Honey costs

[podz]

I am fairly interested to try making mead, but I am put off by the high costs of honey. How much are you all paying for honey? The cheapest I have been able to find is about 7 EUR / kg (about 4.50 USD / lb). For a 5 gallon batch using 15 lbs of honey, that comes in at approx 67 USD just for the honey. In contrast, I can make a 5 gallon batch of raspberry wine for about 53 USD, or a 5 gallon batch of apple wine for about 33 USD. A 5 gallon batch of Ed Wort's Apfelwein or apple cider costs me about 26 USD to produce.

With honey costs being equal to a container of pinot grigio concentrate, can the cost of making mead really be justified?

 

[MarshmallowBlue]

Yes, Commercial mead is typically quite expensive. I've paid $26.00 for a 375ml bottle of mead. that would be $52.00 for a 750ml bottle. Obviously there are cheap options but what you make will likely be better. Moonlight meadery has one that was aged in Sam Adams Utopian barrels that is 50 bucks for the 375ml. So if you pay for great honey and ingredients, you will have superior mead that does save money over commercial equivalents.

You can also just make smaller batches to start. I make one or two gallon batches. You should also see about any locals who have hives. You might be able to get a better deal. But Im in the US so I don't know what the supply is like in Finland.

 

[broadbill]

can't really compare mead with hooch made with apple juice and sugar if you ask me.

 

[damdaman]

Find a local beekeeper and go pick up bulk honey for a whole lot cheaper. Usually better quality too.

 

[fatbloke]

Here it varies greatly. The cheapest reasonable blended beint about £2.50 per pound up to about the £6-£7 per pound for a "good" varietal and no we don't see anywhere near as many varietals as seem to be available in the US.

 

[Johnnyhitch1]

can't really compare mead with hooch made with apple juice and sugar if you ask me.

Find a local beekeeper and go pick up bulk honey for a whole lot cheaper. Usually better quality too.

These are great points, also mead is a very selective product and not for everyone. Depedning on the honey you use and how long you let it condition. It can have a very floral/herbal aroma/flavor to it. I would recommend searching out a small bottle and see if you enjoy it first before dishing out the 80$ and 1year+ for one batch.

 

[podz]

can't really compare mead with hooch made with apple juice and sugar if you ask me.

I can compare the taste of honey mixed with water to the taste of apple juice mixed with a bit of sugar, sure. I would very likely ferment both of them with the same German champagne yeast as well.

Commercial mead isn't sold in Finland - here is a state run alcohol monopoly called Alko, which is the only place to buy anything over 4,7 %, so if they don't sell it then it doesn't exist.

I have a few 5 litre brown glass jugs, so I could make a small batch of mead - I just don't like it too much that I can't really see what's happening inside. I calculate that 5 litres of mead would require 1.8 kg of honey - I'd still need to by 2 kg - 14 EUR (18.6 USD) for the cheapest stuff available. Honey definitely won't be any cheaper from beekeepers - the economic politics here don't support such scenarios. OK, costs come to around 3 EUR per litre - cheaper than any alcohol here except for the ****tiest mass produced beers, and not even always then. Somehow, I would like to keep my home production costs to around 2 EUR per litre...

 

[ACbrewer]

OP, I know what I'm about to speak is herasy, but here me out.

Honey is >99% water and sugar, with small amounts of traces that give it its flavor. All the sugar is either Glucose (about 55% but varries) or Fructose (about 45% but again varries).

White table sugar is pretty much Sucrose, but Sucrose can be inverted with heat, a little water and an acid (usually lemon juice, but others work). If 'inverted' it will make 50%Glucose and 50% fructose. This is very close to the 55/45 of Honey, so you could use this to generate fermentables. Please note that the inversion of Sucrose is what is done for Belgian candy sugar (link around here somewhere for a method).

So what am I suggesting? I am indead sugguesting making an invert with say 5 pounds of table sugar, and using about 7.5lb of honey to make a mead. Will it be as good? I'd guess not, as many of the honey flavors will be missing, but it could save you money, depending on your sugar prices.

Living in the US, I can find the honey at a better price than that (heck if I want, I can get about 60LB for $200 at the farmers market, but that is to much commitment to making mead), so I'd personally not do this. But from a chemistry point of view, it is viable.

and I'm sure many will disagree about quality and practicality.


With all that said, given the price I'd suggess you start with a 1 gallon batch with 2 to 3lb of honey and see if yo like it.

 

[wilserbrewer]

Honey is an expensive commodity worldwide, sure it is about a 1/3 less expensive here in the US, but then again you have all those beautiful blonde babes in Finland, perhaps we can arrange a trade?

 

[podz]

Thanks for the chemistry lesson, acbrewer. Good info.

I think I will take the suggestion and start with a 4 litre batch due to the relatively high costs of making mead. I could drink it during the christmas holidays - that gives it a good 6 months to age.

 

[podz]

Honey is an expensive commodity worldwide, sure it is about a 1/3 less expensive here in the US, but then again you have all those beautiful blonde babes in Finland, perhaps we can arrange a trade?

Sure, you can have a few of the blondes - dark haired women need lovin', too

Kilo for kilo trade sound about right for thin blondes and non-chinese honey?

 

[EndlessPurple]

I can compare the taste of honey mixed with water to the taste of apple juice mixed with a bit of sugar, sure. I would very likely ferment both of them with the same German champagne yeast as well.

Only problem with this is that honey mixed with water does not taste like mead.

It's lousy that you cannot get mead where you are. If you get to travel, I would recommend making the effort to find some. More specifically, find some good mead. I have come across a wide range of quality of mead, some very bad to some very good. The bad is not worth the water, let alone the honey it was made of. While the good makes it seem reasonable to pay $50 US for a bottle.

That said, good luck with your first batch. Do not rush it for the holidays though. I did a traditional for my first batch and let it age a little over a year before drinking. At 6 months, it was still not very good so the extra time helped the flavor a great deal.

 

[ValerianNightmares]

OP, I know what I'm about to speak is herasy, but here me out.

Honey is >99% water and sugar, with small amounts of traces that give it its flavor. All the sugar is either Glucose (about 55% but varries) or Fructose (about 45% but again varries).

White table sugar is pretty much Sucrose, but Sucrose can be inverted with heat, a little water and an acid (usually lemon juice, but others work). If 'inverted' it will make 50%Glucose and 50% fructose. This is very close to the 55/45 of Honey, so you could use this to generate fermentables. Please note that the inversion of Sucrose is what is done for Belgian candy sugar (link around here somewhere for a method).

So what am I suggesting? I am indead sugguesting making an invert with say 5 pounds of table sugar, and using about 7.5lb of honey to make a mead. Will it be as good? I'd guess not, as many of the honey flavors will be missing, but it could save you money, depending on your sugar prices.

...

I have a mead recipe that calls for 1 part honey to 4 parts water, pretty basic. If I were to make an invert sugar syrup as you suggest, how would you maintain the proper sugar/water ratio?

As I understand it honey is 20% water, so would you just mix sugar/water in a 80/20 ratio and cook it?

I'm pretty new to this whole brewing thing myself, but I'm quite good at making jams, jelly, and syrup. I've been toying with the idea of using a fruit syrup in place of honey in a mead recipe and didn't know if I was crazy or not to try.

 

[WVMJ]

That is just wine made from a concentrate base, nothing to do with mead, you cant replace the honey and think mead. WVMJ

I have a mead recipe that calls for 1 part honey to 4 parts water, pretty basic. If I were to make an invert sugar syrup as you suggest, how would you maintain the proper sugar/water ratio?

As I understand it honey is 20% water, so would you just mix sugar/water in a 80/20 ratio and cook it?

I'm pretty new to this whole brewing thing myself, but I'm quite good at making jams, jelly, and syrup. I've been toying with the idea of using a fruit syrup in place of honey in a mead recipe and didn't know if I was crazy or not to try.

 

[WVMJ]

Dont do it, it will never live up to your expectations if you are whinging about how much it costs and you are getting the cheapo stuff anyway. I know you guys have local beekeepers, we had one talk at our beekeepers meeting this spring. Very interesting how they have to cram so much activity into such a short growing season, I was very impressed. You could talk in person to a local beekeeper, tell them you are interested in making mead, offer to split a batch with them, that usually gets their interest, but you have to put the effort into finding the hobbiest or small beekeepers. Good Luck, WVMJ

I am fairly interested to try making mead, but I am put off by the high costs of honey. How much are you all paying for honey? The cheapest I have been able to find is about 7 EUR / kg (about 4.50 USD / lb). For a 5 gallon batch using 15 lbs of honey, that comes in at approx 67 USD just for the honey. In contrast, I can make a 5 gallon batch of raspberry wine for about 53 USD, or a 5 gallon batch of apple wine for about 33 USD. A 5 gallon batch of Ed Wort's Apfelwein or apple cider costs me about 26 USD to produce.

With honey costs being equal to a container of pinot grigio concentrate, can the cost of making mead really be justified?

 

[ACbrewer]

Dont do it, it will never live up to your expectations if you are whinging about how much it costs and you are getting the cheapo stuff anyway. I know you guys have local beekeepers, we had one talk at our beekeepers meeting this spring. Very interesting how they have to cram so much activity into such a short growing season, I was very impressed. You could talk in person to a local beekeeper, tell them you are interested in making mead, offer to split a batch with them, that usually gets their interest, but you have to put the effort into finding the hobbiest or small beekeepers. Good Luck, WVMJ

While I suggested it as possible, I agree with you WVMJ that it wouldn't make very good mead. If you look back over the earlier posts you will see the OP (podz?) said that the economics are such that even as friends with a local beekeeper, he wouldn't save any money.

I spoke to a local beekeeper here, and he said he trade (I refused on grounds that it is very illegal to do so in the US), and he said that he'd charge me the same as everyone else - about $7 USD/lb. As I've said, I've found other local sources, and can get it for less, even a 5 gallon (us) pail - 60lb for about $200 at the farmer market, but given I do about 15 lb/year that is more that I really want to store.

 

[ACbrewer]

I have a mead recipe that calls for 1 part honey to 4 parts water, pretty basic. If I were to make an invert sugar syrup as you suggest, how would you maintain the proper sugar/water ratio?

As I understand it honey is 20% water, so would you just mix sugar/water in a 80/20 ratio and cook it?

I'm pretty new to this whole brewing thing myself, but I'm quite good at making jams, jelly, and syrup. I've been toying with the idea of using a fruit syrup in place of honey in a mead recipe and didn't know if I was crazy or not to try.

1 yes you can make the invert and I personally would fiddle the numbers to figure it out. BUT as others have mentioned, if you can buy honey easily enough, it really is better to go with honey. While >99% of honey is sugars and water, the trace below 1% is all the flavors, so by making a substitution, you are doing that. As for the ration of 80/20 sugar/water for the invert? I think it is less than that, but I don't recall. I
take a look here https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/20-lb-sugar-jar-yeast-nutrient-114837/

2. I've used fruit syrup in water for fermenting - acatully I used 2 cans of whole berry cranberry sauce, and this makes wine. Basic break down. Malt=beer, Fruit = wine (grapes, apples, pears et al.) and Honey= mead. Now there are cross overs (honey beer? malted wine? ) and some are common enough to be thought of as their own - Apples=cider, pears=perry. But that is a pretty good break for general discussion. - Beer, Wine and Mead. Also from a yeast perspective, it also shows slightly different care for the yeast.
For instance, there is a lot of nitrogen for yeast in beer, and generally it doesn't need nutrients. With Wine, there is some nutrient need, but Mead it is the most. There are other concerns, but I'm not going to bother, that would make a good technical article.

Anyhow to answer you basic question, you can use a syrup for a basic sugar source. IF it is strawberry, it will make a strawberry wine, cherry, cherry wine, etc.

 

[ValerianNightmares]

That is just wine made from a concentrate base, nothing to do with mead, you cant replace the honey and think mead. WVMJ

No I don't suppose it would be mead at that point. I was more wondering if I replace honey for, say, cherry syrup made from cherries and cane sugar, but leave the rest of the mead recipe/procedure intact, would it still come out as a drinkable fermentation? Or would changing the substance being fermented require a whole new approach?

 

[saramc]

No I don't suppose it would be mead at that point. I was more wondering if I replace honey for, say, cherry syrup made from cherries and cane sugar, but leave the rest of the mead recipe/procedure intact, would it still come out as a drinkable fermentation? Or would changing the substance being fermented require a whole new approach?

This would be called 'country wine'. People use fruit in syrup, jam, etc., all the time. You can always use fruit/juice plus honey and make a fruit mead, aka melomel. In some circles, the definition of mead relies upon 51% of the fermentables coming from honey. People use a combo of fruit, sugar and honey all the time.

 

[wilserbrewer]

Kilo for kilo trade sound about right for thin blondes and non-chinese honey?

That's a bargain! Send me a half dozen asap! Preferably under 40 years old, or a mix 20 - 50 (well preserved!)

 

[svenalope]

Around here it's about 3 bucks a pound at the grocery store, but i'd definitely try finding a beekeeper with raw honey. I know you said it definitely would not be cheaper, but I've gotten raw honey from a beekeeper for half the grocery store price. The thing about raw honey is it's solid, so it doesn't really work as a condiment or whatever people use it for.

 

[WVMJ]

Raw honey starts out liquid, if it crystalizes like all honey can, it becomes solid. You may have gotten a price break because you were sold crystalized raw honey instead of liquid raw honey. Thats not a problem for meadmakers, melt it and off you go making mead. WVMJ

Around here it's about 3 bucks a pound at the grocery store, but i'd definitely try finding a beekeeper with raw honey. I know you said it definitely would not be cheaper, but I've gotten raw honey from a beekeeper for half the grocery store price. The thing about raw honey is it's solid, so it doesn't really work as a condiment or whatever people use it for.

 

[ACbrewer]

Raw honey starts out liquid, if it crystalizes like all honey can, it becomes solid. You may have gotten a price break because you were sold crystalized raw honey instead of liquid raw honey. Thats not a problem for meadmakers, melt it and off you go making mead. WVMJ

Do you just warm it up? or do you disolve it? I can see both working, but which would be considered best? Given that there has been a move of late (last 10 years? maybe more maybe less) to doing no boil meads. Heating the honey (which causes the crystals to melt) would seem contrary to that.

OTOH, disolving in water, which is what effectivly would be done for the mead, seems much slower. So I'm just currious here.

 

[svenalope]

I dissolve it. Last time, I used 10 gallons of honey and it was a long, sort of all day process. You kind of end up hacking at it with knives or whatever kitchen implements seem to work best, then putting warm water in the bucket, and sort of kneading it in the water to get it to dissolve. The whole thing took a solid day. Kind of a pain, but fun too.

 

[MarshmallowBlue]

Just to clear up some of the sugar substitute debate. I can't take the percentage of sugar in an apple, add that amount of sugar to water, ferment it, and call it cider. Its just fermented sugar water. The same can be said about anything honey, berries, etc.

Once you warm it up, the crystallized honey will go back to liquid form. Try not to heat it too much or you'll cook off good aromas.

 

[ACbrewer]

Just to clear up some of the sugar substitute debate. I can't take the percentage of sugar in an apple, add that amount of sugar to water, ferment it, and call it cider. Its just fermented sugar water. The same can be said about anything honey, berries, etc.

Of course. What makes honey honey isn't the >99% that is water, glucose and fructose, it is the <1% that is residual 'everything else.'

It is worth noting however, that in wine (grape wine that is) manufacture, they try to use 100% juice, but if the grapes are 'short' in a given year, the pros will add sugar to get to desired ABV% (winemaker article on that).
Also most of the fruit wine recipes don't rely on just the juice from the fruit for the sugar - or water - They usually recomend adding both water and sugar to the mix.

There is no way you could get a mead with just fermented sugar water, and I wasn't suggesting that. I was suggesting a blend with honey, and acknowledged that in the original post. I also stated, that 1, I'd not tried it and 2. it would be inferior to any 100% honey mead product.

I'd be curious how the pro meaderies are doing, and if any have been victems of blended Chinese honey, and if anyone can tell (taste) in the end.

 

[MarshmallowBlue]

Most of the bigger companies can afford the true source stuff. I know Moonlight uses true sourced honey. However, maybe some of the much smaller ones may have been effected while looking for a good bulk price. Really hard to say with all the changes from just honey to mead though. I'm sure I couldn't tell the difference.

 

[Beek]

So glad I'm a beekeeper!! But yeah I really think people would be best trying to find a beekeeper. Buy in bulk so they don't have to use as many bottling supplies. Some will sell in five gallon buckets. That would make a lot of mead!!

 

[Beek]

Also, any of the meaderies that I've had any contact with are usually small time beekeepers themselves. I know of at least two in Michigan like that. I don't know how it is where y'all are. But I absolutely love the idea of having complete control over the mead, from honey production all the way through bottling and labeling.

 

[WVMJ]

Where are you at? A sink with hot water running in it wouldnt melt it overnight? If I have any cryastalization in a bottle of honey I dump out the liquid part and then dissolve the crystals in hot tap water and stir it up with a drill stirrer. After all the crystals are mostly sugar, that other good stuff has been squeezed out of the crystalized part when it went solid and is in the liquid part. We could come over to your place with axes and adzes and help out, have a mead party while chopping on honey, would be a great YouTube. WVMJ

I dissolve it. Last time, I used 10 gallons of honey and it was a long, sort of all day process. You kind of end up hacking at it with knives or whatever kitchen implements seem to work best, then putting warm water in the bucket, and sort of kneading it in the water to get it to dissolve. The whole thing took a solid day. Kind of a pain, but fun too.

 

[WVMJ]

Yeah Buddy, your own honey tastes better anyway. Have you made a whole hive mead yet from the combs? I crushed a bunch of foundationless comb and am making a traditional out of it, it smells amazing. Also trying D47 for the first time with it. WVMJ

Also, any of the meaderies that I've had any contact with are usually small time beekeepers themselves. I know of at least two in Michigan like that. I don't know how it is where y'all are. But I absolutely love the idea of having complete control over the mead, from honey production all the way through bottling and labeling.

 

[Beek]

Honestly I've only just gotten into any type of home brewing so I haven't had the opportunity to do anything above normal. We run foundation in all our hives just because we're a fairly good sized operation and don't do anything differently than trying to get as many barrels as possible. But I can't wait to do more.

 

[Mozart]

Thanks for the chemistry lesson, acbrewer. Good info.

I think I will take the suggestion and start with a 4 litre batch due to the relatively high costs of making mead. I could drink it during the christmas holidays - that gives it a good 6 months to age.

I recently took a similar approach.

I wanted to make some mead for the Thanksgiving and perhaps Christmas holidays, but never having made it before, and never having tasted any commercially produced mead, I didn't want to do a full 5-gallon batch. Why spend all that money and tie up one of my larger fermenters for that much time on something I'm not 100% sure I'm going to like?

Instead, I picked-up two 1 gallon glass carboys, and last Friday put two gallons of Joe's Ancient Orange Mead in them. Per the recipe, these should be ready in 2 months, give or take, which will put me in mid August. Plenty of time to make some more (and even tweak the recipe) for the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays if I like the results.

And if it turns out I don't like mead? (Though I suspect I will or I wouldn't have made it) I now have a couple of one gallon fermenters that I can do experimental batches, or a dry apple cider, or anything else I want to try but aren't quite sure I want to commit 5 gallons to.

Cheers!

 

[gayleygoo]

OP, I felt the same way before I began making mead. I thought that surely the recommendations to use good honey were surely just "honey snobbery" and used cheap supermarket honey (about £2 per pound). It had no smell and not much taste, and didn't make a nice mead, although it certainly got drunk and might have helped if I'd left it to age longer (it had 6 months at least).

If you use cheaper honey (though if you can, don't go for the very cheapest), you can use other things to add flavour like fruit, spices, apple juice etc. You can also use a little expensive honey to sweeten the mead after fermentation, rather than using lots of expensive honey to ferment, and maybe losing the nice aromatics you paid for!

The way I see it is that a cheap bottle of commercial wine costs me at least £5. Even using very expensive honey, mead will hardly cost that! I'm now happy to spend about £15 on a 5 litre batch of mead, which gets me 6 1/2 standard wine bottles of mead for about £2 each - much cheaper than any commercial wine and way more special It takes a long time to ferment and age mead, so the initial investment is all the more important -you don't want to open a bottle of your mead after a year or two, and wish you'd used better honey!

If you can, don't think of it in terms of 5-gallon batches. That's way too expensive a thought for me, unless someone hands me a huge bucket of honey! Single gallons are easier on the pocket, and less to worry about if the mead doesn't work out. You can also afford to experiment.

A beekeeper might be the way to go, but where I live they sell their produce like it's liquid gold (well it almost is!) and even directly from the bee(farm?) it's never going to be cheaper than commercial blended honey.

Got a birthday/other gift-giving event coming up? Ask for honey!

 

[gayleygoo]

Also, I wanted to make an Acerglyn, with maple syrup. That's rare stuff here in Ireland/UK, and most commercial syrup is just sugar syrup with maple flavouring. I priced up a 5 litre batch (1 litre maple syrup, 1lb honey, yeast etc) using the cheapest 100% pure maple syrup I could find online... £38!!! Nah thanks, I'll stick to the mead....!

 

[WVMJ]

gg, have you tried a Bochet yet? WVMJ

Also, I wanted to make an Acerglyn, with maple syrup. That's rare stuff here in Ireland/UK, and most commercial syrup is just sugar syrup with maple flavouring. I priced up a 5 litre batch (1 litre maple syrup, 1lb honey, yeast etc) using the cheapest 100% pure maple syrup I could find online... £38!!! Nah thanks, I'll stick to the mead....!

 

[MarshmallowBlue]

Hey W, just gave me the greatest idea. A Maple bochet with vanilla beans and oak. Good lord it'll be great. Going to have to open up my extensive "to do" Tome.

 

[ACbrewer]

Also, I wanted to make an Acerglyn, with maple syrup. That's rare stuff here in Ireland/UK, and most commercial syrup is just sugar syrup with maple flavouring. I priced up a 5 litre batch (1 litre maple syrup, 1lb honey, yeast etc) using the cheapest 100% pure maple syrup I could find online... £38!!! Nah thanks, I'll stick to the mead....!

I used to think honey was $$$ til I looked up maple syrup and saw that it was $$$$$, Mind you at one point I had the really good stuff from a year my father did maple syruping, but that has long since been eaten. Most syrup (like 75%+) is produced in Quebec btw.

 

[ACbrewer]

OP, I felt the same way before I began making mead. I thought that surely the recommendations to use good honey were surely just "honey snobbery" and used cheap supermarket honey (about £2 per pound). It had no smell and not much taste, and didn't make a nice mead, although it certainly got drunk and might have helped if I'd left it to age longer (it had 6 months at least).

If you use cheaper honey (though if you can, don't go for the very cheapest), you can use other things to add flavour like fruit, spices, apple juice etc. You can also use a little expensive honey to sweeten the mead after fermentation, rather than using lots of expensive honey to ferment, and maybe losing the nice aromatics you paid for!

This gets back to my original post in this thread. A lot of the store stuff ie heat stablized (driving off aromatics) or cut with corn syrup, again cutting the amount of aromatics. If going for a mead then best is 100% honey, but doing some of the other styles that are going to have more over riding flavors (like fruit, or spiced) cutting the honey with sugar probably won't be as noticed. Again, if they honey is at an acceptable price, I recomend that, rather than making a invert syrup.

 

[MarshmallowBlue]

Yeah, If you're going to use Top $ honey, you should make a no-heat traditional to really let it be the star.