Newbie questions for you!

[MaltyWaters]

Hey everyone,

After some reading I'm really excited to try out making mead. I just have a few questions for you all:

1. Can I make a passable mead with bog-standard honey?
2. Is there a particular grade of honey I should splash out on?
   
3. If I am to infuse my mead with fruit does it matter if I do it in a secondary fermentation in my bucket before straining and bottling or can I leave the fruit to infuse in the bottle like a chilli oil.
4. How long do you personally leave your meads before cracking them open.
   
5. This one's just out of pure curiosity: do you prefer a sweeter or drier mead?

Thanks for reading my woes, happy drinking.

 

[Blacksmith1]

1 what is "bog standard"?
2 better honey, better mead
3 it is my understanding that secondary and then pulling the fruit at the point that the strength of the flavor is where you want it is best. (My one attempt was done in primary)
4 depends on the mead but general consensus is 6 months minimum
5 sweeter but my diabetic wife needs drier so tjats what I do.

 

[MaltyWaters]

Sorry it's a phrase used in Ireland to describe something of low/average quality, in this case a supermarket honey.

Thank you for the feedback, also glad your wife still gets to enjoy mead with you!

 

[Miraculix]

Do yourself the favour and create something tried and proven first.

As you would like to try it asap, which is 100% understandable, you might want to brew a bomm first. This one is done in one month and fine to drink directly after bottling.

You can find the bomm thread pinned to the top of this forum. It is fairly long and the recipe had some alterations, the most recent version only uses fermaid o as nutrient additions, you want to look for this version.

Any question will be gladly answered in the thread, we all started at one point!

 

[MaltyWaters]

Do yourself the favour and create something tried and proven first.

As you would like to try it asap, which is 100% understandable, you might want to brew a bomm first. This one is done in one month and fine to drink directly after bottling.

You can find the bomm thread pinned to the top of this forum. It is fairly long and the recipe had some alterations, the most recent version only uses fermaid o as nutrient additions, you want to look for this version.

Any question will be gladly answered in the thread, we all started at one point!

I certainly will, thank you for being so encouraging the community here really keeps my brewing spark alive its great.

 

[bernardsmith]

With wildflower or clover honeys (assuming that they ARE honey and not colored syrup) you can use the fermentable sugars as a vehicle for the other flavors you are adding - fruits or herbs. Varietal honeys are far more expensive and they can take and hold center stage - a solo performance - But remember with 100 percent honey , 100 percent of the alcohol is coming from the honey AND 100 percent of the flavor is also coming from the honey unless you are adding fruit or herbs or spices or flowers. The more nuanced and complex the flavor the honey has , the more nuanced and complex will be your mead. But unless you want to mask all the flavor coming from the honey with added fruit and botanicals then you want the honey to provide some flavor notes even if those notes are the drone of a Scottish bag pipe... And if you are happy drowning out the honey notes then it may be far less expensive to ferment using table sugar ...

 

[Seamonkey84]

What they said. I highly recommend checking out the BOMM (Brays one month mead) thread, but also check his website for the most up to date info upfront.
If blending with fruits or other flavors, Honey still brings a nice mouth feel and aroma compared to sugar. use either neutral clover or a strong flavored honey that would complement the fruits/mix your using.
Varietal honeys should be used for traditionals or blends to enhance certain flavors. Depending on temperature and yeast used, Some people will add 1/3 of the honey towards the end of fermentation to keep more of the honeys varietal flavor, but not have the raw honey taste of just sweetening with honey.
As to when to add fruit. That really depends on what your looking for. Adding it to primary will turn that fruit into wine. Just as grape wine doesn’t taste like grape juice, fruit wine is a different taste than the fruit itself. Putting it into secondary really varies. If the fermentation restarts (as it often will), then it will make your fruit/juice into wine, but leave more of the fruit flavor/aroma since it didn’t go through the whole duration of fermentation. Then it also matters if it ferments dry or (leaving alcohol tolerance) leaves residual sugars, as that determines how much processing the yeast got to do. If fermentation does not restart for one reason or another, then your flavoring/sweetening your mead with fruit.