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San Joaquin Victory Gardens | 4 months ago (raw) | export | reply | flag +9 
 When I harvested this honey in spring I knew that I had to make a batch of #mead with it.  I wanted to keep the flavors of this honey at the top of the mead, so it is a basic show mead recipe (water and honey) with small variations of open air fermentation (wild, random yeast) and some black tea to add nice tannins to the finish.

The basic ratio is 1 quart of #honey + 1 gallon of water.  I always ferment completely, so I avoid broken, sticky glassware in my storage area.  I end up with alcohol content in the range of strong wine.  

I'm still stirring a lot to wake up the yeasts.  I'll later post a follow up picture when the primary fermentation foam head on this bucket is thick and fluffy.  

I think that many people are unaware of how easy it is to make mead.  The hard part is waiting at least a year (preferably three years) for the sugars to properly oxidize and the real flavor come out.

https://m.primal.net/JSFb.jpg 
https://m.primal.net/JSFc.jpg 

#homesteading
#homebrew
#brewstr
#bees
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San Joaquin Victory Gardens | 4 months ago (raw) | root | parent | reply | flag 
 Every time I successfully make a barm I feel like Young Frankenstein (Gene Wilder/Mel Brooks) shouting "I have created life!!"

One room of my house is saturated with the smell of wild yeasts breaking their dormancies.  Much bucket stirring has happened, and it is interesting to watch the change in the consistency of the bubbles.  Now the stirring bubbles get thicker and more frothy, and when resting, there is a bubble film at the top of the liquid surface from the yeasts down below.  Tomorrow I will give the barm (the fluid of honey+yeasts) a final stirring and then put it in the 5 gal glass carboy.  It will rest in the carboy for half a year before bottling.

I'll likely have a little bit of barm leftover and so I can use that to start new batches.  Time to experiment.  Once the barm gets started, its easiest to turn out 3-4 different batches.  In order to indulge my experimenting nature I've taken to making 1 gallon batches of mead most often.  Last year I had good success with blueberry vanilla mead, I think I'll do another one of those.https://m.primal.net/JVyU.jpg https://m.primal.net/JVyV.jpg