Thanks all for the replies
)
I suppose I need to research the possibility of purchasing honey. Most the recipes I've seen only make a small amount of Mead and I'd like to make a 6 gallon batch. I just assumed to purchase that much honey it would be outrageously expensive. Not to mention I really have no clue where I would go to buy that much honey.
If any of you have a recipe to share for a 6 gal batch of sweet mead I'd appreciate it ;o)
Well this is where I "fall down". Not having intimate knowledge of which is where, when it comes to the US. Of course, a basic knowledge of Coastal states and the "big names", but that's where it stops.
If you follow the link in my last post to "The Bee Folks" (I only know of them because they have a presence at
Gotmead and that their website pops up in searches), then their prices have acted as a good guideline for me to work out how much it would cost to ship from the US - in practice, I try the
local honey and apiary supplier (luckily about 10 miles up the road.....), but they don't stock anything like as varied a range as TBF do - then because shipping costs I look into Europe (recently managed to get 14kg of Buckwheat, with the help of one of the Polish members at Gotmead and another Polish chap who works with me - all for about £60/90$US) as the shipping cost/distance is less. Though I'd be more than happy to try something really mad, I can just imagine the faces of some of the wine makers I know taking a taste of "Killer Bee Honey" mead
A good dig around the net might find you somewhere closer/cheaper etc.
As to preferring "sweet" mead, well I suggest that you might have a read of my
blog post here. Because I always presumed that the meads I'd enjoy most would be the sweet ones (as I enjoy a good dollop of honey on some buttered toast
:> ) but the ones I sampled were almost sickly/cloyingly sweet. I seem to recall my testing showed that they all had finished gravities in the 1.040 region........damn anything like that, I'd consider a stuck ferment......
I find that the ones I enjoy are in the "medium" range - about 1.010 finished. I don't worry too much about the alcohol levels as mine tend to be about the 14 to 16% range and if they taste like "Listerine" (to use Ken Schramms analogy of newly fermented mead having an "alcohol hot" taste) then I just put them away to age. That flavour ages out just nicely. There are some good light, dry, sparkling meads as well. Excellent chilled on a warm summer evening....
I find that it's often the case that darker honey makes "heavier" meads, more suited to Autumn/Fall and Winter, the lighter tasting ones to Spring and Summer. Though you can make a lighter one mulled for Autumn/Fall just like you can put soda water in a heavier one to make a "spritzer" for a warm summer evening.......
It's brilliant as you can forever be experimenting. A good dig round the internet will show you recipes that are "bog standard", but also some really "barking mad" one (look up bochet mead - you'll see what I mean....or
here's a recipe......). What on earth that would taste like is anyones guess, but I've seen a number of forum posts that suggest there are people making it........
As for the potential cost ? well it's gonna cost you what it costs you, though if you make one or two batches a year of say 5 or 6 gallons, that's about 5 "bottles" (taking bottle to mean 750ml wine bottle size) per gallon. About 12lb in weight to a gallon of honey and using about 3lb of honey per gallon should give you some idea to estimate costs.
Of course, if you tried making melomels, cysers, pyments, etc etc and those type of meads, then the actual quality/type of honey is less critical and you can get away with cheaper "store bought" honey. Which is good if you can get the fruit for little or nothing (don't know how "agricultural" your state is or what's grown there).
Have a good read around the net, you'll find that most of the forums have a section for meads, though it's only been
Gotmead, that I've found that is specifically about mead making - their forums are excellent and as they're based in the US anyway, you should be able to find some excellent "local knowledge".
Hope that helps some.....
regards
fatbloke
:>
