This is a new change for me. A bit of a break for cost reasons, but we have returned with flair – a good friend has some hives of bees who have harvested a good metric tonne of wildflower honey.
This stuff is incredible. Sweet, but not overpowering, and the strongest sense that you’re eating Jam and not Honey – such an interesting flavor compared to store bought honey.
Either way, some research went into this, and Bry even bought me a book on mead, which was a lovely aide. So, down to brass tacks:
Yeast is Lalvin EC-1118. I’ve put it in half a cup with some dry malt extract, a bit of honey, and some yeast nutrients to start before pitching.
The mix is 5KG of honey, which has a Gravity of 1.450 – so about 3.5L of honey in each wort, plus 500 grams of lactose.
One of the worts I put together with 8.5L of water, for a total of 12L – it has a theoretical gravity of about 1.110, so we’re aiming for about 13.5%. The other is mixing with 20L, and has a theoretical gravity of 1.075 about 7.1% target ABV.
As of writing the brews are both a bit too warm to pitch the yeast, but I’m feeling pretty good! The honey was a pain to clean off everything though. Stay tuned for updates.
Update: 20/09/2024 1:15AM I took measurements just before I pitched the yeast… I’m not sure where my numbers went wrong, but the 20L batch recorded 1092 and the 12L batch recorded 1132! That’s much higher than anticipated, by about 0020 points for each. I must have had a miscalculation in my SG of the honey or something. Either way, lids are on, and airlocked are in place and let’s just see how it goes.
Unlike beer, mead is less sensitive to temperature shifts, apparently, so I’m throwing my science book away for this one, and trusting the “viking” method – short of wild yeast and and open-topped bucket, I’m going to leave it for much longer and not worry about the temps or the yeast stopping – it’s honey and it’ll be ready when it’s ready.
Double checking my maths, I must have carried the one poorly; punching my original numbers into https://fermcalc.com/FermCalcJS.html backs up my measurements, so my estimate was wrong, meaning my mathematical method was wrong.