I have been a homebrewer for a while now and have always wanted to make mead. I never have because I was afraid of the quality of the store bought stuff and b/c the local stuff was dreadfully expensive.
Anyway, I had the good fortune yesterday to be given 3lbs of awesome local honey. I don't want to do anything crazy with recipe as far as fruits and spices go, I just want to make a soild semi-sweet mead. However, all of the recipes for plain mead that I have seen call for light, preferably, clover honey. The honey I was given tastes exceptionally good and is not terribly heavy on the palette, but it is very dark, almost like a brown ale. It looks solid brown but when you hold it up to the light a dark amber color can be seen.
He said a good percentage of it was tulip poplar (supposedly the best flower for honey in East TN) and the rest was from wild mountain trees and bushes.
What should I do? Can I just follow a regular clover honey recipe and substitute this much darker honey and have it turn out fine, or do i need to make some modifications.
FYI the recipe i have calls for 3lbs of honey per gallon of water, yeast and yeast nutrient. Thats it.
Anyway, I had the good fortune yesterday to be given 3lbs of awesome local honey. I don't want to do anything crazy with recipe as far as fruits and spices go, I just want to make a soild semi-sweet mead. However, all of the recipes for plain mead that I have seen call for light, preferably, clover honey. The honey I was given tastes exceptionally good and is not terribly heavy on the palette, but it is very dark, almost like a brown ale. It looks solid brown but when you hold it up to the light a dark amber color can be seen.
He said a good percentage of it was tulip poplar (supposedly the best flower for honey in East TN) and the rest was from wild mountain trees and bushes.
What should I do? Can I just follow a regular clover honey recipe and substitute this much darker honey and have it turn out fine, or do i need to make some modifications.
FYI the recipe i have calls for 3lbs of honey per gallon of water, yeast and yeast nutrient. Thats it.