orange blossom recipe

I am new to making mead. I purchased some orange blossom honey to make a 1 gallon mead this weekend. Can anyone give me a recipe for a traditional mead with this type of Honey? Any advice would be appreciated.

Dissolve about 2.5 - 3 lbs of honey in cold water to make 1 gallon. I generally blend the honey and water in a blender to aerate. I also generally ferment in plastic bucket covered with a towel. There is no need to add K-meta to kill wild yeasts and or other bacteria as honey is in and of itself a bactericide. This makes it easy to stir the mead two or three times a day. Add yeast (I used QA 23 ) and nutrient . If you use 2.5 lbs plus the starting gravity will be around 1.090. (potential 6/26/ABV about 12 percent) I rack the mead to a glass carboy when the gravity drops to around 1.005. If you ferment this at a cool temperature the mead will be clear after a month. I just bottled a batch I started 6/26/14 - three months , crystal clear , dry yet 'sweet ' enough for me and full of flavor.
If you prefer a sweeter mead I would stabilize (add K-meta and K-sorbate) and then bench test to determine the amount of additional honey or sugar you want to add.

Since it's your first mead, you can also make a Bray's One Month Mead (BOMM) if you want it drinkable faster.


Better brewing through science!

bernardsmith - What do you use for nutrient additions?

I typically use LD Carlson's yeast nutrient and yeast energizer in tandem. Never had any trouble with these. One teaspoon /gallon nutrient and 1/2 t per gallon energizer. When I make a batch that is larger than 1 gallon I will stagger the feeding so that half the measure will be added shortly after the yeast has begun to ferment and a quarter after the gravity has dropped by half (say from 1.090 to 1.045) and the last quarter after the gravity has dropped to around 1.020

bernardsmith - Last question, do you stir to degass?