Finished 1st mead batch

[Danlund443]

Made a gallon of mead from 3 pounds of clover honey. Came out very clean but a little dry. Not a whole lot of flavor just being a plain mead and clover honey is really light in taste. My 2nd batch is plain but with 4 pounds of raw unfiltered honey from texas (Very strong) still brewing. I want to make more flavorful meads but don't know where to start. Are there any simple recipes for a beginner? Also I've been using EC 1118, is that ok?

 

[Maylar]

I made a clover mead this year too, and it's just a tasteless white wine. It seems clover honey just doesn't leave much flavor behind.

 

[Danlund443]

I feel like clover mead is only good to be made into a fruit mead if you want a pronounced fruit flavor. Or Joe's ancient orange

 

[bernardsmith]

Hiya Danlund443 - as a contrarian I would argue that any flavor that clover honey is likely to have will be nicely blown away or otherwise tamped down when you use EC-1118. That's a great yeast for priming a wine (makes it sparkling) but it's not so wonderful for highlighting flavors. I would use D47, 71B or DV10or a wine yeast that is selected for a white wine.
For more flavor you might also look for varietal honeys - Tupelo is a gold winner, Meadowfoam tastes a little like marshmallow Then there's avocado blossom, orange blossom, raspberry, chestnut, apple blossom... You don't have to spend a fortune obtaining varietals but varietals do provide far more complex flavors (IMO) - Alternatively, if you can find a local beekeeper who sells honey, wild flower honey produced at different times in the year will come from very different flowers blooming in the spring vs summer vs late fall... (spring honey is lighter in flavor than fall honey)...

 

[Danlund443]

Thank you bernardsmith. I will change up my yeasts. My next batches I was going to try a JAO and either a melomel or cyser. Brand new to this but I find it very fulfilling when it turns out right. Hope to turn this hobby into a career one day, thank you again

 

[bernardsmith]

But JAOM needs bread yeast. You cannot in fact make a JAOM using wine or ale yeast. You can make a mead , of course, but JAOM is a novelty mead and every line in the recipe is there for a reason. Everything is nicely integrated. You make one small change and the whole thing can fall apart..

 

[TasunkaWitko]

I had what seemed like very good results using 3 pounds of clover honey and D47; It was neither too dry nor too sweet, and had a really interesting character in there somewhere, like the honey it came from, only better. I really couldn't have asked for better. This was my first batch, and I kept it very simple, adding only yeast energizer and yeast nutrient. The batch was started in early October 2017 - even though it is still quite young by what appear to be mead standards, it has good flavor that seems to get richer as it gets older. I have two or three bottles left and plan to save them for Christmastime.

My next batch, I plan to use local honey from an apiary just half a mile or so from home; I'll use the same "recipe" (not really a recipe, because it was so simple) as before. This coming late summer or fall, I will try a third batch with chockecherries added, and see what I end up with.

With JAOM, please do follow the recipe/method exactly, as everything there has a distinct and definite purpose. Even if you think you are "improving" the recipe, the truth is that you are probably removing a necessary component for fermentation or good balance of flavor. Ask me how I know!

 

[Maylar]

For more flavor you might also look for varietal honeys - Tupelo is a gold winner, <snip>

At more than $20 per pound, it's gold indeed.

 

[TasunkaWitko]

I probably shouldn't admit this, but the clover honey that I used for my project above was the store brand from our local IGA grocery store - roughly the equivalent of Great Value etc. To its credit, it was 100% genuine honey; but I honestly wasn't expecting too much.

With such good results using that, I can only imagine how good it would be with "better" honeys, and I'd say that it would be worth it to try other varieties. Even if the Tupelo seems expensive, it could be worth every penny ~

 

[Danlund443]

Thank you all for your advice. I will be careful to follow the JAO recipe, but can I bump it up to 3 gallons and add ingredients proportionally? Also realized honeysuckle grows all over where I am, can that be added to a mead?

 

[Peter D Day]

I'd like to suggest members think about taking up beekeeping. It's an incredibly rewarding hobby in so many ways. One of those is being able to harvest honey at different times of the year to get completely different varietals. Another is always having local organic honey on hand to make mead. I know exactly where my honey came from and how it was processed. Very satisfying.