Jungle Honey Mead

I just received 6 330ml bottles of raw jungle honey (harvested today).

As soon as I receive my needed chemicals (DAP, Fermaid K), I intend to make a one gallon BOMM (Bray's One Month Mead).

The recipe that I am following calls for 2.5lbs of honey. So doing some basic math that equates to;

330ml=11.1oz=1.04lbs of Honey or 2 1/2 bottles of honey for this recipe.

What is the ideal way to store this raw honey while I wait for my shipment? The ambient temperatures here range from 80F-93F. This is my first time dealing with raw honey and attempting to make a mead.

Thanks!

Just keep it out of direct sunlight and don't mix it with water yet and it should be fine at that temp. Honey is a natural preservative, the bees actually use their wings to evaporate out just enough water that microbial activity is stopped.

Jungle honey? Id like to know more about that. Where is it from? What does it taste like?

Thanks damdaman, I will put it on my window sill. Is there a shelf life?

Chris, it is wild honey harvested out of the local jungle. I live in the old Subic Navy base (now the Subic Bay Freeport Zone). I payed an indigenous member to harvest it for me. Cost me $13 for the 6 bottles. It is an amber color and pretty sweet. I am not an Aficionado and not a regular honey user so I can not give you a comparison.

HB_in_Subic said:

Thanks damdaman, I will put it on my window sill. Is there a shelf life?

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OUT of direct sunlight, not IN direct sunlight.

Thanks I will just put it on the top shelf in my kitchen (out of swmbo's reach hahaha)...

So today I started the experiment.

I am only doing a one gallon batch. My goal was to make a mead with as little intervention as possible (aside from daily degassing for a week, periodic nutrient additions and SG monitoring). Well that went out the window when we started to get warmer than normal weather (above 93F for the daily highs, M27 can't handle above 90F). So I am forced to employ a swamp cooler (essentially using a large ice cooler with water up to the must level and frozen bottled water to chill the water when needed).

3.12lbs of wild jungle honey (no telling what flowers it is from but Acacias are blooming)
2.6L of mineral water
1/4 tsp of DAP
1/2 tsp of Ferm K
3/4 tsp of Potassium Carbonate
M27 yeast, rehydrated at 84F (ambient temperature)
Pitched into must at 84F
Stowed in the swamp cooler at 81F

OG 1.116, Est FG 1.009 = 14%ABV the max for M27

Another one of my goals was to bottle a mead without adding stabilizer, hence the 14% tolerant yeast.

Started to get blowoff at 2 hours. Swamp cooler got up to 90F, put a frozen water bottle in and it was down to 80F in 30 minutes.

At 10 hours, steady bubbles (1 per second) and swamp cooler at 82F (outside ambient temp 93F).

At 24 hours, lots of CO2. This photo was before I started to swirl and shake the must. It took me about 20 minutes of swirling and shaking to get a lot of the CO2 off. The color change has been very drastic from 0 hour. The krausen in the picture is slanted as I have to lay it at a 80 degree angle inside the cooler to make it fit with an airlock.

Yesterday during the heat of the day I only had to add one frozen bottle for about 15 minutes to get it from 84F down to 80F. The decrease in temperature did not slow down any of the yeast action.

This morning it was at 84F in the cooler. Ambient outside temperature was the same. I had a little bit of blowoff during the night. Still lots of furious activity.

HB_in_Subic - well done! Go Jungle Honey! Basically this is a Philippines version of a raw wildflower honey. The raw honey is the best to use for a BOMM, but the storage above 80 degrees F could be problematic. I do my darndest to keep my several gallons of honey under 80 degrees. We have been talking about this experiment and I'm sure Bray Denard will be watching this closely.

The M27 yeast is Mangrove Jack's Belgian Ale yeast that is a dry yeast available in the Philippines. The liquid Wyeast 1388 Belgian Ale Yeast used in a BOMM in the U.S. is not easily obtained in the Philippines. So HB_in_Subic is employing the next best thing. Although this is his first BOMM, this is a really good experiment. Fighting with the high fermentation temperatures will be key here. While that yeast's temperature range extends up to 90 degrees F, the normal daily temperatures in Subic Bay exceed that this time of the year, hence the need for a cooler to ferment in and frozen water bottles to try to keep the must temperatures from exceeding 90 degrees. So we have some unknowns here, honey variety, fermentation temperatures and yeast. I will be trying to replicate this experiment here in San Jose, California using the same yeast, bottled spring water, Orange Blossom Honey and fermentation temperatures in the 70's. I will try to match the O.G. of 1.116. Others are welcome to also try this experiment using the M27 yeast and we can compare experiences.

It's interesting that Mangrove Jacks recommends sprinkling the yeast directly on the must rather than activating it in water with Go-Ferm as I would normally do. HB did you sprinkle? Did you see the must starting to bubble at 12 hours after pitching? If so, that's great for the M27 yeast. I know you are experiencing a rapid drop in gravity with this fermentation partly due to the temperatures you are fermenting at. Keep up the good work. We are rooting for you.

The M27's low end of the temperature range is 79 (a bit higher than you are used to). Except for the initial blowout at 2 hours after pitch (reached 90F and I had it cooled down in 30 minutes using a frozen bottle of water to 82F), It has been consistently at 82F. I have been getting a little rise in temp (84F) overnight and at about 4 in the afternoon (heat of the day) and I put a frozen water bottle in quickly getting it back down to 82F. So I have been doing pretty well with the temperature control. No huge wild swings.

I rehydrated the yeast with 100ml of tap water that had been boiled and cooled to ambient temp (84F). After no activity for an hour, I added some Fermex to compensate for the rehydration and possible dilution of yeast nutrient. Within 30 minutes I had foam forming in the starter. I then pitched it into the aerated Must. At 2 hours it was bubbling strong and at 12 hours the yeast was in full swing, it looked like an aerated fountain inside rolling quickly with CO2. Right now (40 hours) it is still going strong and not slowing down. It also looks lighter than it did 16 hours ago. Now I know why you guys like to watch your Carboys. hehehehe

Color is still similar to yesterday. In the daylight it looks a little lighter. It's still so thick that you can't shine a light thru it. Took a gravity reading. It is now at 1.028. Still has plenty of bubbles and the pace on the blow off tube has gone to a bubble per second. I added the last dissolved SNA like I did last night. Swamp cooler has been sitting at 82F for the last 5 hours. I am going to cool it down to 80F before I go to bed to see if I can get it to be no warmer than 82F in the morning.

I am thinking that if I do this again, I will check at 16 hours and 32 hours to see if it's at the 1/3 sugar marks.

The gravity reading was at 1.014. Fermentation is slowing down and the swamp cooler is at a steady 82F. Bubbles are about 1 every 3-4 seconds. Color is a little bit lighter. Tasted of alcohol (currently at 13%ABV), not too sweet or any bad flavors. Basically tasted raw or green, but hey it's at only 72 hours.

Sounds like some tremendous progress in that fermentation for a mead! Amazing! You have that puppy cooking. Will be interesting to see what gravity this ends at for you. My son is sending me some of that M27 yeast but if anything I will be fermenting for most of the time under the 79 degree minimum for this yeast. At least by a few degrees during the day and like 70 during the night. So if anything I will get some different results due to fermenting lower than the optimal temperature range. But hey I live in my fermentation room. I'm interested to see how your mead clears up at the end. This is a photo of my Orange Blossom mead at one week. Comparable cloudiness to yours. Now just over six weeks out it has cleared some but is still quite translucent. Cool experiment HB_in_Subic!

Maybe find a warm part of the room closest to a wall that is warmed by the sun? Also you could try wrapping it in a towel that has been warmed by a dryer. I think that if you can pitch at 79F that the yeast will keep it warmer by 4-5 degrees than the ambient temperature. You could also maybe add something to a swamp cooler to keep the temp close to 80F (a fish tank warmer?).

The yeast has started flocculating and is starting to clear up. Today's gravity is at 1.012 (same as yesterday) so I may have reached FG. We will see.. My cooler has been a steady 82F the last few days so no worries there at least.

A couple of photos of what it looks like before I degassed.

I put in a squished up over ripe finger banana on day 3 for additional potassium and body (that's what is floating on the top).

It smells hot right now. Let's see how long it takes to clear and mellow.

I swirled it today very little CO2 now in suspension. Made sure that the yeast cake was thoroughly mixed with the solution. Removed the largest banana chunks. Accidentally pushed the cork into the mead, arrgghh.. I know there is a youtube video on how to get it out. I will have to google that. Today's gravity was the same reading of 1.012. I replaced almost half of the water in the cooler and it's now sitting at 86F (max is 90F for this yeast strain). Am hoping that sitting at 86F will encourage the yeast to eat up the last bits and refine it. Gravity sample wasn't as harsh today.

On day 5 I warmed up the cooler to 86F.

Still doing daily swirling and gravity readings. The mead now has very little carbonation and dropped .002 to what appears to be a FG of 1.010. It still smells hot but is starting to clear.

I am going to sit on this one for a while and leave it be for now. Just maintain the 86F temperature and see how it goes.

The mead has zero carbonation at this point. It has gone down from 1.010 to 1.008. Still smells hot but clearing more. I am going to give it another week, then cold crash it. Still being maintained at 86F.

Here is a chart of the fermentation progress.

Excellent graph HB_in_Subic. That M27 yeast took no prisoners. A very fast and effective fermentation thus far. Have patience and I'm sure will will have a very good mead result. I have received my Mangrove Jacks M27 Belgian Ale yeast packets today in the mail so I can start a batch of Orange Blossom Honey must in a BOMM with M27 and a second with a Wyeast 1388 yeast cake. My fermentations will be in the 70's a bit below the 79 degrees minimum but I'm sure they will go. I will probably not have daily S.G. readings like you but a couple more gallons of BOMM never hurt as a result.

Thanks buzzerj. It tasted hot but I couldn't taste any sweetness. It was very light colored almost clear in the hydrometer sample. Similar to a pale ale. I will take a picture the next time.

Still sitting at 86F in a styrofoam cooler. Doesn't smell as hot. Almost clear, the solid in suspension is some of the banana pieces and the yeast cake is fairly firm. It didn't stir up much when I moved it for the picture. I am going to let it sit four more days and will transfer it to 1L bottles. Zero bubbles were encountered when I slightly disturbed the yeast cake.

I got side tracked from this experiment making Mango Wine for friends.

I noticed that it was clear and ready to go today. So I bottled it. I got 3.5L out of the 1 gallon batch.

The taste was different. Not sure what a mead is supposed to taste like as I have never had one before. There was no heat from the alcohol going down or in the taste. Smell is similar to a Saison. No fruitiness noted and wasn't too sweet or too dry. I am chilling the small 500ml bottle and will try it later cold.

Looks like it is clear as a bell. Nice result visually. It goes down smooth and when you finally feel it you smile. You may not get up, but you smile.

buzzerj said:

Looks like it is clear as a bell. Nice result visually. It goes down smooth and when you finally feel it you smile. You may not get up, but you smile.

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Awesome!
Regards, GF.

It is. How is the taste test HB_in_Subic? Oh your wife's opinion is the only one that counts.

buzzerj said:

It is. How is the taste test HB_in_Subic? Oh your wife's opinion is the only one that counts.

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It tastes similar to a Saison with a honey after taste. No alcohol bite or feel even tho it is at 14%. The wife is OK with it. However, she prefers the Mango Wine. Which is fine with me as I have several liters of this to myself

So really you could consider this in a way a BOMM success with a different yeast than Wyeast 1388. True maybe the saison flavor might not be as clean as one would get with 1388 yeast but it's a smooth tasting strong alcohol result in a month and a half. It will only get better at 3 months and beyond if you can resist it that long. Clearly, with using a typical wine yeast, this Jungle Honey Mead would likely still be hot with alcohol. But you say, it's basically not detectable. I think you may be onto something here HB_in _Subic. You may want to let Bray Denard know so he could try to do a batch at his new Dallas home. I intend to try to reproduce this with Orange Blossom Honey but now I'm moving to a new smaller place so it will have to wait a month.

I am not sure if it could be considered a one month mead as it took 45 days to be drinkable and continues to get better with age.

Well when you think that most meads take 6 months to a year to really get to that stage, I 'd say you have a pretty good result for a finished mead. Well done.