I have 42 quarts of Spring Harvested Honey

[Rojoguio]

I have a friend who I have been teaching how to Crappie fish. He has 30+ bee hives. My help, favors, fabrications for his boat, and a couple of long wheelbase $10 piled up some premium honey to play with. I made a spiced mead with pure, fresh squeezed, Page Mandarin juice, several cinnamon sticks, cloves, ginger, and cayenne pepper. I step fed the EC-1118 to the point I'm around 20-22ABV. I love the taste already but the flavors are still individuals, not melded. I also made a straight mead, the reason of this post, that became skunky smelling to the nose while not to the taste. 71B was the yeast I used and the fermentation temps 75-77 degrees. To fix the skunk I put 3#'s of pureed Raspberries in, kicked off the fermentation with a bit of syrup from the step feeding and now its better. Better in it was good enough I bottled it, stored it in the racks, and will try it a year from bottling. I'm not above drinking mistakes. I would like to make a very good, pure mead, any suggestions I would appreciate the help.

 

[Hazelemere]

I have a friend who I have been teaching how to Crappie fish. He has 30+ bee hives. My help, favors, fabrications for his boat, and a couple of long wheelbase $10 piled up some premium honey to play with. I made a spiced mead with pure, fresh squeezed, Page Mandarin juice, several cinnamon sticks, cloves, ginger, and cayenne pepper. I step fed the EC-1118 to the point I'm around 20-22ABV. I love the taste already but the flavors are still individuals, not melded. I also made a straight mead, the reason of this post, that became skunky smelling to the nose while not to the taste. 71B was the yeast I used and the fermentation temps 75-77 degrees. To fix the skunk I put 3#'s of pureed Raspberries in, kicked off the fermentation with a bit of syrup from the step feeding and now its better. Better in it was good enough I bottled it, stored it in the racks, and will try it a year from bottling. I'm not above drinking mistakes. I would like to make a very good, pure mead, any suggestions I would appreciate the help.

add nutrient containg vitamin b

 

[Rice_Guy]

SKUNK aroma is called reductive, if it stays in the wine it degrades into mercaptans which can be described as fried chicken flavor. This overpowers fruit flavors.

I use Fermaid O step feeding. Basically every time you add more sugar add some organic nitrogen to keep cells from canabalizing their parents for nitrogen.

 

[Rojoguio]

Thanks for the help. I didn't know I needed to add Fermaid O at each step feeding. This has never happened with any other wine I've made. Since this was a batch of mead I thought it was because I was fermenting the honey incorrectly, well I guess I did. To confirm, Fermaid O in all step feedings of a fermentation?

 

[Rice_Guy]

Honey has the reputation of being extremely low on nitrogen. Hunt out the concept of TOSNA ~ translated approximately as “total organic step nitrogen addition”. I like organic nitrogen because it effectively acts like more nitrogen than the lab test number. I also like 55F and 65F because it reduces peak nitrogen demand. (there is a good write up on nitrogen by Diezel a decade ago on WMT).

At this point; recent skunk (smells like hydrogen sulfide) can be removed by fining with Redulus. A month old skunk is hard to remove but can be reduced with successive vitamin C followed by Redulus. You have a judgement call on how objectionable the off notes are.

 

[Rojoguio]

Being right off the Gulf of Mexico we only have 65 degree temps in the house mid winter. Almost have to run the A/C then to get that cool. I'm doing all my other fermentations now till winter, house is 72 degrees at best. Thank you for the help I will look up your suggestions as well as the others to make a plan.

 

[Rice_Guy]

One trick I have done is to put a six gallon primary in a squareish shape ice chest and then cycle half gallon ice on the open end. This is more effective with a little water in the chest and a winter coat over the top of the bucket. If you get fancy a chill unit works, I have seen gallons in a small fridge run 2C above air / controller temp.

 

[Rojoguio]

I'm HVAC Certified and bought a couple of 1 ton Daikin Mini-Splits. One is for a Wine room at some point. So there is 2 ice machines here so I could build a cool-can type unit, put a circulating pump on a thermostat, bend a coil to fit around the Primary, etc. I have not been thinking like that but now you have given me a idea. Thanks

 

[Rojoguio]

Well I have good news on the two Meads I made the first one the Spiced Mead (Ginger, Cinnamon Sticks, Cloves, Cayenne Pepper, & Owari Satsuma Juice) step fed to over 20%. I expected it to take years to be drinkable by what I've read but its just delicious. The Cinnamon & Cayenne leave a very nice, soft, spicy burn when you are done with the sip. It masks the high ABV of the beverage.



The second Mead with the skunk I kinda converted to a Raspberry Melomel with some 39oz of Raspberry puree cartons. It's as smooth as a baby's bottom already, no skunk at all. Has a Chameleon Paint color shift depending on the angle you look at it. Something went right with both batches but I don't understand why they have smoothed out already. I bottled 11 bottles of the Spiced Mead and 24 bottles of the Raspberry Melomel.



I'll take the win even if I can't repeat it. Notes were taken but I still have to invest in more test equipment.