More Mead

Last Thursday should have been the day I went up to see the Bees and remove the last stage of their varroa treatment however for those who live in my area may remember that the weather was atrocious that day; there was high winds and lots of rain, hardly good weather to be opening the hive up. Instead of wasting a day I decided it would be a good idea to start another batch of mead.

So far out of all my mead I have made there has only been one I've tasted as it's a simple and quick mead that is ready in 2 months unlike others that take literally years to age properly. A lot of people would turn their noses at this mead with it being ready so fast but I don't care. It's quick, easy and it works, also to me it tastes great. The recipe can be found here. The only difference I made to the recipe was to add slightly more honey to make it a bit sweeter. This may affect how long it takes to be ready but that's no problem. I added 1.8kg instead of 1.6kg and the S.G. for this was 1.090 so at the end I will be able to work out the alcohol level rather than just guess.

I did make a slight change to the method for making this as well but it was only slight. Rather than just adding the yeast straight to honey water I added it to the sample I'd taken out to do the gravity reading. This was in a half pint glass. When I'd added the yeast to this small sample I left it 10 minutes covered in cling film (or plastic wrap if you're american!) and then returned to see how it was doing. I wasn't expecting it to have properly started in that time but I was wrong and it had already started foaming out of the glass so I moved it into a pint glass until I was ready to add it to the honey water and other ingredients. When everything was put together I placed the demijohn out of the way and will return in a couple of months (Christmas time) to see if it's ready to drink!

1.8kg of honey dissolving in boiled water.

Half pint sample with yeast in bubbling over!