Mead from Comb-in Honey

[D the Catastrophist]

I was reading an article about recreating a medieval bouchet recipe, and one of the things they mentioned was that the source honey back then was (likely) less filtered, so would include parts of the honey comb.

I was curious if anyone had tried making mead with the comb in honey, and if so, had they noticed any impact on flavors or the fermentation process in general.

For a truly accurate comparison I think you would need to get 2 batches of the same honey from a local aviary, with one being comb in vs not, and make them both simultaneously to ensure the most accurate assessment.

My suspicion is the comb in honey would have an easier time in fermentation and require less nutrients to be added as the comb would provide more for the yeast to feed on.

Below was the article I mentioned if you are interested:
Medieval Bouchet

 

[Miraculix]

They would often dump in half the bee hive, not only the combs meaning dead bees and all of that. Good nutrition for the yeast plus everything else they might bring to table including all kinds of nasties. I think susann verberg wrote some papers about that subject, of I remember correctly. You might find them in academia.

 

[D the Catastrophist]

And down the rabbit hole I go-

Washed Comb Mead

so you take the comb and cover it with warm (keep below 140 degree Fahrenheit) water at abouta 2:1 water:comb ratio, once the sugar dissolves, skim off the wax, and then hand squeeze the combs to get the residual honey out. Then filter the liquid through cheese cloth.

Apparently it imparts a 'spicy' flavor.

I may have to try this now.....

 

[DBhomebrew]

As Miraculix suggests, if medieval mead is your goal, do be sure you visit Verberg along the way.

 

[Tarkus]

I did live bee removal in so-Cal for many years, this not only brought in a constant supply of new colonies to the apiary, but a large amount of comb and honey that wasn't suitable for bottling or sale, hence I fermented a large amount of it every fall. I would take approx 50-75# honey/comb that contained larva, pollen, propolis and misc bee parts and 20 gal of water in a large SS vat and heat it till the wax melted, leave it at that temp110-120 deg F about 1/2 hour, then let it cool, overnight. The next day the wax had solidified with most of the lighter debris trapped in it, drain & filter from the bottom into 30 gal FG HDPE barrel check SG add water and throw yeast, seal with a fermentation lock. This produced the best mead I've ever tasted period, after racking and bottling not that great, let it age a couple of years and I had friends and family beating my door down for it.

 

[Dan O]

I did live bee removal in so-Cal for many years, this not only brought in a constant supply of new colonies to the apiary, but a large amount of comb and honey that wasn't suitable for bottling or sale, hence I fermented a large amount of it every fall. I would take approx 50-75# honey/comb that contained larva, pollen, propolis and misc bee parts and 20 gal of water in a large SS vat and heat it till the wax melted, leave it at that temp110-120 deg F about 1/2 hour, then let it cool, overnight. The next day the wax had solidified with most of the lighter debris trapped in it, drain & filter from the bottom into 30 gal FG HDPE barrel check SG add water and throw yeast, seal with a fermentation lock. This produced the best mead I've ever tasted period, after racking and bottling not that great, let it age a couple of years and I had friends and family beating my door down for it.

This sounds very intriguing . I may have to try something like this on a smaller scale. I'll ask my local beekeeper if he has any comb that he wouldn't sell, if he would consider selling cheaper for the experiment.

 

[Tarkus]

They would often dump in half the bee hive, not only the combs meaning dead bees and all of that. Good nutrition for the yeast plus everything else they might bring to table including all kinds of nasties. I think susann verberg wrote some papers about that subject, of I remember correctly. You might find them in academia.

A big part of that, is understanding medieval beekeeping methods and processes, using "bee logs" and the classic skep hives (inverted woven baskets) or gathering wild, they had little or no way to keep the honey separate from brood, pollen chambers/cells so to extract the most honey for the mead, simpler to mash down large portions of the comb, bees and all so to say, nowadays we use the Langstrom hive's (Square orderly frames in a box) with things like "Queen excluders" to keep the lady from laying eggs in our honey boxes and processes that preserve the comb during extraction, to be reused by the bees for honey storage. Hence we don't have all of the "goodies" in our honey that made mead phenomenal back in the day. I've been lucky in that I stumbled into a business that gave me the opportunity to make what I believe to be the closest thing to that medieval Mead