How to Make Chocolate Mead – Thriving The Future

The idea lightbulb came on for this chocolate mead based on the fermentation prep stage for making chocolate vinegar, from: Homebrewed Vinegar: How to Ferment 60 Delicious Varieties, Including Carrot-Ginger, Beet, Brown Banana, Pineapple, Corncob, Honey, and Apple Cider Vinegar by Kirsten K. Shockey:

Wait…chocolate vinegar? Yes. The first step to making chocolate vinegar is to make a chocolate mead primary ferment with a chocolate nib tea before adding the raw vinegar or an existing vinegar mother.

Chocolate Mead Recipe

Prep time: About 20 minutes total (plus 4 hours wait for the chocolate nib tea to steep).

Ingredients:

1 quart glass canning jar + lid
Chocolate cacao nibs
1 gallon glass bottle, like from apple juice
Bottle sanitizer like 1-Step or Star San. (I use 1-Step) – see link below
Unchlorinated or distilled water (Don’t use tap water or it will interact with the yeast)
1 tsp yeast. I usually use champagne yeast or a light ale yeast. (do not use bread yeast)
- Lately I have been using Lallemand/Danstar Nottingham Ale yeast – see link below
1 tsp yeast nutrient (get this at a brewing store or on Amazon) – see link below
2 pound jar of raw, preferably unfiltered, honey
Airlock that will fit a gallon bottle. I use an airlock with a 6.5 stopper.
Potassium sorbate – stabilizer to crash your mead and neutralize the yeast before bottling – see link below

Brewing the Chocolate Nibs

Fill the quart glass canning jar 1/4 of the way with cacao nibs. Fill the remainder with unchlorinated water. Screw on the lid. Shake it up.

Put a washcloth in the bottom of a pot or a crockpot. Put the canning jar with cacao nibs and water on the washcloth. Fill up the pot to cover as much of the level of the liquid in the jar as possible.

cacao nib tea — Cacao nib tea in a crockpot

Cook on Low for 4 hours. If using a pot on the stove, just use a very low simmer. Take the jar out and shake it about once an hour.

You now have a cacao tea. Strain this liquid into another canning jar while you make the mead.

Fermenting the Chocolate Mead

Sterilize the gallon bottle according to directions.

Pour the honey into the gallon bottle.

Add unchlorinated water to about halfway.

It will look separated like this:

mead in progress — Adding water and honey

Put the original cap on the bottle and shake it until the honey is mixed in with the water.

Add the 1 tsp of yeast.

Add 1 tsp of yeast nutrient.

Pour the cacao nib tea into the mead mixture.

Fill the remainder of the bottle with unchlorinated water, to about where the bottle tapers (see pic below).

Mark the mead with the name, what yeast you used, and the date your started primary fermentation.

chocolate mead — Chocolate mead – primary fermentation is ready to go!

Fill the airlock with water. Some people fill it with vodka. Put the airlock on the bottle and store in a cool place.

Bottling the Chocolate Mead

Primary fermentation usually lasts 4-6 weeks. At the end you will need to siphon the mead off into another gallon bottle for secondary fermentation. You can get a brewing siphon and hose from a brewing store or Amazon (see link below).

When you siphon your mead into a secondary fermentation bottle you will leave behind about an inch of sediment (called the lees). This will leave some room in your second bottle.

I recommend adding another batch of cacao nibs tea to your bottle after siphoning for secondary fermentation to maintain the flavor.

Length of time in secondary:

There are lots of opinions on how long your should let the mead sit in secondary fermentation. Usually let it sit in secondary for one month. Then it is ready to bottle.

I recommend crashing the mead to neutralize the yeast before you bottle it. You can do this by bottling and then keeping the bottle cold, or by using a yeast inhibitor/stabilizer like potassium sorbate. If you don’t do this then it is possible that any yeast left over in your bottle may explode your bottle while in storage.

The yeast will eat the sugar in the honey and create alcohol. Mead is not usually very sugary tasting when this process is completed. The timing in the recipe above will leave you with a higher alcohol, less sugary tasting mead (a dry mead).

If you want some slight sweetness, stop primary fermentation after 1-2 weeks and siphon it off to secondary. This will result in a low alcohol mead. Or add a little honey to the bottle before you serve it.

A yummy, sweet, yeasty alternative:

One time I tasted the chocolate mead at five days. It was rich, still very sweet, and very yeasty like beer. I liked it so much I drank it that way and did not put it into secondary at all. Sooooo good.

(note that some of these are affiliate links).

Cacao Nibs: