Honey, Honey...

[GMK]

Do you need to add extra sugars to carbonate mead? Or does the high OG encourage self-carbonation?

- Snow

Snow

Some meads are sparkling - most are not...

Depends what you want......

I am not making mine sparkling - i want it to be like wine....

If you want sparkling - then prime normally ......

 

[wedge]

JM, or anyelse. How did you cork your bottles. Did you use win bottles?

 

[wedge]

also... just top restart an old debate............... check out

http://www.byo.com/feature/924.html

It seems you all are correct!

 

[Jovial_Monk]

because mine was quite a strong mead I figured that the yeast had reached its limit of alcohol tolerance so i just bottled into ordinary punted claret bottles

A couple of beers i want to cork (incl the one I am brewing right now) i will use champagen bottles, the only ones strong enough, plus the little wire cage around the cork

Jovial Monk

 

[wedge]

how do you cork champange bottles?

 

[pr1me]

You can boil and skim the honey, and the result is good as i've helped GMK with his quality control and twas good!

Traditional mead doesnt call for boiling or skimming, just adding the honey to boiling water and stirring until full diluted. I use this same method when I add honey to my cider.

So you can do either, both can yield decent results, depending on what you want to achieve. I'd try both, that way you can drink twice the amount of piss, and tell the missus that its a science experiment.

 

[devilsaltarboy]

I recently did a honey brew and I did this by adding pasteurised honey to the secondary(racked after 4days). Worked a treat, very nice aromatics just needs to mellow a bit. I have been told that adding to the secondary helps ensure the aromatics are not driven off in a violent primary

 

[Jovial_Monk]

One more post on the boiling of honey.

My advice re not boiling/skimming honey came from some Brewrats who had won the Mazer Cup, places in the NHC second round competition etc. Dedicated, knowledgeable meadmakers. Some of these guys would have 50 gallons of mead at various stages at any one time, plus lots more bottled!

Some leave a mead on the fruit for well over a year--meadmaking is not a quick process! Even without boiling the honey, they bottle mead so clear you can read a book through a 23L glass carboy of it!!! I cracked a stubby of my Apple Butter Cyser on Friday and did some tasting with my assistant at the shop. Brilliantly clear, at 3yo the aroma was redolant with the Leatherwood honey characteristics, and I had just dumped the honey into the fermenter! No sign of any infection either!

With a beer the honey aroma will hardly be noticed, you add it for honey flavor and you could add it to the wort immediately post-boil.

Jovial Monk