I have 2 questons before I start...

i was going to start my first batch of mead to night and i was wondering if it would be good to put ginger in it? taste wise i mean....
An also when making wine you mix every thing but the yeast and put in a camden tablet in it and let it sit 24hr then add yeast. do i do this with mead if its just honey water and yeast?

Ginger ? Why not. Though you'd have to dig round for a recipe to establish some idea as to how much to use per gallon.

Plus I'd have thought ginger would suit a sweet mead.....

As for using campden tablets before the ferment ? Not unless you're using fruit that might carry too much wild yeast.

Honey is natures most anti-fungal substances, which is why you don't need to bother.

Oh and don't forget, you don't need to heat the honey........

fatbloke said:

Oh and don't forget, you don't need to heat the honey........

Click to expand...

There is some disagreement on this point. Science says you don't need to heat for antiseptic purposes, because as fatbloke points out; honey is naturally an extremely hostile environment for microbes.

But honey crystallizes. Unless your honey was harvested very recently (within weeks), it will be a solid mass with the consistency of over-frozen ice-cream.

Heating gently will also cause the impurities to float to the surface as a scummy white layer, easily spooned off.
Aggressive heating will cause your wonderful (expensive) floral flavors to disappear.

Treat honey like a baby, not a lobster. Don't boil!

Sounds good thank you guys .

haxcess said:

There is some disagreement on this point. Science says you don't need to heat for antiseptic purposes, because as fatbloke points out; honey is naturally an extremely hostile environment for microbes.

But honey crystallizes. Unless your honey was harvested very recently (within weeks), it will be a solid mass with the consistency of over-frozen ice-cream.

Heating gently will also cause the impurities to float to the surface as a scummy white layer, easily spooned off.
Aggressive heating will cause your wonderful (expensive) floral flavors to disappear.

Treat honey like a baby, not a lobster. Don't boil!

Click to expand...

no disagreement! Making a must isn't the same as making a worth, honey doesn't need to be converted like a malt etc, plus it does seem that if you get "good" honey (not processed to hell and back) then both heat and champagne yeast do a good job of screwing it up.

Most honey doesn't crystalise that quickly, with a few exceptions (canola/OSR). Plus if you blitz it in a liquidiser (if crystalised of course), then the hygroscopic nature of the honey will make it mix fine and well aerated ready for the yeast.

Recipes that use heat are invariably old/out of date, plus even if you use raw honey, then the bits of hive debris, dead bees etc are removed with the lees/sediment and racking. So there's little to no reason to use heat...... :-D

Something you may wish to add is some yeast nutrient as honey doesn't have many nutrients for the yeast to feed on. I understand that with beer this isn't an issue but with mead it is. If you have DAP (Can't remember what it stands for) then general recomendation is about 1 teaspoon for 2 gallons. Least that is what it says on the container that i have. Many play around with the amount and even divide the total amount into two or three doses for what is called step nutrients. See the Sticky.

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