Buckwheat Honey questions

I have a couple of questions about buckwheat honey

First, the background of what I made:
1 GALLON RECIPE
1lb Buckwheat Honey
2lbs Wildflower honey
1/8tsp energizer
1/2tsp nutrient
Lalvin D-47 Yeast

Now the questions:
1. I was thinking of secondary-ing this over some frozen peaches. Would the honey flavor overwhelm the fruit? How much fruit should I add?
2. Does buckwheat honey have a particular aroma? When I was making the base mead per above I remember the buckwheat honey smelling a little strange. Strange in the way that it reminded me of wood chips, or maybe the base layer of a hamster cage.
3. Is buckwheat honey significantly thicker than other honey?

I'm a little afraid that my LHBS sold me some old honey because it was pretty much solid, and it smelled funny. Either way, I mixed the recipe together and it seems to be happily fermenting, just wondering what could cause the issues that I noted in my brew log. Thanks for your help!

Don't worry about the crystalization, it's normal for most honeys. Buckwheat, and especially Eastern Buckwheat, is notorious for have a "barnyard" odor. A little goes a long way in mead.

SS-

Barnyard does describe it pretty much spot on.

Since you say a little goes a long way, is the ratio of 2:1 (wildflower:Buckwheat) that I used sufficient? Will the final product taste like a barnyard?

yes, barnyard does describe buckwheat. My father makes amazing home made sausage with honey in them, and tried buckwheat once instead of normal honey. The smelled so strongly of manure or barnyard that we couldn't eat them and had to toss them out.

I'm not to well versed in using it for mead, but I would be very careful with it. Maybe 2.5 lbs of wildflower and .5 lb of buckwheat?

DJBod129 said:

SS-

Barnyard does describe it pretty much spot on.

Since you say a little goes a long way, is the ratio of 2:1 (wildflower:Buckwheat) that I used sufficient? Will the final product taste like a barnyard?

Click to expand...

I personally don't like to use more than 20% Western Buckwheat in my meads but I've seen some recipes that used a lot more than that. I can't say I've ever tried the Eastern variety but, by all accounts, I don't think I'd use even 10% in a mead.

Summer is one of the master mead makers here, I tend to take his postings to heart.
As a newbie, I have always heard that Buckwheat is a very, very strong honey that imparts a VERY strong flavor and overwhelms everything else. I would think I would use less for an initial batch.
But if your following a recipe just remember if it taste horrible in a year, wait 5 more and it will most likely taste fantastic.
Best of luck,

LINK HERE

So that simple buckwheat recipe was what I saw and it made me want to make a buckwheat mead (more so that I could have something to long term age along with everything else that I've been making lately)... Because my LHBS only sold them in 1 pound increments, I decided to do a 2:1 ratio. I'll plan on losing this 1 gallon batch to see what a few years does to it.



[soapbox]
I wish the recipe section made you type in reviews also, since now that I went back to it, I realize that the poster of the recipe didn't actually make it. Boo-urns.
[/soapbox]

Like Kauai_Kahuna said, give it time. Time does amazing things to a mead. As I write this, I'm sitting in the back yard under a maple tree in the cool of the evening drinking a rhodomel that I added what I thought was too much hibiscus. The hibiscus leaves gave it a lovely red color but it also gave it a tart citrus-like bite that I found unappealing. Now here it is a year later and I'm trying it again and the hibiscus "bite" has completely disappeared, leaving only the red color I wanted, a hint of rose petal and allowing the alfalfa honey to dominate.

As I said, these were my opinions and opinion are just that. Some find the taste of buckwheat appealing. I noticed that a buckwheat blend (43% Buckwheat Honey, 43% Orange Blossom Honey, 14% Wildflower Honey made in 2007 took a bronze in the 2009 Winemaker Magazine competition.

Was just wondering if:1. You could possibly backsweeten a pure buckwheat batch (12lb-5gal) enough to make it decent and 2. What would you use summersolstice? LHBS reccomended glycerine and lactose, mainly because he's not a big HFCS/ Table Sugar sort of guy