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The Mead House

The Mead House

Author: Jeff Shouse

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Two good friends invite you to join their conversation as they explore the topic of making great mead at home.
146 Episodes
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The guys spend a fair bit of time thinking through how to put together a good pyment, a mead/wine hybrid, and all the considerations that need to go into that. Then they take a few minutes talking about some of their favorite YouTube content creators by listener request. Valkyrie’s Horn Mead Competition: https://home.valkyrieshorn.com/ The Mead House Podcast is sponsored by Bacchus & Barleycorn! Use our discount code MHP10 for all your shopping and supply needs! Thank you Bacchus & Barleycorn!
Jeff takes some time to talk Chris through a mead recipe he’s taken through several iterations – a sangria style mead he makes for his wife Sheila.  Using a base of blackberry wine and merlot kits and some eclectic ingredients for backsweetening, they end up with a consistent crowd pleaser that gets repeated again and again. Valkyrie’s Horn Mead Competition: https://home.valkyrieshorn.com/ The Mead House Podcast is sponsored by Bacchus & Barleycorn! Use our discount code MHP10 for all your shopping and supply needs! Thank you Bacchus & Barleycorn!
The guys take some time speculating about the burn – not just capsumels using hot peppers, but what other ingredients could be used in mead to get the heat sensation and how to approach adding those ingredients, including hot peppers, ginger, black pepper, and even a few other odd possibilites! Valkyrie’s Horn Mead Competition: https://home.valkyrieshorn.com/ The Mead House Podcast is sponsored by Bacchus & Barleycorn! Use our discount code MHP10 for all your shopping and supply needs! Thank you Bacchus & Barleycorn!
The guys are working towards a trifecta! In this third episode of “let’s eat interesting stuff we found and see if it can make a mead” Chris brings in a series of 11 different fruits to sample and evaluate their feasibility in making a new interesting mead with. Some produce strong options, some produce disappointment, and the final fruit in the list – well let’s just say they didn’t save the best for last. Valkyrie’s Horn Mead Competition: https://home.valkyrieshorn.com/ The Mead House Podcast is sponsored by Bacchus & Barleycorn! Use our discount code MHP10 for all your shopping and supply needs! Thank you […]
Jeff takes a turn at “I found this weird thing…” and cracks into some pomelo. Chris ups the ante and brings ‘sweet lime’ and kumquats to the flavor party, along with pomelons, then Jeff takes a step way out to left field to sample a little dried galangal. Editor’s note: It looks as though pomelo, pomelon, and pummelo are all regarded as the same species of fruit though it does appear there is also significant flavor and aroma differences between different varieties and locales, only further complicating our analysis. Valkyrie’s Horn Mead Competition: https://home.valkyrieshorn.com/ The Mead House Podcast is sponsored […]
Episode 310 - Lychees

Episode 310 - Lychees

2026-02-0540:32

At Chris’ suggestion, the guys take a deep dive into trying lychee and lychee flavored drinks, talk options for how to make lychee into a mead, whether to use whole fruit or prepared options, honey selection, and even a little on other flavors that play well with this fruit. BJCP Mead Judging Program: https://dev.bjcp.org/exam-certification/mead-judge-program/ Valkyrie’s Horn Mead Competition: https://home.valkyrieshorn.com/ The Mead House Podcast is sponsored by Bacchus & Barleycorn! Use our discount code MHP10 for all your shopping and supply needs! Thank you Bacchus & Barleycorn!
Jeff and Chris take some time going in depth regarding maintenance steps for equipment used on the day to day when it comes to meadmaking, from glass carboys, plastic buckets and stainless steel fermenters, along with all the smaller bits and bobs like rubber grommets, transfer tubes and airlocks. Valkyrie’s Horn Mead Competition: https://home.valkyrieshorn.com/ The Mead House Podcast is sponsored by Bacchus & Barleycorn! Use our discount code MHP10 for all your shopping and supply needs! Thank you Bacchus & Barleycorn!
The guys realized in all of last week’s talk of fruit and spice additions to recipes, they’d completely neglected to talk about several important finishing steps, so this week they move to correct that with a discussion on oaking, finishing, fining and filtering, and a few words on bottling as well! Valkyrie’s Horn Mead Competition: https://home.valkyrieshorn.com/ The Mead House Podcast is sponsored by Bacchus & Barleycorn! Use our discount code MHP10 for all your shopping and supply needs! Thank you Bacchus & Barleycorn!
Last year the guys gave you three basic starter recipes – traditionals with an ABV of 8%, 12%, and 16%. Today Jeff and Chris start wading into taking these recipes – or any other recipe you find – and making them your own with advice on when and how to add fruit, spices, and even a brief commentary on carbonation. The Mead House Podcast is sponsored by Bacchus & Barleycorn! Use our discount code MHP10 for all your shopping and supply needs! Thank you Bacchus & Barleycorn!
Jeff and Chris return to feeding prompts into Large Language Model Chatbot AIs to test their capacity to create recipes, this time testing the ability to manage a more technically complicated prompt as well as a potentially confounding subjective prompt. Afterwards the guys give a few brief thoughts on the utility of these models in recipe development. Raw responses for the two prompts given can be found here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bxiG7W3OrP62xyrwxpgkxI4swYGAiTLFJvAiK25gfhw/edit?usp=sharing The Mead House Podcast is sponsored by Bacchus & Barleycorn! Use our discount code MHP10 for all your shopping and supply needs! Thank you Bacchus & Barleycorn!
The guys spend a little time talking through their year making episodes of the mead house, favorite parts, proud moments and even a little room for growth, along with a few hints as to where things may end up going in 2026! The Mead House Podcast is sponsored by Bacchus & Barleycorn! Use our discount code MHP10 for all your shopping and supply needs! Thank you Bacchus & Barleycorn!
Happy Holidays from The Mead House to your house! In this holiday episode, Jeff and Chris are joined by their wives Sheila and Kat for a laid back, fun session of mead tasting and a couple rounds of a card game called Principle Dilemma giving you and us a break from the sometimes hectic holiday season. The drawing for The Compleat Meadmaker by Ken Schramm and The Flavor Bible has been extended one final week! To enter, send an email, or two if desiring to enter for both, to info@themeadhouse.com. Enter “Ken” in the subject line to enter for The […]
Jeff and Chris decide to test the validity of using AI to design mead recipes – in what quickly becomes a multi-episode topic, the guys discuss feeding a simple prompt for a cherry mead recipe to four of the most popular Large Language Model AI chatbots – ChatGPT, DeepSeek, Grok and Claude. Additional similar prompts for a chocolate cherry were also given, results contained below. For the Google Doc with full text for Cherry and Chocolate Cherry prompts (warning, 21 pages in length) https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Bg-rXEdXc4fZ8nzOZ63gJRUN0pNomXx-SvhlsqooljQ/edit?usp=sharing To enter the drawing for either a copy of The Compleat Meadmaker by Ken Schramm or […]
Episode 302 - Tamarind

Episode 302 - Tamarind

2025-12-1152:41

Jeff and Chris take some time to play with the Iron Bee 2026 secret ingredient – Tamarind. A really fascinating fruit with a bunch of different ways to add it to a mead, they taste a few different ways to get it into a mead and throw around a few additional flavor combination ideas. Iron Bee 2026 entry link: https://ironbee.brewcomp.site/ To enter the drawing for either a copy of The Compleat Meadmaker by Ken Schramm or The Flavor Bible, send an email, or two if desiring to enter for both, to info@themeadhouse.com. Enter “Ken” in the subject line to enter […]
Jeff and Chris spend a little time talking about making meads in the Polish style, general characteristics and processes for approaching that style, then Jeff transitions to his batch making a first attempt at something in this style using a new-to-him yeast to push the ABV of his finished product. To enter the drawing for either a copy of The Compleat Meadmaker by Ken Schramm or The Flavor Bible, send an email, or two if desiring to enter for both, to info@themeadhouse.com. Enter “Ken” in the subject line to enter for the Compleat Meadmaker and “Flavor” in the subject line […]
In honor of Episode 300 and the Thanksgiving holiday, inspired by the historically dubious movie 300, the guys take a look at the way mead is portrayed in movies, TV, and other pop culture media along with a few digressions on the mythology of mead. To enter the drawing for either a copy of The Compleat Meadmaker by Ken Schramm or The Flavor Bible, send an email, or two if desiring to enter for both, to info@themeadhouse.com. Enter “Ken” in the subject line to enter for the Compleat Meadmaker and “Flavor” in the subject line to enter for The Flavor […]
With the holiday season fast approaching, the guys spend a little time talking about a particular ingredient that fits strongly in the holiday palate – ginger. Then, they discuss an extensive experiment undertaken and published by Man Made Mead on YouTube comparing using 15 different fruits in primary and secondary and some of the interesting results he’d obtained. Man Made Mead’s Ultimate Fruit Mead Test The Mead House Podcast is sponsored by Bacchus & Barleycorn! Use our discount code MHP10 for all your shopping and supply needs! Thank you Bacchus & Barleycorn!
The guys take a look at a few more questions they didn’t get around to the first time around from cruising social media from last week. They also talk through a trip to Total Wine and a few natural food grocers looking for ingredient inspiration, which leads to tasting two new fruit varieties Chris had picked up. The Mead House Podcast is sponsored by Bacchus & Barleycorn! Use our discount code MHP10 for all your shopping and supply needs! Thank you Bacchus & Barleycorn!
Jeff and Chris look at some questions posted by users on social media, Facebook and Reddit, answering them and discussing several of the topics in more depth. The Mead House Podcast is sponsored by Bacchus & Barleycorn! Use our discount code MHP10 for all your shopping and supply needs! Thank you Bacchus & Barleycorn!
Following the episode two weeks ago regarding using Gruit inspired ingredients to make a braggot without hops, Jeff talks Chris through options for making a braggot which is either gluten-reduced or completely gluten-free, the process for going about both and some adjuncts and ingredients used in either process. The Mead House Podcast is sponsored by Bacchus & Barleycorn! Use our discount code MHP10 for all your shopping and supply needs! Thank you Bacchus & Barleycorn!
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