viking.” I made 3 batches, one of which I drank a few months later with mixed results, and left the other two in a cabinet. I made a few batches afterwards but life got busy and I forgot about the remaining 2 initial batches. Then in late 2025, I went to grab my brewing supplies, after renewed vigor to start brewing again, when I saw two carboys with dry airlocks. Expecting the worse, I pulled them out, one being a blackberry and the other was a plain semi-sweet. Both were incredibly clear. I gently siphoned a small tasting glass of both, expecting them to oxidized, turned to vinegar. To the unbelievable contrary, they were extraordinarily delightful, especially the blackberry mead. It’s amazing how time in a bottle can impart magnificent flavors in mead.

@GoldenHiveMead showed me the basics of mead making, and it was his kit that I used for my first batches. Now 2 years later, I work as a professional brewer at the only Meadery in Las Vegas: Deadwood ❤ His channel is very insightful and informative and I highly recommend it for anyone trying to understand the basics of brewing

No questions here but some useful info I never had before, that I learned the hard way when I first started making mead:
If you're making pure mead (without any fruit) always use nutrients. Yeast need nitrogen to function corretly, and honey doesn't provide nearly enough, which can lead to slow or stalled fermentation, and sometimes may even lead to creation of sulfur compounds which make your mead taste and smell awful.
Secondly, if you like your mead on the stronger side yet want it to be sweet, it might sound like a good idea to pour a lot of honey (in comparison to amount of water) and start fermentation, for your yeast to reach their alcohol tolerance and still leave some sugar so that you don't have to worry about sweetening it later and lowering your alcohol volume. Don't do that. If your initial sugar content is higher than 30 blg, yeast may go into an osmotic shock, and produce little to none alcohol. The higher the initial sugar, the higher the chance of an osmotic shock, and it also depends on the type of yeast but from what I've learned, 30 blg is roughly the spot where most yeast strands start to struggle.

Been sitting around for a week contemplating on how to best make my first blackberry mead. What a godsend of a video

Going through a bit of a hard time and your videos are so compelling and calming. When things settle down for me I'm definitely buying at kit and this will be this recipe. I've always wanted to try making mead and you've been my go to guy for learning. Thank you!

Chamomile might be worth a try for flavoring. Its sweet and floral and great with honey.

blackberry were awesome in no matter what if it food or drink!

I'm making mead right now!!

I made my second batch of mead ever with a bastardised version of this recipe and it came out smashingly.

I macerated my black berries overnight with pectic enzyme before mashing them. Added another dose when I put the must together, and let it sit overnight again before pitching the yeast (71B).

It fermented to dry in 8 days. I let it sit for another 10 and then took 250ml out to mix with some honey slowly and work out a good ratio for back sweetening. I settled on 15ml of honey per 250ml of mead. This gave a really nice balance of sweet and tart.

I also used your suggested tea infusion. I did it after back sweetening and then just tested it over time until I was happy with the flavour. I found ~3 weeks gave it a really nice complexity and mouth feel without overpowering the black berry.

The outcome is something that I have gifted to friends and family who demolish it and ask me for more 😂

Great recipe mate.

I've used his kits for multiple brews and this is my favorite recipe. Even tried a version with maple syrup instead of honey and it's amazing (also add vanilla)

Please try making this hibicus wine recepie it's amazing and the recepie is from poland
(recepie is for 25l)
600g hibicus (put in to a pot and pour boiling water (around 4l) and leave under cover for 10-15min, (repeat process 3 times)
50g of black tea (can add directly to hibicus)
1.2kg of raisins (splash with boiling water before adding to fermenter to remove oils)
and yeast and nutritions
so you will have around 12l of hibicus tea (add to it 3kg of sugar) and top it up to 18l
When it cools down and yeast and nutrition
after 10-14 days and 3kg of sugar in 4-5l of water (top it up to 25l), and after month remove raisins and maybe add some sugar to taste, rack of sediment few times and its ready, its really great and cheap wine, i made already like 300l of it, its that good, if you dont know how hibicus tastes and you taste the wine you would say its black currant or something similar, and of course you can add diffrent types of dried fruit

Blackberry has been the best of all the wines and meads I've made. And theyre free every summer if you can stand the spikes!

I make mead since a year ago, but I love to see this type of videos to reassure my learning! Thanks to you I discovered this passion

Thank you for this. I need to upgrade my equipment and confidence. I do not like Mead but like the way that looks in a wine glass. ❤❤❤

Awww bless you for this. ❤❤❤ UK Englishman.

Love your videos. very comfy! keep em coming

I'm going to drink so much mead now. Thanks so much Golden Hive Mead.

Well, I definitely know what I’ll be making with your mead kits! I love the long form video, thank you! Looking forward to the yeast nutrient experiment video!

Thank you for the tips.

I love making this stuff . I made a great tropical mead as well as some of the traditional mead