Anyone ever make their own Honey Meade?

[Bear T]

I've had a bad craving for some Honey Meade lately and the urge to make my own. Anyone on here have any history or experience with making it?

 

[jackjoh]

I raised my own bees but the hard part for me was separating the grain after fermenting at just the right time. Gave it up but still have gallons of honey. I used to love a rusty nail, Drambuie (which is a honey based scotch liqueur) and Scotch.

 

[Cody]

I've never made it personally, but I have a couple books, lots of recipe's, and both sweet and dry mead yeasts in stock









my apologies to the Gardner-Herzog media conglomerate for this shameless commercial plug

 

[Bear T]

Cody, I think we need to become better friends.

 

[Cody]

You hook me up with that lassy in your picture, and I'll hook you up with some mead makins

 

[jamesgeologist]

I have made about 15 gallons over the last two years. The first 5 gallons (sweet agave mead) were awesome and tasted great. The last 10 gallons were bad. I tried several varieties of honey including store bought clover and two seasonal honeys from the same hive. Sadly the sweet agave mead was the best and most expensive. Mead is super basic. It is water, honey and yeast. Here's my recipe if you are interested:

Date: 1/17/09

Ingredients:

Blue Agave Extract
Clover Honey (unfiltered/uncooked)
Undistilled Aquifer Water
Sweet Mead Yeast (whitelabs: wine/cider/mead)

Procedure:

Bring three gallons undistilled (aquifer) water, 2.5lbs Blue Agave Extract and 6.0lbs Clover Honey to 130°. Chill must to 75°. Transfer to fermenter. Pitch Sweet Mead Yeast. Cap and apply bubbler. Place fermenter in 72* cabinet for fermentation process. 1/17/09 @2000hrs

Details:

Ingredients equaled approximately 4 gallons in graduated fermenting bucket.
O.G. = 1.080
Water = 3 gal
Blue Agave Extract = 2.5lbs
Clover Honey (uncooked/unfiltered) = 6.0lbs
Sweet Mead Yeast = 1 jar/5gal

Abstract:

Our anticipation is that the Fermentation process will begin in 5-15hrs and last one month. At which time, we may rack to bottle or possibly rack to secondary prior to bottling.

Bottled:

We bottled the mead on 2/13/09 and measured a gravity of 1.078. A second reading at 2/20/2009 gave a gravity of 1.075.

Conclusion:

Mead was extremely sweet and clean. The Agave note was strong, but not overbearing. After the bottles were racked to condition for 30 days, some bottles became over carbonated and others produced no further carbonation. The last bottle was finished April 14th, 2009.

 

[Bear T]

Good info, thanks.

Cody, If I knew her I would hook you up.

 

[grinch]

Ive never had much luck with Mead. In my opinion it always come out tasting like medicine. Now the idea of distilling it on the other hand has occurred more than once... If only that were legal lol...