Has anyone made a really old time mead the way the ancestors did by fermenting the whole comb crushed with everything in it. As I understand it, the first mead makers scraped out whatever comb they could dig out of a hive in a tree, comb, pollen, bee bread, brood and whatever else was in there including old blackened comb used for brood rearing and then crushed it all up, added a splash of water and let it ferment from the native yeasts in the beebread (I assume that is where most of the wild yeast came from). They didnt know what yeast were then so they enjoyed the marvel of spontaneous fermentation. I wouldnt want to go quite so far, crushing up honeycomb, no brood comb, adding nutrients and a yeast starter just to be sure a good yeast go it going. Anyone in the mead group done one of these or is it a sure way to bring some strange flavor from the combs into the mead?
WVMJ
WVMJ