Don "Ho"

Recipes 

I found a LHBS and was talking to the owner. Asked about honey and he told me that he only carried Granulated honey. Has anyone used this? I am new and only have a couple of books on mead, but neither of them say anything about Granulated honey.

Don "Ho"

david_42

Recipes 

I haven't seen granulated honey in a store, but I've used honey that had crystalized. As far as I can find, they are the same thing: honey that has been sitting for a while and no longer liquid. All I've ever had to do was warm it up a bit to re-liquefy.

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sirsloop

Recipes 

some honey is naturally solid... which is why some honey's come in "cream". They control the crystallization so it ends up a semi-solid instead of a huge crystals. Just dissolve in water...

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RichBrewer

Recipes 

By the way, shop around for honey. I find the LHBS are fairly expensive.

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Cheers,
Rich

malkore

Recipes 

agree with Rich. try some 'healthfood' stores, Akins, the local farmers market or organic co-op store.
even online sources with shipping might beat the LHBS price.

depending on the type of mead your making (melomel, pyment, metheglin, braggot, etc) you might even be able to use decent quality grocery store honey. I've used Sam's Club clover honey many times with good success, especially melomels since the fruit tends to dominate (by my recipe design).

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Malkore
Primary: English Mild
On tap: Pale Ale, Lancelot's Wheat, English Brown Ale, Steam Beer, HoovNuts IPA
Bottled: MOAM, Braggot, Raspberry Melomel, Merlot, Apfelwein, Pyment, Sweet mead, Cabernet
Gal in 2009: 27, Gal in 2010: 34, Gal in 2011: 13, Gal in 2012: 10

sirsloop

Recipes 

Whole foods has a nice selection of honey's but they are quite expensive... orange blossom and raspberry honey is around $4.50-$5.00 lbs...

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~~~~~~~~~~~___//_ ____________________________~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~_/ [][]| | /```\/```\/```\/```\/```\ |~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~_/_______| |____NOW TRIPLE HOPPED______|~~~~~~~~~~
~~~___/[_]| 00 /| | \,,,/\,,,/\,,,/\,,,/\,,,/ |~~~~~~~~~~
~~|___|___|___/_| |___________________________|~~~~~~~~~~
~~|=(*)[________]==(*)(*)=| \________/=(*)(*)=|~~~~~~~~~~

malkore

Recipes 

Do remember that the disease or whatever that decimated the bee population last year has caused a bit of a spike in honey prices.

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Malkore
Primary: English Mild
On tap: Pale Ale, Lancelot's Wheat, English Brown Ale, Steam Beer, HoovNuts IPA
Bottled: MOAM, Braggot, Raspberry Melomel, Merlot, Apfelwein, Pyment, Sweet mead, Cabernet
Gal in 2009: 27, Gal in 2010: 34, Gal in 2011: 13, Gal in 2012: 10

Aspera

Recipes 

Usually the best source for high quality honey at a reasonable price is to buy direct from a beekeeper. Costs will vary from about $20-$60 a gallon depending on the packaging of the honey, its weight, specific gravity, its floral source, color and if any shipping costs are involved. CCD did not affect honey prices which are mostly determined by world rather than local honey production. Fresh, unpasturized honey from almost any floral source will be better than the warehoused stuff from China which is usually blended with HFCS. Home brew shops basically have mark-ups of 100-200 percent on honey.

Don "Ho"

Recipes 

100% - 200% markup.. Thanks guys for the information.. Guess I will be making some trips to Farmers Market..

Rivermedic

Recipes 

I'm brewing a batch with granulated honey today. It tastes just like honey. I'm cutting the 15 lbs my recipe calls for to 11.25 lbs granulated. I'll let you know how it turns out. I've bought honey in the past from farms, but didn't notice much of a difference. I've been buying lately from Costco. They sell 5 lbs for about $8.25.