New to the brew

[Iaureen]

Retired, have decided to keep bees (only a couple of hives in our back yard in town. Accidentally got into mead making by involvement with beekeeping club. Given honey to make mead with the idea of me making then sharing with honey gifter. The first brew was okay, a bit dry for me. Second batch I changed two things (mistake) and now I'm not sure where to go from here. I don't have much in the way of brewing equipment, and have no intention of doing so, apart from making a nice drop to drink with little other involvement of $ or needing a degree.

 

[jtratcliff]

Are you just looking for mead making tips or are you wanting to get into home brewing of beer?

 

[Iaureen]

Just looking for mead making tips. Definitely not into home brewing of beer. I am leaving that to my two sons
Checking the carboy again today, slight effervescence at the top, no action in the air lock. The mead is still quite golden, although the top of the jar is looking slightly paler. I've had a lecture about introducing rogue yeasts into the mix, so have been reluctant to de-cap, taste and whatever. It must have been beginners luck last time!
This time I added more honey, and used mead yeast (half a packet) - probably not the best idea to do two things differently

 

[jtratcliff]

for a dead simple sweet mead, look for JAOM here on the forums... Joe's Ancient Orange Mead... It breaks all the mead making rules but is pretty much foolproof. Add all ingredients then ignore for a couple months... takes about 60 days

Then look for the BOMM... Bray's One Month Mead ... uses more modern mead-making techniques like staggered nutrient additions, etc. As the name implies, drinkable in about 30 days. The key here is the step feeding of specific nutrients and the use of belgian ale yeast. More hands-on, but also pretty reliable if you follow the instructions.

Happy Mazing

 

[Iaureen]

Thanks for that info. A hunting I will go.

 

[Miraculix]

Thanks for that info. A hunting I will go.

Easiest way to make something nice is here, same author as the bomm:

https://www.youtobrew.co.uk/mead-making-101

 

[jtratcliff]

Here's the JOAM thread:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/threads/joes-ancient-orange-mead.49106/
And Bray Denards site w/ his BOMM versions:

https://denardbrewing.com/blog/category/mead/
His original BOMM is this one:

https://denardbrewing.com/blog/post/BOMM5gallons/

 

[Iaureen]

My bees had better come up trumps this season. I have so much brewing to do.

 

[Srimmey]

My bees had better come up trumps this season. I have so much brewing to do.

I’m jealous. I can’t seems to keep hives alive in my area anymore. I haven’t had a hive last over 3 years any time in the past 10 years and most fizzle out after 2 years.

I kept all warre hives and would only ever bother them around may (I wanted to keep swarms down to 1-2 per year so I would always end up culling 5 or 6 queen cells) and again in July to see if they had a little honey to spare.

A lot of things would kill them but mainly it was bad genetics. A crappy queen will kill a hive quicker than anything and in my area there is a company that makes a stupid amount of money by importing bees from England and selling them to locals trying to get into bee keeping. The practice should be illegal because now 80%+ of our bee population are bees that aren’t meant to survive here.

 

[Iaureen]

It seems some of us in New Zealand tend to take our hives a bit for granted. I am a newbie at beekeeping, but there is no shortage of information available to me. Most of our hives are Langstroth, Our biggest problem is the Varroa Destructor. If I learn to keep that under control, the honey cells should be filling.
Am about to rack off my current brew of mead into another carboy, put the airlock on and then put it at the back of the cupboard where it can do it's own thing unmolested by me. seems it might be a good brew next Christmas. I appreciate all the information available on this forum. Brewing is something I never thought I would be doing. Goes to show, older and bolder.

 

[Iaureen]

Something I just learned....'your' gallon is different to 'our' gallon. No wonder I was getting confused when reading some recipes and trying to do the mental picture thing about how it would look in my carboy.
Made some Ancient Mead. Will be ready to look at mid to late January 2023.
Keep forgetting to use my borrowed hydrometer. Took some of last brew to apiculture class and was asked the alcohol content. mmmm... don't know. Will need to learn to use all my equipment
Son just told me about cyser. Now I am curious. Will go looking further about that. Will have to watch measurements and use litres instead of gallons.

 

[MightyMosin]

UK gallon = 4.54609 Liter
US gallon = 3.785412 Liter

UK pint is larger than US pint as well