Is Shoprite Bowl and Basket brand honey ok for mead?

[mdlp]

I was looking at the honey at my local supermarket an I saw this clover honey there. Is it ok to use for making mead? They had other honeys available, like this one that specifically says raw clover honey. They have other brands as well, some say raw, some say pure, some say unfiltered, it's all so confusing. Will any of these just not work/come out poorly? Any experience with some of the specific brands they have at ShopRite?

 

[DBhomebrew]

Could you make mead with it? Sure.

Less processing, less heat, less filtering, etc will get more of the wonderful honey stuffs like subtle floral flavor/aroma into your mead.

Neither of those honeys you've linked are labeled in such a way to give me confidence in where they come from, what's actually in the container. Much of the cheaper less expensive honeys can be very low quality, or not even 100% honey.

I prefer to use "True Source Certified" or honey from my LHBS that comes straight from the beekeeper. I don't know the beekeeper by name, but the LHBS owner does.

https://truesourcehoney.com/

 

[CKuhns]

Agree, not sure if those are 100% honey. With that said. It will certainly work for mead. Consider doing a melomel or bochet.

If you can find a local apiary often they have much better quality and guaranteed 100% honey. Not too much more expensiv if you buy 60 pounds (5 gallons).

 

[mdlp]

Consider doing a melomel

Is the idea here that the added fruits for the melomel covers up defects in cheap honey?

 

[CKuhns]

@mdlp Yes that's the idea.

 

[ajmetzger]

New mead maker (only on my fifth batch) and fairly new (three years) beekeeper here. There is a worldwide problem with adulterated honey. Often the adulterants are things like rice syrup and other such sweeteners. These are added to the honey 'after the fact'. Here's a thing, though: in many parts of the US, mine included, this spring was challenging for beekeepers. The result for us was we extracted a bunch of honey that might have some syrup as a source in addition to nectar. That is, the syrup -- used to feed the bees in the early spring when they've used up all their stored honey but nothing's blooming yet -- got processed by the bees just like nectar would. We're pretty sure the amount of syrup that went into its making was minimal, but we'd never label or sell it as honey. Instead, it's in jars in my basement labelled "mead honey". So far, so good! My latest batch of mead is tasting quite nice and I've made lovely traditional honey cookies with the "mead honey". FWIW.