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Is the Dutch Gold honey raw? They say nothing is added, but I didn't see anywhere on their site where it mentions whether the honey is raw. I've had good luck with the honey from hsffarms and Bee Folks, but yeah, expensive. Plus the local post office is kind of weird about not delivering...

Did you check the pH? Lemonade mead makes me wonder if maybe it's gotten a bit too acidic for the yeasties.

Good to know! Thanks!

I too have been planning a dried elderberry melomel, once some space opens up in my fermenter. I've use dried elderberries to make sauces -- goes great with duck, or mix with strawberries to serve over cheesecake. Yum. Love the flavor. I've read that elderberries contain a chemical that can...

This sounds delicious! How did it turn out? Did the pecan oils cause any problems or bitterness?

Is it American Ale Yeast? That definitely smells like vomit to me -- especially the yeast cake and bucket clean up. Fortunately, the beer it produces smells and tastes much better than the yeast. British Ale yeasts generally smell good to me -- especially the Thames Valley II and Burton Ale...

My favorite honey for mead is Tupelo, by a lot. It has a spiciness that would be really good with persimmons.

That sounds really good. For a vanilla bean, just splitting & scraping and adding it straight to the mead should work fine. You can always add more/other spices later by putting some spice into an small spice jar with a lid and adding vodka. Just let the flavors infuse into the vodka for a...

I like the idea of the cocoa slurry. Thanks! I've got a bochet near the end of primary, plus I've got some PB2 peanut butter powder... caramel peanut butter and chocolate? I think I can spare a gallon of the bochet to try making a bit of candy bar mead.

Yeah, I have one of those red hand cappers too. But the -- I don't know what it's called -- flange? around the top of my champagne bottles gets crunched when I try to use a hand capper. Maybe a different hand cappers would work. Here are the bottles...

If you don't mind peanuts, you could try a powdered peanut butter, like PB2. It has most (but not all) of the fat removed. Kind of expensive though. Maybe there are similar products for other nuts as well. Also, I recently made a 5 gallon bochet from Almond Honey. It think the nutty...

This is something I've been grappling with recently. Just carbonating to beer pressures I was able to use crown caps & beer bottles for my sparkling meads, no worries. Then I went to higher pressures (30 psi and 33 deg F for a month) and switched to champagne bottles and plastic stoppers w/...

It helps to cold crash your sample in a jar in the fridge for a few days, and then decant it off the yeasts that settle to the bottom. You can repeated cold crash/decant until it's clear. Remember to keep it covered so the alcohol doesn't disappear. This works for the leftovers from racking too.

Ooh, I love the 12" burner on my glass top stove. Perfect for BIAB. Get some of that citric acid cleaner and a straight edge scraper. And a scale, because the stove top is only rated for 50 pounds (I literally weigh the boil pot before putting it on the stove). Or move outside and just...

Barleywine to secondary. Braggot made from Barleywine sparge to secondary. Made an American Ale yeast starter for an upcoming IIPA brewday.

I think there's a calculator for doing this on got mead, since it's dependent on the fruit.

The first time I made it, my reason for getting a kit was to see "how wine is made", so I followed the kit directions except with honey added... so basically your first option. The first time, I split the kit in two at the offset -- 2 gal juice, 1 gal water, 1/2 gal honey -- for about 3 1/2...

Exactly!

Too many bad examples of commercial mead around, at exorbitant prices. A non-local friend told me that their homemade mead tastes great. I was curious, but the best wine & beer shop around here only carried one brand, by a local meadery. I tried three different fruit meads by them and they...

The stickies at the top of the forum (What I Learned.... Mead Making Basics... or something such for titles) should tell you what you need to know about aerating, nutrients, backsweetening, etc. They contain some really really useful information. And yeah, start aerating slowly or you'll have...