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I recently made a buckwheat Hydromel. The honey was from a Polish shop in Croydon which has a good Polish community. The honey was great but the mead had a very strong manure taste and smell to start with and I very nearly chucked it. Then I forgot about it and it quietly aged away in the...

I tried the pasteurisation method with very good results. I did have a few poppers but it seems that the corks fly off well before the bottles themselves build up dangerous pressure levels. I have been using regular wine corks so far and was amazed to find that they hold some serious pressure...

Amazing! Thank you

Hi all, I have been making hydromels of a beer-like ABV for about 6 months. To avoid the inevitable thin consistency of low strength meads, I have been either leaving residual sugars or priming before bottle carbing. However, I do like my mead to be slightly sweet. All the discussions I...

Here's a burnt honey quick mead I started recently. I was amazed at how much the colour faded during fermentation! Why does this happen?

My caramelised honey Hydromel :) Yes it is cloudy but nobody seems to mind and it tastes just fine so if it ain't broke don't fix it!

All you need is mead

Wow you've thought about this in quite some detail. I might join you in this experiment as I've recently started making my own cheese! All you need is mead

I conveniently started a batch of vanilla bochet (without even knowing about this group brew) in mid July! Woohoo, so I guess that means I'm in! It's already tasting incredible, can't wait to taste it at bottling. All you need is mead

Just a thought, Had anybody tried making Hydromel but using whey instead of water? Maybe the lactose would bulk up the body and even give it a bit of head? Or does it just go all freaky once you try to ferment it? All you need is mead

Yeah, it does seen to fill it out to some degree when you add tea, without ever imparting an actual tea flavour. Hops has been on my list to try for a while. I might sample a hopped mead first before going ahead though because I don't have a lot of space for more fermenters! All you need is mead

I see... Maybe I'll have to make a compromise and make it a metheglyn... I've actually made a start. I did two tests: I can't help feeling that this isn't going to work without that something else. It did taste a little watery so I added tea again which solved it (no idea how at this point)...

1 gallon JAOM 1 gallon Vanilla Bochet 1 gallon Heather Hydromel 1 gallon Buckwheat Hydromel 1 gallon Blackberry Mead 1 gallon Pictish Mead 3 gallons London Bochet experiments. That takes me up to 9 so far! :) All you need is mead

Perfect, I think I'm all set then. 6-7% is within my range and I have nothing against your nutrient and potassium bicarbonate addition method - thanks for the tip. I don't know whether my ale yeast counts as any of those you mentioned but I'll re hydrate anyway. I've tried re-using lees...

Okay, I’ve taken on board much of what you and the folks over at gotmead.com have said, but I still want to properly experiment on this myself. Could any of you please give me some feedback on this revised recipe? London Bochet – Mk II 1 pound - Wildflower Honey ¼ pound – Spanish...

That's a good suggestion but for now I'm treating these additions rather like a last resort. I'd rather it wasn't that sweet to start with if I can avoid it.

What do you mean by this? Forgive me for my ignorance. From what you're saying, it seems that, even with bochet, it is not possible to produce a full bodied hydromel without it being quite sweet. Has anybody found otherwise? I reckon I'll try it anyway, even if I may be doomed to fail...

I think you're right there... I will use a new recipe using only honey burnt black (wondering if this would create smokey flavours like a hint of stout?) and experiment with different honey concentrations. When I am happy with that I will experiment with different yeasts and ageing on the...

Also, I am looking for dark ruby, not vivid red. More like a ruby ale (hobgoblin for example) All you need is mead

You're quite right, tea adds absolutely zero body... I've done some more research now. I believe what I like about it was the way it balanced the sweetness of the must but whether this will still be needed by the end of fermentation I don't yet know. I really want to stay away from adding...