Can you use already fermenting honey to make mead?

[TexasTea]

I have about 20 pounds of honey in a bucket that had too high of a water content and is starting to ferment (off gas, and foam a little). I want to use that to make mead so I don't waste it. I was going to use JAOM ( Joes ancient orange mead formula (using bread yeast) found on this site.

My question is, should I pasturize (heat the fermenting honey) to 150 or 160 F for a bit to kill whatever wild yeast is in there, and then proceed.


or Should I just drop in the ingredients (including the bread yeast and water) and go for it.

This is my first batch of mead.





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[Dan O]

Short answer is, yes, you can still make mead with it. No need to heat the honey, unless either it's crystallized or you want to make a bochet (caramelized honey) out of it.
While the JAOM recipe was put together so that anybody could walk into their local grocery store & buy all the ingredients to make a mead with, you can get a better product with just a few changes & a little more attention to your batch.
Bread yeast should outperform any wild yeast in the bucket. However, using a commercial wine yeast will give you a cleaner tasting & faster yielding product, sooner than any bread yeast will.
Bread yeast tends to be very whispy after it finally settles down, meaning when you go to rack off of the gross lees, it's extremely easy to put a large portion of that lees back into suspension, even if you're careful, making your mead cloudy again. There are many wine yeasts that make the racking (& waiting part of the process) much less annoying.
I hope this helps you.
Happy meading

 

[TexasTea]

Thanks Dan. I'm going to try this tomorrow. I'll do the first one with the bread yeast, but will do the next batch with a wine yeast.

I live in TX, the temp range inside is 60-80. Do you have any good wine yeast recomendations for this? I only have bread yeast and beer yeast on hand (Saf Ale US-05, Kviek Lutra, and Saf Ale BE -134 a belgian saison yeast.

 

[Dan O]

There are many yeasts on the market that could be a better choice for a JAOM. Based off of this list, QA23 would be the better choice, given the citrus.
BOMM yeast also does very nice.
If you haven't read the BOMM threat take a while to read it. There's a lot of good information in that one thread.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/threads/brays-one-month-mead.429241/

This is an informative page that has a bunch of information for making a choice for a yeast.


I hope this helps you.
Happy meading

 

[TexasTea]

Dan, Thanks for that. I'm getting stuff together now for a BOMM. Could I use the QA23 in a BOMM?

 

[Dan O]

Dan, Thanks for that. I'm getting stuff together now for a BOMM. Could I use the QA23 in a BOMM?

The thing that makes a BOMM a BOMM is the yeast, Wyeast 1388 Belgian Strong Ale Yeast. It comes in a foil packet, (liquid yeast), needs to be kept refrigerated until ready to use. You could make a mead with QA23, but it won't be a BOMM.
(Sorry, i had the wrong picture in there)

 

[MightyMosin]

@Dan O is correct about what makes it a BOMM. It's the yeast and the specific nutrient regime.

To save on some cost though, I will sometimes use SafAle S-04 or SafAle US-05. I think they are a pretty good substitute.

 

[Maylar]

@Dan O is correct about what makes it a BOMM. It's the yeast and the specific nutrient regime.

To save on some cost though, I will sometimes use SafAle S-04 or SafAle US-05. I think they are a pretty good substitute.

Bray did some extensive research on that and concluded that there was only one dry ale yeast that made a good BOMM. It wasn't a SafAle.

 

[Dan O]

For all those who never saw the article on how the BOMM got started & the yeast experiment done, here it is.

https://www.denardbrewing.com/blog/post/ale-yeast-experiment-belgian-bomm-one-month-mead/

 

[TexasTea]

I've been busy and am tryin to catch up now. Started a 5 gallon batch of modified JAOM Oct 28th. Threw in the raisins, spices, then I zested the orange and threw in the zested peel, orange segments cut in half and left out the white pith. I heated the fermenting honey a bit (to 150F) to kill off the wild yeast. Used 3 pounds of honey instead of 3.5 and used BE134 Ale yeast. I guess I can't call this a JAOM anymore, its more of a TAOM (TexasTea Ancient Orange Mead).

Started bubbling like crazy. Now its down to a bubble every 5 seconds. I'm hoping this finishes more quickly by not using bread yeast, and leaving out the pith.

Its been 76-80F but pretty soon I'm going to have to Fermwrap it to keep it up to temp. I usually set the heat to 60-65 in the winter. I keep it in the dark and cover the carboy with a cardboard box to keep the light out.