First time mead - hoping for some advice

[Tidwellc]

I've been doing all-grain beer for several years with good success and am excited to get started on my first mead batch. Compared to AG, the process seems much more straightforward, but I had some lingering questions I wanted to run by the veterans before I pull the trigger.

First, I want to make a simple, to the point, delicious mead. Nothing crazy, just honey.

Second, I bought about 20lbs of Star Thistle Mead from an old friend who owns a bee farm in Northern California to do this with, about 2 or 3 years ago and just haven't gotten around to it until now. I checked the honey just now and it smells and tastes fine, color is slightly dark but looks good, but it has firmed up a little bit. Is this okay to use? I know the question of whether or not to heat or pasteurize is a topic of debate, but should I do it in this case?

Also, I read somewhere that progressively adding yeast nutrient/energizer on intervals (or staggering, as the article called it) can produce a nice finished mead in a few months versus a year. Any firsthand experiences with this?

Simple recipe - 18lbs of honey, 5 gallon batch, EC-1118 yeast

Good to go? Sorry for the long post, and I appreciate any feedback!

 

[bernardsmith]

My understanding is that honey has so little water in it that it cannot support microbial life and will in fact take water from cells - one reason why it was used in the past as a bactericide (although the folk who applied honey to wounds may not have known why it prevented infections). In short honey's shelf life is likely to be longer than the the history of Western Europe. No need to heat the honey if the reason for doing so is to kill bacteria or mold.
However, what you may want to do is heat a pot of water and allow your honey still in its jar or bucket to stand in the hot water for 5 or 10 minutes. What that does is increases the viscosity and enables you to pour the honey far more easily (if you ever used LME you know all about that). What I do is to sanitize a blender (OK I have some neuroses) and pour in a few cups of water and then pour in a whack of honey. Then I blend the honey and water to aerate the must and pour the blended mixture into my fermenter. I repeat this until all the honey has been blended and then I add some water to the warmed honey container and shake the crap out of that. I find that the remaining dregs of the honey easily pour into the bucket.
You are looking for a mead to drink in a few months rather than in a few years? In my opinion you want to make a mead that is closer to an ABV of about 11 or 12 %. Using 18lbs of honey to make 5 gallons will produce a mead closer to 15 % or higher. Like beer, the higher the ABV , the longer it will take for the mead to smooth out.
Others may disagree but I would aim for something like 3 lbs in a gallon and use any excess to back sweeten if you prefer a sweeter rather than a drier mead.
EC-1118 is a killer strain but I don't think it will bring out any of the aromatics and flavors your honey may have . You might want to use 71B. LoveofRose has tested ale yeasts and swears by Wyeast 1388 and says that this yeast ferments clean and will enable you to bottle your mead in about a month. He has published a recipe he calls BOMM and by all accounts this has proven to be really good. (Wyeast is not available at my LHBS - they say that it too often has self activated during delivery.
Regarding the addition of nutrients , IMO, all wines with the exception of grape wines need nutrients and honey is perhaps the least nutrient rich fermentable out there. The recommended method is to add half the total amount your volume needs shortly after the yeast lag time has ended, 1/4 after half the sugar has been fermented (based on your starting gravity) and 1/4 after half of the remaining sugar has been fermented. So, eg, say your starting gravity was 1.100 then you add half the nutrient , after the gravity falls to around 1.050 you add half of the remaining quantity, and when the gravity falls again to about 1.025 you add the rest.
Honey has no buffers and the pH can drop precipitously during fermentation so the last thing you want to do is add acid blend to make your mead more acidic as it ferments ... but unless you are making a "show mead" you may want to add acid blend before you bottle (you want to taste the mead and not paint by numbers), you may also want to add some oak chips to increase the tannins in the mead, but straight mead - fermented dry - can be an incredible drink. I have never tasted Star Thistle honey or mead made from this. It sounds lovely. Good luck.

 

[Arpolis]

Bernardsmith pretty Mitch covered it all. I just wanted to second a couple points.

For yeast try and stay away from 1118. Some have said it makes a good mead but those are the same people saying they tasted the mead 1-2 years after making it. 71b makes an amazing mead. I made some orange blossom mead with that which knocked the socks off anything at the store just a couple months after yeast pitch. Other meads I made with that have all done very well too. I just think I like the citrusy notes from orange blossom honey best.

Personally for a first mead I suggest an original gravity closer to 1.060. About 1.75 - 2lb per gallon. That will still get you in the 9% - 9.5% ABV range and have plenty of body and flavor if you stabilize and back sweeten a little.

 

[Tidwellc]

Thanks for the advice guys! I just finished pitching actually and set it aside in the closet. Unfortunately my LHBS only had the 1118, so I went with that. That being said, my OG turned out to be about 1.122, and the sample I pulled tasted amazing. Hopefully it turns out good!

 

[fatbloke]

reply posted at the thread where you've included the picture........