New Hobby: Mead

Alcoholic beverages which are not classified as spirits.

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Johnny Reb
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Post by Johnny Reb »

Thorin wrote:wonder if this could become good spirits? if distilled in a pot-still, i mean...
Since this mead would be a low alch 5% to 7% you would not be getting alot out of a gallon. You would need to make quite a few Gallons and unless you have the bee's making honey for you this could get quite expensive.

I made a 1 gallon batch of the Ancient Orange last year at this time and have had it in a cooler since then and I guard it with my life :)

I give a 1 oz shot to selected friends and then send them home LOL

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Post by Rudi »

Thanks Jbrew and mmmtasty

Never had mead before. Just racked my galon of ancient orange spiced mead into bottles and had myself a glass mmmmm been in the demijohn since June gonna have to make a real size batch LOVE IT

ps.You dont know anyone that keeps bees drinks whiskey and speaks bottle do you?
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MisterSteve124
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Post by MisterSteve124 »

A friend of mine said she had tried some mead and said it was really good and asked me if I could try to make some for her. I think I'll give this recipe a try, but 2 months!? Talk about a slow ferment. Should it really take that long or is that just for it to clear more and age a little bit?
CoopsOz
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Post by CoopsOz »

yeah, two months is a long time to tie up a valuable fermenter.
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Post by Rudi »

At the two month point I didn't like it but at 6months yumo tastes totally different.

Coops dont be a tight wad buy some more fermenters you know you want e'm :lol:
I got 6 25l buckets with lids for $5 from the markets old cream buckets bloke reckons he can get more 8)
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MisterSteve124
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Post by MisterSteve124 »

6 Months?! How can you wait that long. I guess I just have no patience. It kills me just to wait for 2 weeks. Lol guess I might be in the wrong hobby to have no patience for. Any recipes that don't take super long?
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Post by Rudi »

Just put it away in a cupboard and forget it for a while get on with other stuff 6mnths will go before you know it
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MisterSteve124
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Post by MisterSteve124 »

Wish I would be able to forget about it. I would be staring at it everyday.
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Post by oakie »

Trust me I can understand where you are coming from MisterSteve it can be agonizing some times almost madening if you think about it. You are making a drink that you are going to drink for months even years in advance. The trick is to think of it like this the longer you wait the better it will be so what you have to decide is how good do you want your drink to be. What do you like or want? Do want a "kick you in the morning strait out the still" drink? Or would you rather have a "Damn thats good" drink? Or a "some where in between there" drink? :lol: I quess it just depends on what you are drinking or making for that matter.

I just very recently started making mead and believe me I learned this one the hard way. Wait as long as you can bare before you drink it. It is just amazing how much better this stuff gets with age. I have made two so far. The first one I made I tried it about a week after it was made it wasn't very good so I let it sit for two months. It was pretty good not one of my favorit drinks but it was all right. So I went a head and drank on it until my Dark Rum was done ageing. When the Rum was done I only had about a liter of mead left so I just forgot about it. well when it was about six months old I found it in the back of the cubbered and decided to try it and see how it had come along. It was night and day different I mean if I hadn't known beter I would have said that it was a different drink.
wineo
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Post by wineo »

I make alot of wines,and have only made meade once,but the key is time.I have enough wines now that its fairly easy to stay out of it for a year.Ageing for a year is tough to do,when you only have a small collection of wines,or meades.I have close to 400 bottles,and 13 gallons still in carboys.Hell,I still have to make 12 gallons of elderberry,and have 24 gallons of sugar wash to distill.Around here,its always something.
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Post by theholymackerel »

oakie wrote: when it was about six months old I found it in the back of the cubbered and decided to try it and see how it had come along. It was night and day different I mean if I hadn't known beter I would have said that it was a different drink.
I think a one year old mead is too young. Wait till ya try a two or three year old mead ya made yerself... nectar of the gods.
wineo
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Post by wineo »

Most people cant wait a year,much less 3,but you are right,longer is better.I still have a 7 year old bottle of elderberry,and 2-10 year old bottles of blackberry stashed away in the celler.
ChillinDistilln
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Post by ChillinDistilln »

MisterSteve124 wrote:6 Months?! How can you wait that long. I guess I just have no patience. It kills me just to wait for 2 weeks. Lol guess I might be in the wrong hobby to have no patience for. Any recipes that don't take super long?
I have some mead in the cellar that is almost 20 years old. It didnt' taste all that good after a few weeks, and tasted better after 5 years and even better after 10... It's probably pretty good by now! :)
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Post by blanikdog »

Yairsss, I had thirty or so bottles of fifteen year old mead which was a bit too sweet for me. Made fabulous spirits. :)

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Post by fatbloke »

Ha ha! Mead is how I got here in the first place. :D

Been making it for about 2 years and I was getting impatient, so I tried other wines that don't need forever to age them, but that still took too damn long. :roll:

Then I found that the local HBS started selling those table top Still Spirits devices. Did some reading and when I found out I could have 5 liters of neutral spirit in just over a week, I was converted - well not entirely, I'm still making the mead, but as I've got something else to drink I'm not really worried how long it takes to make the mead. :D:D :twisted:

I think that I might dig out the 10 or so gallons that I've got under the stairs and if they still taste too raw, I'll just run then through the still, then leave it in glass with some oak chips (well OK I'll taste it first).

Distilling mead! what a bloody marvellous idea. 8)
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RadicalEd1
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Post by RadicalEd1 »

Hehe, I tasted some mead last month that was older'n me. Pretty darn tasty stuff ;). It's glorious to have a good homebrew club near you...
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Post by fatbloke »

absinthe wrote:has anyone tried leather wood honey?? its my favourite honey and am interested to try... the problem is its so dam expensive...

i might try a blend eh??
Leatherwood, is apparently related to Eucalyptus.

So I'd try a small 1 gall batch, because Eucalyptus is a honey to be avoided for mead making (as far as I can find out it can give really weird medicinal bitterness - which is why mead makers "in the know" say "Blended" Australian honey should be avoided i.e. the Eucalyptus honey content).

I can't confirm that, but asking a few people say that is correct.

I've also got an old "mead making" book (circa 1960's) that says avoid heather honey as well, because it's one of the strongest tasting honey's and takes years to become good (the book says 5 to 8 years). They recommend clover honey, as well as stuff like orange blossom, acacia, rosemary, etc etc.
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Post by fatbloke »

bronzdragon wrote:Mead is simply a wine made from honey instead of fruit. It is actually the oldest alcoholic beverage known to man ... starting off in the ancient Egyptian times and all.

I've been making mead for 15 years or so. The trick with mead is letting it mature. What tastes like a harsh drink after fermentation will age beautifully like a big red wine.
Ken Schramm, in his book "The Compleat Meadmaker" likens some of the higher alcohol meads to "Listerine", I just say "medicinal" as most people follow that (rather than a brand name)
Each different type of honey makes a different tasting mead. Experimentation is the key.

I use 15 pounds of honey in a 5 gal batch and a vial of White Labs Sweet Mead yeast, made into slurry and brought up to about a quart.

My primary goes about 2 weeks, then rack off lees and into glass for 6 months, then into glass for tertiary fermentation another 6 months and then into bottles.

There are lots of other things I've learned over the years, but it would take up too much board space, lol.

cheers

~r~
I've got a batch (well 2 really) for experimenting with the Wyeast sweet/dry mead yeasts and according to the data sheet, the sweet mead yeast will only go to about 11%, whereas the dry mead yeast will hit 18% - that's allowing about 4lb of honey to the gallon. The S.G. was about 1134 - so the sweet batch/jar is gonna be very sweet i.e. about 5 or 6 % residual sugar - the dry one should ferment to dry.

So far, my favourite yeast is Lalvin 71B-1122 - it goes to about 14 or so % so about 3.5 lb per gallon should give me some residual sweetness without the higher% yeast problem of medicinal taste.

As you say, the honey can make a huge difference.

If it wouldn't cost me so much in shipping I'd try this one
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Post by fatbloke »

Ok, last reply bit.

I've just finished running the various meads I decided I didn't like. Not bad at all, though the whole point of the exercise is to fill a 34 litre glass jar with honey/fruit based spirit, with 2 packs of oak chips, then cork and wax seal it and chuck it in the shed for a couple of years.

It's about half full now, and rather than just making mediocre mead, I'm making cider, but upping the sugar content so that I get about 10% abv, then pot stilling it - getting it at about 50% to add to the mix/jar.

I might make some mediocre mead as well, then just run it as well, as soon as it's made (if I use Lalvin EC1118 yeast it should ferment in 2 to 3 weeks). I'm not bothered about a medicinal taste as that'll go with distilling.

Oh and a tip with the ancient orange mead. If you follow the recipe and use cloves as the spice (or one of them) then use them sparingly i.e. 1 or 2 to the gallon. They're powerful little critters and you'll know it if you over use them. And don't use bread yeast, unless you want it drinkable straight away. You'd be better placed with something like D47 or 71B and let it age for 6 months to a year if you can wait.
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zymos
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Post by zymos »

I'd avoid, or at least try small batches of, "wildflower" honeys- in other words, those made from mixed sources. I've had some pretty bad meads from those, even though the honey itself tasted nice. And if the honey itself is kind of bitter, it will be even worse after the sugar is fermented out.
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Post by fatbloke »

zymos wrote:I'd avoid, or at least try small batches of, "wildflower" honeys- in other words, those made from mixed sources. I've had some pretty bad meads from those, even though the honey itself tasted nice. And if the honey itself is kind of bitter, it will be even worse after the sugar is fermented out.
Hum ? I hadn't thought of that.

I managed to find a place locally that does specialist honey's and I'm meaning to try it to see.

Reckon your suggestion means that it should be worth the effort.

regards

fatbloke
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zymos
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Post by zymos »

Just to clarify, it isn't the fact that it is "wildflower" that is bad, just that if you are buying varietal honey made from something that you KNOW makes good mead, at least you won't be disappointed.
OldManP
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Re: New Hobby: Mead

Post by OldManP »

Been wanting to try this recipe for about 2 years now and FINALLY got it mixed up!

Kind of worried, since i just reread the last few posts that said beware of wildflower honey, that's what i used, and it was local, so hopefully it'll work out ok. If not, I'll just have to try it again. The guy i got my honey from is always around and i can save some money if i buy it by the gallon.

Made two gallons:
One gallon i used the nutmeg & allspice (very small pinch), the other i made via the recipe w/o the nutmeg and allspice

Going away for 2 months so should be finished up by the time i get back. Not really worried about dipping into it for a while, b/c when i return i'm jumping into some potstill recipes i've been wanting to get to for some time now

Anyone had luck with the bread yeasts after a long aging time? I saw that others recommended other yeasts if aging longer, any success with just the baker's yeast after a year or two of aging? Next time i'll try a better yeast.

Any feedback is welcome!
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Re: New Hobby: Mead

Post by AquaVitae »

Funny to come upon this thread, Me n my brother just got finished making five gallons of strawberry melomel the other day, we got our honey from a local producer but it being out of season 'round here all we got was blended stuff. We did the following recipe

-1 gallon bag of frozen starwberries (preferrably fresh picked, LOT more flavor, ours were leftover from summer)
-5 pounds of Honey of choice (blended probably ideal, since its a melomel)
-4 pounds of brown sugar (for a little added flavor, I actually like the subtle undertones this stuff can give)

Mix Honey into pot of heated water and place FROZEN strawberries inside fermenter, then add first 2 pounds of sugar, then add the honey/water mixture to it and stir, then fill fermenter rest of the way with warm water and add last 2 pounds of sugar. After about 2 weeks to a month, rack to secondary WITHOUT the strawberries, if you want you can squeeze the juice out of em using a cheesecloth but I'd be just as likely to freeze em and eat em with ice cream later. Let sit in secondary as long as you want, rack, bottle and enjoy, gives a lot of flavor and a little bit of body, just the way i like my meads

Oh and when it comes to yeast usually try to avoid bread yeasts (unless of course it produces a flavor profile you want) wine yeasts generally produce alcoholic beverages much more amenable to aging than bread or bakers yeasts. We made the mistake of using "brewers" yeast like found in the health food aisle for a barley wine and it produced a nice lemon/citric flavor at the beginning but the longer it sat the worse that flavor got till ALL you could taste was the acid, that's just my experience tho
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Re: New Hobby: Mead

Post by dan_buddy »

Can't wait to try this ahah I no it's a 10 year old post but I'm still gonna post the results
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Re: New Hobby: Mead

Post by MichiganCornhusker »

No prob, Dan, I've got a gallon of honey sitting on my countertop and a freezer full of raspberries that I have been overlooking for quite a while. Maybe it's time I got it all in a carboy. :thumbup:
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Re: New Hobby: Mead

Post by rad14701 »

I now have far less than the ton of honey I had, but still hundreds of pounds, yet I'm done with the whole mead thing... I don't care for the taste enough to subject myself to further torture... I'm way beyond over the fermentation of honey idea...

Good luck... You'll most likely need it...
dan_buddy
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Re: New Hobby: Mead

Post by dan_buddy »

MichiganCornhusker wrote:No prob, Dan, I've got a gallon of honey sitting on my countertop and a freezer full of raspberries that I have been overlooking for quite a while. Maybe it's time I got it all in a carboy. :thumbup:

When I first got into distilling I tried making a blueberry mead in the spring and then started distilling I haven't cracked a bottle of the blueberry yet might do that soon
Definitely wanna try somthing with raspberry soon
I done a orchard breezin wine kit with raspberrys but no the same as doing it from scratch
Can't wait to get some need otg
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MichiganCornhusker
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Re: New Hobby: Mead

Post by MichiganCornhusker »

I used champagne yeast in the past.
Last edited by MichiganCornhusker on Tue Dec 09, 2014 2:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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dan_buddy
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Re: New Hobby: Mead

Post by dan_buddy »

Well would you pm if I have questions ? I have only made one mead and I haven't looked at that yet in 6 months as a bottler after a month not sure if that was a mistake or not
I will go out to the brew store for ^ that wyeast and I have only 1 honey to choose from and that's from Costco
As a fella in the hobbie for 15 years do you think this recipe is a good starter ..?
Should I use the bread yeast or wyeast sweet mead ?
Good amount of honey ? That works out to be about 1/4 honey in volume .
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