How to Make Watermelon Wine with Honey (Watermelon Mead)
Learn how to make watermelon wine! This recipe gives you a delicious home-brewed honey wine, also known as watermelon mead, with watermelon juice and strawberries, perfect for hot summer days.
- Prep Time: 1 hour
- Cook Time: 15 minutes
- Total Time: 1 hour 15 minutes
- Yield: 64 fl ounces
- Category: wine
- Method: fermentation
Ingredients
- 48 fl oz watermelon juice
- 16 fl oz filtered water
- 350 Grams strawberries
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice
- 75 grams raw honey (or more)*
- 2 grams cider yeast
Instructions
- Clean and sanitize all of your equipment. I like to wash the jug with soap and water, allow it to air dry a bit, then rinse the jug with cheap vodka, and allow it to fully air dry.
- Once your equipment is prepped, add the strawberries and water to a pot, and bring to a simmer.
- Cook for about 15 minutes; while simmering mash the strawberries with a spoon.
- Remove from heat and place a fine mesh colander over a pitcher or bowl; strain out the strawberry pulp, reserving the liquid.
- Add the strawberry liquid to the 1/2 gallon jug with the honey and lemon juice and allow it to cool to room temp. (75 grams of honey will give you a moderately alcoholic drink. You can double the amount for a high-alcohol wine)
- Add in the yeast and mix gently by swirling. Wait about 30 minutes for the yeast to get frothy and active.
- In the meantime, juice enough watermelon to have 48 fl oz of juice. Strain all the pulp out of the juice using a fine mesh strainer and cheesecloth or butter muslin. You must strain ALL of the pulp out, or it can cause a big mess in the airlock.
- In a medium pot, heat the watermelon juice until simmering. Remove from heat and allow to cool to room temperature. (You can place a metal pot in a bowl of ice to cool it down faster).
- Carefully using a funnel, add the watermelon juice to the jug leaving two inches of headspace (see pictures above).
- Cap the jug and swirl it around for about a minute.
- Remove the cap and place the airlock and stopper in the jug (see pictures above).
- After a few hours, you should notice a lot of bubbling in the bottle and activity in the airlock.
- Allow the wine to ferment for 14 days until the bubbling completely stops and you no longer see any activity in the airlock. At this point, you should see a lot of sediment in the bottom of the jug.
- Racking the wine: Remove the airlock and using a funnel, transfer the wine to a new, clean jug for aging. Be careful pouring, pour gently and in one steady pour, leaving the sediment in the bottom of the original jug.*
- Cap the jug with a regular lid. Allow the wine to age at a cool room temperature or in the fridge for four weeks.
- At this point, you can rack the wine again with more aging time or move on to bottling.
- To Bottle the wine with honey: Clean and sterilize two 1-liter carbonation-safe bottles. Add one tablespoon of honey to each 1 Liter bottle. Using a funnel, transfer the wine from the aging jug into the carbonation-safe bottles, leaving any sediment in the bottom of the jug. Cap the bottles and invert gently twice to mix the honey in.
Allow to ferment in the bottles at a cool room temperature for five days, then immediately store in the fridge. (check the carbonation by carefully opening a bottle over the sink, if it is not carbonated enough you can leave it at room temperature for seven days.) - You can age the wine for three more weeks in the fridge before enjoying it chilled.
- Keep refrigerated.
Notes
- you can evenly sub the honey for organic cane sugar
- you can also use wild yeast in this recipe. You only need about two tablespoons of wild yeast starter in place of the yeast in the recipe. Click here to learn how to make a wild yeast starter.
- be sure to open the bottles to release the pressure occasionally when storing in the fridge for long periods. Bottling 1 liter with only one tablespoon of honey is not enough sugar to excessively carbonate. It’s just enough to produce a pleasant level of carbonation.
