First mead project

So I've been wondering about brewing some mead for a long time now and I finally thought I'd give it a go. (Not to blame skyrim, but I kinda do, I also noticed the thread here and laughed)

The problem is that there's not too much honey around, basically I've narrowed my choices down to two possibilities at around the midway between the expensive ones and the cheap ones.

One of the honeys is thick (pretty much solid) and one can't see through it, the other one is slightly runny somewhat see through. Which one should I pick for the first try?

As far as yeast goes, I'm somewhat tempted to ordering lalvin EV-1118, but I'm not sure yet.

 

Don't know what skyrim is anyway (and can't be bothered to look it up).....

The honey thing ? Your description sounds like the difference between runny/liquid honey and set/creamed honey. There could easily be little or no difference between that as you can make the set/creamed honey from the runny/liquid honey. The types/names quoted around the various forums, are often from what's available to the US market..... even here in the UK, I don't get anywhere near as many different types as you might find in the US.

The main differences is to do with the varietal type honeys being collected from some of the monoculture pollination that happens in the US and a few other places (hives being placed among a large area of crops requiring pollination, then when the crop is pollinated, the honey is removed for sale and the hives are moved by train or truck to the next area requiring pollination). Though sometimes you may find a honey from a specific type of bee e.g. like the "africanised" bee's a.k.a. "killer bee's" that are found in some places in South America.....

It may be that you have to hunt around for any available locally produced stuff, which indeed, may have one main source of plants - around here, it is mainly considered "wild flower", but at certain times of the year, it would be influenced by specific crops, like finding a bee keeper who has hives near some of the oil seed rape/canola that is grown in the area. So while that wouldn't really be considered varietal, it's the closest I could get locally (and a lot of bee keepers don't like it as it tends to crystalise really quickly).

So if what is available to you locally doesn't really have any particular pedigree, then it would probably be classed as wild flower..... If it's come from a grocery type shop/market, it's likely to have been processed for eating, which often means that it's not as aromatic, with as many possibly subtle flavouring elements. The result being that it's fine to use for when the honey isn't the main focus of the taste of the intended product i.e. like melomels, metheglyns, etc etc. It can be ideal for making batches like the JAO/JAOM recipe etc......

As for EC-1118 ? When I first started, I used champagne yeasts like this, but have learned that they are very robust, strong fermenters, but have a habit of blowing a lot of the aromatics and some of the subtle flavours straight out the airlock, often leaving a flat, almost bland mead. That's not to say that they don't have their place, as it's a good strain to use for restarting a stuck fermentation, etc.... But as a suggestion that I've found to be better, especially for traditional type meads, is K1V-1116. It's almost as good at restarting stuck ferments as EC-1118, but it retains more of the original flavours, aromas etc. Plus it's got the "killer" property, whereby, it will make itself the dominant yeast when another yeast, cultured or wild, might be present. Yes, it can make a young mead taste a little rough, but most young meads are not very nice, it will age beautifully. So I now avoid champagne yeasts as much as possible (here's a link to the Lallemand yeast chart, which includes the Lalvin branded ones. As you can see, there's lots of them, but the majority aren't normally available in home brew sized packs, unless you get the mail order from somewhere like morewine in the US - I believe they repackage commercial ones as well as stocking the ones that are in home brew packs)

I don't know how hard it might be to get a varietal honey from elsewhere in the EU (Oulu ? That's Finland isn't it ? - maybe change the "none" to country). As you can get some varietal type honey from Poland, if it's imported......

Dunno if any of that is helpful or not ? But a good place to read up, is the Gotmead NewBee Guide.

 

I haven't tried that yeast strain but i experimented with ales yeast, red star Montrachet, bakers yeast, but the go to no problem fav has been lavlin d-47. As for the honey, yes the grocery store is processed but it will work. It inmost likely wildflower or clover honey, sometimes orange. Not sure where oulu is but if you have a farmers market you can really find some great tasting honey. If this is your first just try it out, after you get a recipe nailed done, premium honey will be worth the cost (and the time). By then you will get to know the difference.

 

D47 is indeed a good yeast for meads, but it has a caveat, inasfaras, it needs to be fermented between 15 and 20C (59 to 68F) for best results. Fermenting it higher than that can produce fusels that either take forever to age out, or never go.... To use the knowledgeable Medsen Fey's analogy.... "paint thinner".

It's why I prefer K1V, as it has a much wider temperature tolerance, as well as a higher potential alcohol tolerance......

 

Fatbloke are you referring to the Lalvin V1116 (K1)? Or am I mistaken, if so that seems like a nice yeast to go with as far as I can tell by quickly reading about it. (I be tired, had an evening shift today)

Sooo.. Anyway, some honey, some something, apples? white tea? bucket and uhm. yeast stuff.

 

yes, that's the one. I use mainly D21 or the K1V-1116 for my traditionals.

What you can do, especially if you're unsure of the provenance of the honey, you could just do a JAO/JAOM batch, as I'd suspect you can get all the rest of the ingredients locally. I don't use clover or whatever the suggested honey is, just locally available equivalents, the same with the bread yeast as Fleischmanns is a US brand so unavailable here. I just use what's in the local grocery store.

The ingredients are easy, the method/technique is easy and it doesn't take much in the way of managing. Once mixed up it pretty much looks after itself.

You'd get a reasonable result if you did 1.6 kg of honey in 5 litres, yes a little less sweet than if you did make it exact i.e. 3.5lb in 1 US gallon (3.78 litres), but I do the recipe as it is, but make the gallon imperial i.e. 4.55 litres and that's way sweet enough for me......

Oh and you'd get away with using the cheapest honey as well, as the orange and spices would mask any varietal flavoured honey you might find.....

 

I think you're referring to this one Ancient Orange Cinnamon & Clove Mead if I am correct then it seems like worth a shot to me. The use of bakers yeast would spare me of the hassle of ordering abroad which could take weeks and I could possibly substitute the bakers yeast with some "wine" yeast they sell around here. (home fermenting in finland tends to be mostly aiming to a high abv fast rather than making something nice. (or it's the few that spoil the rest)

So for a nice 10 liter patch I could go with as little as 3 kg's of honey, maybe 3,2-3,5 (I'd rather go a bit dry since I rarely like sweet stuff) three oranges, my fistfull of raisins and few cloves.

That's very doable for a first try I thinks. Meaning that the ingredients are cheap, even if I go organic with them. I also have some investing to do.

I need a bucket, unless I manage to find a suitable glass substitute! airlock, gravitometer (or whatever it's english name is)

 

Fatbloke- what's your take on the 21? I have some cumquats coming ripe and I am thinking of a variation of joam. Not to highjack, just want to expand. I haven't had the paint thinner effect yet, i have it controlled.

 

I was just going to mention, Poland has a huge variety. I went over to Oswiecim to visit my wife's family, and I saw the wide amount of honey they had even in a basic supermarket. Astounding, really.