Water Usage for Mead
Unlike energy calculations which are extremely complicated and have a huge number of variables, the water savings associated with drinking craft mead are really straight forward.
The following numbers do not include any upstream calculations since those are covered in the section about honey.
The following numbers do not include any upstream calculations since those are covered in the section about honey.
Production
Mead uses about 55% less water in production than the same volume of craft beer.
The brewing process is very different for mead than beer. There are no mash and boil steps. Water is heated so that the yeast will become active and ferment the sugars in the honey. No water is lost, and the volume of water added is less than the total volume of the final product since honey accounts for about 15% of the volume.
By comparison, water is lost throughout the beer making process. About 1.7 gallons of water are used to make one gallon of a standard pale ale and significantly more for IPAs, closer to 2.2 gallons per gallon of final product.
For a Pale Ale, approximately 0.3 gallons are boiled off, 0.25 gallons are lost in the grain, and 0.05 gallons are lost to shrinkage. This leaves about a gallon of water, which makes up the majority of the beer’s volume.
The brewing process is very different for mead than beer. There are no mash and boil steps. Water is heated so that the yeast will become active and ferment the sugars in the honey. No water is lost, and the volume of water added is less than the total volume of the final product since honey accounts for about 15% of the volume.
By comparison, water is lost throughout the beer making process. About 1.7 gallons of water are used to make one gallon of a standard pale ale and significantly more for IPAs, closer to 2.2 gallons per gallon of final product.
For a Pale Ale, approximately 0.3 gallons are boiled off, 0.25 gallons are lost in the grain, and 0.05 gallons are lost to shrinkage. This leaves about a gallon of water, which makes up the majority of the beer’s volume.
Cleaning
Mead also has a big advantage in the water used for cleaning. Since we have a much lower particulate load (see wastewater section), we can use less than half as much water per vessel to get to industry-standard sanitization levels.
We also have 1/3 the number of vessels used in production (compared to a craft beer).
Going even further, we're able to have designated tanks for products which go through multiple fermentation cycles before a sanitization cycle.
All told, we use about 10% of the water for cleaning that a craft brewery would need for the same volume of production.
We also have 1/3 the number of vessels used in production (compared to a craft beer).
Going even further, we're able to have designated tanks for products which go through multiple fermentation cycles before a sanitization cycle.
All told, we use about 10% of the water for cleaning that a craft brewery would need for the same volume of production.
