Hey all I'm going to be attempting a my first mean this coming weekend. My father-in-law owns an apiary and I have more honey than I know why to do with. My question is that I want to use orange blossom honey and add oranges also. Am I going to go overboard on the orange flavor?
First timer here.
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sheepcat
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I've never been one for subtlty in flavor (my cooking has been called "a full frontal assault on the senses" so I'd say go for it.
The most critical thing here is what you're adding from the orange. You want to use a zester, grater, vegetable peeler, etc., and carefully zest the orange so as not to add any of the white part of the peel (pith). For adding the slices properly, again, make sure they're free of pith- possibly remove the skin and put the pulp in loose.
If you have any POTASSIUM carbonate/bicarbonate, add about 3/4 - 1 tsp total to offset the added acidity from the oranges to make your yeast happy.
If you want to post the recipe you plan to use people would gladly give advice. I've made a couple of orange meads and they came out great.
The most critical thing here is what you're adding from the orange. You want to use a zester, grater, vegetable peeler, etc., and carefully zest the orange so as not to add any of the white part of the peel (pith). For adding the slices properly, again, make sure they're free of pith- possibly remove the skin and put the pulp in loose.
If you have any POTASSIUM carbonate/bicarbonate, add about 3/4 - 1 tsp total to offset the added acidity from the oranges to make your yeast happy.
If you want to post the recipe you plan to use people would gladly give advice. I've made a couple of orange meads and they came out great.
RegarRenill
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RegarRenill
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Oh, and ditch the raisins, if you can get some yeast nutrient and yeast energizer use them instead. Check out the sticky up top and look under SNA or staggered nutrient additions, you'll get a much better mead 
RegarRenill
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They give additional trace nutrients not found in normal yeast nutrient that allow a faster and cleaner ferment. Check out fermaid K or fermaid O, either of those and some yeast nutrient (DAP, diammonium phosphate with urea) will give better results for mead. The raisins are there for the nutrients they provide, but they can sometimes impart more of a winey taste, IMO, covering up the honey notes you want from a traditional. Although the OB honey and the oranges would probably hide that...
Ok thanks. The reason I'm using OB honey is I like its milder taste and color. It doesn't really have an orange flavor to it. I also have wildflower an tupelo. I figured tupelo has the lowest sugar content so it would be a poor choice and the local wildflower in central Florida is really dark and has quite a strong flavor to it.
RegarRenill
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Gotcha, makes sense. Check out the BOMM recipe, LoR swears by that tupelo honey, lol, although he uses OB for the recipe.
RegarRenill
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Just do a forum search for BOMM. LoR is LoveofRose, the recipe's creator's handle on here. He is the B (for Bray) in the BOMM recipe. It stands for Bray's One Month Mead. It is actually drinkable and fairly tasty in a short amount of time. He also goes into some rest procedures to get into the habit of doing with all of your meads, not just the quick ones.
