What should i do???

[RedHeadMead]

So my wonderful wife and i were out shopping yesterday and came across some honey all the way from greece. We bought it and went home. I was eager to taste it and found it to be complex and pleasant. I later went on to amazon and purchased both the trader joes variety pack of honey and yoffi honey from jerusalem. These will be here in a couple of days. My question to this community is what should i do with the world broad honey?

 

[Maylar]

Make mead?

You need about 3 lbs per gallon to make a traditional mead. It's OK to blend honeys together if the combination suits you.

 

[RedHeadMead]

Make mead?

You need about 3 lbs per gallon to make a traditional mead. It's OK to blend honeys together if the combination suits you.

Thanks i got that maylar.lol. i meant i am going to make mead but what kind....what can i do that special or different?

 

[LittleRiver]

...what can i do that special or different?

This is a voice of little experience, since I've only done one batch of mead.

Since it was my first batch I just used wildflower honey from WalMart, so I could learn the process, and not lose too much if it went south. I made a 2 gallon batch, following the BOMM protocol. After a month I split it, and put 2lbs of blueberries in one of the gallons for a month. I them go for another month, 3 months total.

I was not expecting much, but both the show mead and the blueberry are delicious. I gave away twelve small (8oz) bottles to get some feedback from others. All the reviews came back very positive, and I've got people asking when I'm going to make more.

So I guess my point here is that even a very simple mead can be something special.

 

[Maylar]

Thanks i got that maylar.lol. i meant i am going to make mead but what kind....what can i do that special or different?

There are a dozen different types of mead depending on what you add to them - fruit, apple juice, herbs or spices, grapes, hops, you name it. But if you have really special honey, then the way to show it off is with a traditional mead: honey, water and yeast. But here's the rub - it's the most difficult mead to make because there's nothing for your mistakes to hide behind.

So we have to ask what your experience level is. If you're a noob to mead and you need foolproof recipes then I suggest looking at Bray Denard's web site:
https://www.denardbrewing.com/blog/category/mead/

 

[NeverDie]

Use your unique honey to make BOMM. It's a proven traditional mead recipe. If you want to invent your own recipe, then be prepared to run some smaller scale trials before going big. Different yeasts can have different nutrient requirements, and dialing it in isn't as easy as you might think. I've done a dozen discovery trials with Hornindal Kveik yeast, and I'm still not sure as to whether I've completely nailed it. Part of the complexity is that even identical starting conditions don't always lead to identical outcomes. i.e. reliable repeatability is elusive.

 

[RedHeadMead]

So my experience is paltry compared tp some....this will be my 5th batch of wine in general. 4th batch of mead. My very first was a blood orange cherry semi dry mead. My second wine was a mixed berry agave wine. Ive thought about doing a traditional mead but i guess melomels and cysers and other types of mead have drawn my allure. So i was just looking for any and all ideas. Seems as though everyone here is in agreement lol.

 

[TasunkaWitko]

If you get too elaborate or complicated, you dilute any unique qualities of the excellent honey you are getting, thereby diluting anything special about any of them. You might as well use WalMart honey, which will also work just fine, if you are not going to showcase the terrior of the honey you have.

My honest advice is to make straight-up mead with it, going with 3 pounds per gallon. Compare them, find out which you like best or find most interesting, and then branch out from there.

 

[RedHeadMead]

If you get too elaborate or complicated, you dilute any unique qualities of the excellent honey you are getting, thereby diluting anything special about any of them. You might as well use WalMart honey, which will also work just fine, if you are not going to showcase the terrior of the honey you have.

My honest advice is to make straight-up mead with it, going with 3 pounds per gallon. Compare them, find out which you like best or find most interesting, and then branch out from there.

Would 4 oz. of honeyA pint make a decent mead?????

 

[TasunkaWitko]

All I know is that 3 pounds of honey per gallon gives you a great mead; slightly more for a sweeter mead, slightly less for a dryer mead. My degree is in History, not Math, so I'll leave the conversions to those who are more inclined to the pursuit of numbers.

As an aside, I really like D47 yeast for mead, but there are many great choices out there.

 

[Maylar]

Would 4 oz. of honey A pint make a decent mead?????

OK, so we have a disconnect lol. You have some small quantities of different honeys and you wonder what to do with them. The last jar of honey I bought was 12 lbs in a gallon jug... when I think mead, that's the scale I think in. To answer your question, scaling 3 lbs per gallon down to a pint is 6 oz of honey (I think).

 

[bernardsmith]

Despite Maylar's significant point about the volumes experienced mead makers make if you treat seriously (and you should) the fact that 3 lbs of honey mixed with water to make 1 gallon (US) of what is called a traditional mead (honey, water, nutrient and yeast) and this mead will have a potential ABV of about 13%, will have a perception of sweetness but will almost certainly be dry (no residual sugar in the mead) then you take whatever amount of honey you have and mix it with the same proportion of water - So if you have 16oz of honey then you want to make 1262 ml of must if you have 8 oz then you can make 630 ml; 4 oz you can make only 315 ml.
As to blending your "world honey" , if each jar comes from a specific variety of flowers then my suggestion would be not to mix them as each jar will have a unique character. If all of the jars are 'wildflower' honey then while the flora around hives may be different in Israel from those found in Greece, they are not going to be very different if the honey is "wildflower", so blending them won't necessarily be a loss BUT .. BUT ... if the honey is raw you might be able to (and want to?) see if you can coax the indigenous yeast in the jars to ferment the must. And now you might find that the particular colonies of yeast from Greece makes a very different tasting mead than the Israeli honey or the samplers you got from TJ.

 

[NeverDie]

As to blending your "world honey" , if each jar comes from a specific variety of flowers then my suggestion would be not to mix them as each jar will have a unique character. If all of the jars are 'wildflower' honey then while the flora around hives may be different in Israel from those found in Greece, they are not going to be very different if the honey is "wildflower", so blending them won't necessarily be a loss BUT .. BUT ... if the honey is raw you might be able to (and want to?) see if you can coax the indigenous yeast in the jars to ferment the must. And now you might find that the particular colonies of yeast from Greece makes a very different tasting mead than the Israeli honey or the samplers you got from TJ.