Mead

[Keta]

My bees have been busy, in anticipation of having excess honey I started playing around with making mead.  I had some dry wine yeast at first and it made a dry wine like mead that people tended to like but we ran out and had to order more.  I tried bread yeast and it makes good mead but it dies off when there is still quite a bit of sugar left, it's is like a mild alcoholic soda.  It has a lot of natural carbonation.

4 gallons  un-chlorinated water
1/2-1 gallon honey
1 package yeast (I ordered mead yeast from England this time but dry wine yeast works well and bread yeast works OK if you want a sweet mead)

Put 1/2 of the water in a 5 ga carboy
Add honey and shake it until all of the honey is dissolved
Put the yeast into the rest of the water and mix it up well
Put the yeast/water mix into the carboy and shake
Put a air lock on the carboy and set aside for 4 days for mild mead and 4-5 weeks for the harder stuff.
I let the yeast settle out and drink the mild stuff as is. For the harder stuff I wait for the primary fermentation to stop, rack off the clear liquid, put it in bottles, add 1 tsp honey to the bottles and cap them.  Wait 3 weeks to 4 months and carefully open it, it is champaign to rocket like when opening.

[Ron Jones]

Love me some mead, need to come over.
Ron

[Keta]

Any time.

[theswimmer]

Lee,
You could try this ,

https://www.homebrewing.org/White-Labs-Sweet-Mead-Yeast_p_1290.html?utm_source=google&utm_medium=shopping&gclid=CjwKCAjw-dXaBRAEEiwAbwCi5kLKcGEO9BxLIvpAqwwE1KIX-O50bT3H4jPItM0y76W07Ef5pFvxRBoCDo0QAvD_BwE

I've had good results with all their products.
I would add some yeast nutrients as well.

[ReelFishingProblems]

Thanks for posting, i've Wanted to make mead for years
Nick

[Marcq]

Interesting!! What does it taste like?

Marc..

[Keta]

The first batch was similar to dry sparkling wine.

[Marcq]

The first batch was similar to dry sparkling wine.

Thanks Keta, I used to make beer and wine from kits but I gave up, could not keep production high enough for my own need 
I may try it
Marc..

[Shark Hunter]

The only Mead I have ever tried did not taste like Sparkling Wine.
It tasted like Mad Dog 20/20 and packed the punch with it.
The price was right. Free.
I hear you Marc.
Never tried making Beer or Wine because of the same reason.

[Brewcrafter]

Keta - Not sure where you are located but ordering dry yeast from the UK is probably unnecessary.  Pretty much any reputable Home Beer/Wine shop in the US will have what you need (White Labs products, as well as Wyeast and half a dozen other yeast providers with pure liquid yeast strains that are designed to do exactly what you are looking for) as well as yeast nutrients, processing aids, and most importantly good information.

[Keta]

I'm in SE Oregon on the E side of the Cascades and 20 miles N of the OR/CA border.  A few years ago the brewing supply store in town closed but there were 2 other places to get supplies, they quit handling brewing supplies in the last 2 years.  I could drive across the mountains and get stuff and plan on doing it.  I have the hardware so it's only consumables I'll need.  The next batch will be using the English "mead yeast" but the dry wine yeast worked well.  I'll try to wash the old yeast and use it too.


You guys need bigger and more carboys, at one time I was running four 5 gallon ones making cider but quit when we had 3 years in a row of no apples.

So far my honey has cost me about $100 a quart to produce but the cost will go down every harvest.  A colony with boxes runs about $300, the boxes alone around $150.  I have been managing for growth, last year I had 1 colony in the spring and went into winter with 4.  All 4 survived the winter and exploded in the spring.  This spring I split colonies and now I have 10 of them, about all I can handle by myself.  I have only taken a few frames of honey out so far and got 6 quarts.  It looks like the next harvest will be in gallons not quarts.

[sdlehr]

I've also been stung by this bee bug, got my first colony of bees a few nights ago. Lee and I have been comparing notes for weeks-months and it'll be interesting to compare notes as he goes into winter and I (and my bees) do not. Technically, we will, temperature-wise, we won't (I'm in S Florida).

Lee, do you have to boil at any part in the beginning to eliminate bacteria, or do the yeast do that themselves by out-competing? I'm a long way from making mead. I have a friend with all the hardware and may do so in the future.

Right now I'm learning the ropes, and, as a veterinarian, the bee diseases are most interesting. I have to resist the temptation to meddle too much with the bees to make a "perfect" bee colony. These days one must live with a low level of bee disease. I've heard it said that before the 1980's one could "have" bees - it was relatively easy - but after that time one must "keep" bees - and manage for multiple diseases all transmitted by the same dang mite that can be controlled but not eliminated.

[Keta]

I prefer unboiled honey over sterilized honey and want to try natural fermentation without adding yeast.

Right now I have a gallon of mead "cooking" that I am trying to make a bit more sweet with lower alcohol , I will test it out at the end of the week.

Too bad you do not have room to expand, in your area I'd have 100 colonies in a few years.  My wife finally put her foot down and she made me move my "pet" colony off the back porch, she did not like them buzzing her when she went out.

[sdlehr]

I prefer unboiled honey over sterilized honey and want to try natural fermentation without adding yeast.

You know the yeasts are there, the bees use them to make bee bread, and if they don't evaporate enough water off the nectar it ferments.... the yeasts probably come in with the foragers and come from the plants originally, but it wouldn't surprise me if some yeast have become better adapted to life in the colony and predominate....

I'm sure you can taste the difference between pasteurized and non-pasteurized honey, but making mead I would think the difference would be much more subtle...??

[Keta]

I prefer unpasteurized milk too, even knowing the risks.  I actually hate pasteurized and homogenized milk and rarely drink it.  Most likely I have been exposed to listeria and have some immunity to it and I know I've been exposed to "chickenosis" and other nasty bacteria when dealing with our sheep and poultry.