1 Gallon Mead Experiment

[karch]

Hello!

I want to get a better understanding of how different honey varietals contribute flavor to mead. Would it be worth it to make three or four 1 gallon batches of mead with a different type of honey in each one? I would use the same yeast and aim for the same starting SG.

My plan would be to make a high volume starter and split it evenly among the number of 1 gallon jugs. I think I would want to make the meads more "sessionable," like a hydromel so that they would be ready to drink and taste sooner rather than later. To do this, I'd aim for SG of about 1.055. I would still use some yeast nutrients and energizer, just not at the same level required for a 5 gallon batch. After this experiment, I think I would try to see how different yeast strains effect flavor on the same variety of honey.

Would this be worth the time to do or is there a better way to achieve this?

Thanks for any tips and advice.

 

[bernardsmith]

Hi Karch - Your approach gets my vote. You are basically talking about 1.5 lbs of honey dissolved in water to make a gallon. The one challenge I see is that since all the flavor is coming from the honey and since you are using (relatively speaking) small quantities of honey you may find that the flavor profiles are not always as dissimilar as they might be if you were to use larger volumes of honey per gallon... but a larger volume of honey will mean longer aging times.
But I think your approach is the best way to explore both honey and yeast... There is however, one other variation - and that is the same "varietal" honey by season - If you know beekeepers and if they collect spring, summer and autumn "wild flower" honey you may find that the flavors and indeed the colors change by the season...
One last thought - if you focus on raw honey one other experiment you might try is to ferment the honey using yeasts from within each batch. That is to say, you don't pitch any yeast but allow the must to ferment from wild yeasts released when you dissolve the honey. That would allow you to perhaps develop your own "house yeast" - a unique varietal yeast that you culture and pitch producing a unique character in all your meads...

 

[karch]

Thanks for the quick reply.

There is however, one other variation - and that is the same "varietal" honey by season - If you know beekeepers and if they collect spring, summer and autumn "wild flower" honey you may find that the flavors and indeed the colors change by the season...

Oh wow, I didn't even think about seasonal variety. That's interesting. I think I'll definitely look into that at some point in the future.

One last thought - if you focus on raw honey one other experiment you might try is to ferment the honey using yeasts in each batch. That would allow you to perhaps develop your own "house yeast" - a unique varietal yeast that you culture and pitch producing a unique character in all your meads...

Could you go into a little more detail on this? I'm not quite following. Are you referring to cultivating wild yeast?

While on the topic of yeast, what kind of neutral profile yeast do you think would work well for accentuating the honey flavors? I was thinking of using D-47 or US-05.

 

[bernardsmith]

Raw honey contains "wild" yeasts. Those yeasts are typically drowned out when you pitch liquid or dry lab cultivated yeast but you can culture and grow the yeasts from the honey. Bray Denard (AKA LoveofRose) has posted a blog about this.
D47 sounds like a good choice. I like 71B . Not sure that I agree that US -05 "accentuates" flavors from honey. But that is something to test. Vintner's Harvest offers an extensive list of wine yeasts that they say are designed to highlight fruit flavors and indeed, produce glycerols which accentuate mouth feel.

 

[Drewed]

My only suggestion would be to change only one thing at a time. Either change the honey, the nutrient, or the yeast. If you do more that one, you may get lost and you will not know if batch "A" is better because of the honey used or the amount of nutrient. Or for that matter if could be a combination of both.

 

[karch]

Yeah, that's what I was planning on doing. I was going to do a batch with orange blossom, wildflower, and clover on their own. Depending on whichever one I like best, I was then going to do some yeast experiments.

 

[bernardsmith]

You might want to consider honey varietals - such as Tupelo, meadowfoam, acacia, black locust. Certainly, I think you will be able to find clear flavor and aroma differences between orange blossom and the other two but personally, I am not sure that there is always a discernible difference between clover and wildflower. You might speak to vendors at farmers' markets. Locally, I understand that one vendor at a market here says that her bees enjoy fields of sunflowers but she cannot label her "wild flower" honey as sunflower honey because she cannot guarantee how much of the honey comes from those flowers...