The Joy of Mead - Everything about the ancient drink and how to make it

How much does it cost to make a batch of mead?

Here is an analysis of my cost to brew up a medium sweet 5-gallon batch of mead. It is a standard mead with no additional flavors added. Just a common yet delicious brew.

This cost is based on materials to make bottles of mead only and doesn't include the cost of equipment that will be re-used such as the carboy and airlock.

5 gallons spring water	4.95
15 pounds of Clover Honey	38.80
2 packets of Lalvin D-47 yeast	2.10
24 bordeaux style bottles	25.20
1 set of 36 printable labels	8.88
2 package of corks (12 in each package)	8.20

Total cost of the Mead Batch	88.13
Cost per bottle (batch made 21 Bottles)	4.19

The cost came out to be a very reasonable 4.19 per bottle which is very economical. And as you can see the biggest cost is the honey. And I highly recommend you not try to skimp on this cost. You really need to get a high quality honey. It is critical to the taste of your mead. And this was a rather wasteful batch; I was very liberal with how I racked it off and left quite a bit of mead in with the leeds at the bottom. You can probably easily get 22 or 23 bottles out of your batch which would bring the cost down to under 4 dollars per bottle. Technically, 5 gallons of liquid would give you almost exactly 25 bottles of wine at 750 ml. per bottle.

About bringing the cost down even further

Of course if you are going to drink it yourself or give it to your friends you can bring the cost down quite a bit by not buying labels. And you can shop around to bring most of the material costs down. For example I am sure you can get your spring water cheaper and you can bring the cost of corks down significantly if you buy it in larger quantities.

Here is a good example of cork costs at E.C. Kraus

Cork Costs (#9 Corks)
# of Corks	pkg cost	cost per cork
12 Cork Pkg	4.10	34¢
100 Cork Pkg.	19.85	19.8¢
1000 Cork Pkg.	149.90	14.9 ¢

The typical rule of buying in bulk applies well when it comes to buying many of the supplies for mead making. you can see by the chart above that you can easily bring the cost of just the cork down to less than half of original cost if you buy in bulk.

This rule of buying in bulk applies to the honey as well. My supplier sends me 15 pounds of honey for 38.80 but if I buy it in a 60 pound size I can get it for 129.99 which gives me 15 pounds at 32.49 rather than 38.80.