Mead -- Oh mead what Australian Honey is any good

[skb]

I am getting more and more keen to brew a mead, I have started researching a lot... and in summary the key ingredient (no sh!t right) is honey ! I have started to read and it seems lighter is better when it comes to honey and when I look at what we have in Australia it seems to be thing like "bush", yellow box", "red gum" and so on .... are there any guides to Australia honey for mead. I don;t want to waste the high cost of ingredients to make a type of vicks vapor rub.

 

[barls]

i haven't come across one yet that hasn't worked.

 

[Danscraftbeer]

Its honey. Taste it. In the future if possible I would love to have some home made honey. That would be the most awesomeness. Tip my hat to Beekeepers. Their needed big time right now.

 

[niftinev]

i have used yeliow box but am now using ironbark and the mead from the gums is great, i think you could use any just have to find out what suits your taste.

 

[Danwood]

Just taste a few and see what flavours you like. They are all very different.

I like most of the Gumtree varieties, Red being especially good. It has a golden syrup-like flavour.

Orange Blossom, for example, would be at the lighter, more floral end of the range. And at the more full flavoured end are types such as Leatherwood, which has an almost medicinal flavour for me, it's hard to describe.

Lighter coloured is not necessarily better. Lighter usually just means a more subtle, floral flavour.

There would be no harm in blending a couple of different types of honey to make a mead if you can't decide on just one.

ED- BJCP.ORG has a guide on different types of honey for mead brewing, but it look largely based on American flora. There are a few in there which grow here in Aus too though.

 

[Mardoo]

Red gum is beautiful and works well in bochets.

 

[TimT]

Hit the farmers markets and see what varietal honeys they have in stock. Not the best time of year for it; if you wait about four months the bees will start bringing in tonnes of nectar for the spring honey and you should be able to get something interesting cheaper. Mind you, in Oz, the bees don't ever entirely stop, unlike in freezing European countries.

 

[skb]

Ok I have made up my mind I am going to make a bunch of Mini batches and work it out from then I have a small amount of orange blossom, yellow and red. I have 2 small fermenter and will pick up third Saturday from a friend

 

[Brewman_]

It's a great question.
There's a shop in Morpeth that has a wide variety of honey and when you taste them, the variety of different flavours is sure to lead to different meads. It probably is a personal preference too. I have no doubt the honey changes the flavour of the Mead. And that doesn't mean they won't work.

I've been told that "clover" honey is the best.

But sometimes it's nice to try the local honeys, I plan to make a couple of Meads with the local honeys, which change massively as the seasons change.

 

[Danwood]

Clover is at the lighter end of the flavour range, arguably THE lightest.

Any would make a nice mead, depending on the preferences of the drinker, I suppose.

A chilled, sparkling clover mead would be pretty refreshing in hot weather, I'd bet.

 

[Airgead]

A lot of American book say you can't use Eucalypt honeys for mead because they taste like vicks....but that's crap.

In my experience, any good honey will make a good mead. The stronger flavoured the honey the better the eventual mead but the longer the aging time. Often, but not always the colour of the honey will give an indication to the strength of flavour (the darker the stronger). But that doesn't always hold true.

Taste and see.

Cheers
Dave

 

[troopa]

We just put 2 different batches down yesterday.
4.5L of mountain ash with a white wine yeast to 1.074
4.5L of blackberry honey with US-05 to 1.074

Were aiming for dry at about 8-9%
Also for our tastes we didnt like the neutral flavours of EC1118 but do prefer the tastes of the ale yeasts

Its all personal preference

 

[srm]

skb

All Australian honey is good but some, like some beers, may not be to your taste.

Most honey available will be from mixed floral sources or mixed by the packer but single floral sources are available (Yellow Box, Red Gum, Leatherwood, Orange Blossom, Clover and Mountain Ash have been mentioned earlier but there are many others).

FYI - There is a Honey outlet in the Rocks in Sydney that specializes in varietal honeys and provides samples of them all. Taste them and home in on the one that appeals to you the most and go with that.

 

[Vini2ton]

I made some mead out of aloe honey (those big feral bastards on the SA/VIC border I was told). Wouldn't recommend it. Nice honey on toast though, just too sappy/minerally for nice mead. I believe in the states there is a medicinal product called eucalyptus honey or some such thing which is literally eucalyptus oil mixed with honey for wound dressing. Don't listen too much to those yanks, they tend to run off in hysterical tangents. Some of my best friend drink mead made from Australian honey.

 

[boonchu]

The states have an amazing range of honeys, even their own eucalypts from California. I dare to say that it may be completely different from the eucalypts in Australia.
For me I find the eucalypts take extra aging time and don't really lend themselves to dry meads. I also find that they contain more fermentable sugars and give a higher alcohol mead than other varietals.

 

[Grainer]

I use my mates honey.. BRILLIANT.. .. no cost hehe.. don't use leather wood .. its too strong for mead.. .. I have used tee tree with great results.. but thats the strongest i will use

 

[oakburner]

Hey guys, I am in the same boat as the OP, (I have only don't a couple of micro test batches with red Gum) and given the info out there suggests a loooong time to mature, I didn't want to fail at the first hurdle either....
Has anyone used Teatree Honey? I can get it here on the Sunny Coast in bulk and imagine that some of the woody dark florals would carry through pretty strong??

OB

 

[H0U5ECAT]

Take a trip out to morpeth past Newcastle. There's a honey store there that has a huge range of honey.

 

[Grainer]

OAKBURNER.. look at the post above yours !! LMAO

 

[mash head]

My inlaws who own a honey farm send their Canola honey off to maxwells to be made into mead and I always thought you needed lighter varieties but I think I am thinking more about beer making.