Supplier For Bulk Honey

[barls]

i found these guys and they know their honey plus they sell in bulk
here is their webpage
http://www.beekeepers.com.au/
i thought id share this one

 

[homebrewworld.com]

Well done Barls,
i have been thinking of brewing a big batch of mead, and geting the honey is the first step.With the drought i hear honey is quite expensive.

cheers

 

[Ross]

We have a dozen hives in the back paddock - been worried about eucalypt flavours in the beer, so never used for brewing yet, but great on some well toasted bread...

cheers Ross

 

[Doc]

Well done Barls,
i have been thinking of brewing a big batch of mead, and geting the honey is the first step.With the drought i hear honey is quite expensive.

cheers

Have you researched what is the best honey to use HBW ?
I have noticed a sign on the Princess HWay in Kogarah for honey in the last few weeks.
Keen to do an experiment ala Basic Brewing Mead Experiment.

Doc

 

[Airgead]

Well done Barls,
i have been thinking of brewing a big batch of mead, and geting the honey is the first step.With the drought i hear honey is quite expensive.

cheers

Have you researched what is the best honey to use HBW ?
I have noticed a sign on the Princess HWay in Kogarah for honey in the last few weeks.
Keen to do an experiment ala Basic Brewing Mead Experiment.

Doc

Doc

I have made meads and braggots with Yellow Box, White Box, Ironbark and Red Gum. They are all fantastic. I have never had a problem using any eucalypt honey. I think the whole "don't use eucalypt hone" thing is a myth. As far as I am concerned they are fantastic in brewing. they tend to be on the dark and strong side so they do need more aging that a light clover but other than that I have had no problems.

I am currently experimenting with 15kg of a really wierd honey I got cheap off a beekeper. It was from a hive he inherited that had been neglected for a copuple of years. This stuff is thick and nearly black. Tastes a little of molasses. Fantastic flavour. I have a test batch of mead on now and may well add a splash to the porter I am brewing at the moment. It would probably go very nicely in a stout too.

Cheers
Dave

 

[Doc]

Sounds interesting Dave.

Got 3kg of honey yesterday and have the gear I think I need to do a split mini batch of mead. Thinking of doing 8-10 litres in total split between to 5 litre glass carboys. Haven't decided what flavourings to use yet, so am open to suggestions.
I have yeast nutrient, but am open to suggestions for yeast selection as well.

Doc

 

[Airgead]

Sounds interesting Dave.

Got 3kg of honey yesterday and have the gear I think I need to do a split mini batch of mead. Thinking of doing 8-10 litres in total split between to 5 litre glass carboys. Haven't decided what flavourings to use yet, so am open to suggestions.
I have yeast nutrient, but am open to suggestions for yeast selection as well.

Doc

Doc

3kg is about right for 10l. I use a good dry white wine yeast. my current choice is a champaine yeast (lavin I think is the brand). It seems to be doing a good job. I used to use gervin #5 but I found that one had a tendency to finish early. Sweet meads are much harder. You really need to use sorbate or something like toat to stop the yeast early as there aren't those nice unfermentable dextrins like there are in beer.

Yeast nutrient is a must as they honey is nutrient poor.

As for flavorings really its anything goes. I have done peach which was nice. Apple is great (cyser). Orange wasn't so good but I used the juice. I think orange done with just the zest would be OK. I have made grapefruit which is interesting (again nicer with the zest rather than the juice I think). Any of the berries are a good choice. I am currently experimenting with strawberry - making multiple batches with the same ingredients and changing one piece of the process each time to see what happens.

One trick - add any acid blend at the end as the fermentation may be slower if you add the acid while the yeast still have work to do. pparently the levels of acid used in winemaking will inhibit yeast. I also don't boil the honey at all. I just disolve in a couple of litres of water and heat gently to pasturisation temp. That preserves a lot more of the honey character.

Cheers
Dave

 

[Doc]

Thanks Dave.

Been reading up on all the FAQ's and BYO articles.
Thinking of spliting the batch after initial fermentation and leaving one stock, and flavouring the other with boysenberry or similar.
Also found WLP720 Sweet Mead Cider yeast in my yeast fridge so that will be my yeast selection.
Are you a boiler ?

Doc

 

[Stuster]

Also found WLP720 Sweet Mead Cider yeast in my yeast fridge so that will be my yeast selection.

Wow. What else is lurking in there? Make sure you have a camera handy in case you find the Blue Mountains panther in there.

BTW, I think Dave said he wasn't a boiler. Did you get the honey in Kogarah?

 

[Doc]

Did you get the honey in Kogarah?

Yes indeed. They couldn't tell me what style it was other than it came from Bathurst. I picked the mid range colour (over dark or light).

Beers,
Doc

 

[homebrewworld.com]

Doc, Dave,
Yeah i have been keen to lay down a mead for quite a while.
Never done one before but tried quiet a few. Honey type been my first thoughts for the brew.
I have read many conflicting reports on honey type as best to be used, but i am keeping my ears and eyes open. As Dave says i think a lot of what you hear about Euc honey is crap.

I have a few other brewers keen on the idea of brewing a large batch in a wine barrel.
So i am planning to get a air-conditioner installed in my old office (prior to summer) in the rear of my garage and keep it around the 20c mark and also get a few other long term brews in barrels in there.

I know its a lot of Mead ( barel full ) but, hey we will get through it. And its also nice to be able to test its quality of a period and harvest at its peak !
My wife loves it ( more than my beer <_< )
We have a English style barley wine in a barrel at present ( 230L), so time to expand a little.

 

[Airgead]

Doc, Dave,
Yeah i have been keen to lay down a mead for quite a while.
Never done one before but tried quiet a few. Honey type been my first thoughts for the brew.
I have read many conflicting reports on honey type as best to be used, but i am keeping my ears and eyes open. As Dave says i think a lot of what you hear about Euc honey is crap.

I have a few other brewers keen on the idea of brewing a large batch in a wine barrel.
So i am planning to get a air-conditioner installed in my old office (prior to summer) in the rear of my garage and keep it around the 20c mark and also get a few other long term brews in barrels in there.

I know its a lot of Mead ( barel full ) but, hey we will get through it. And its also nice to be able to test its quality of a period and harvest at its peak !
My wife loves it ( more than my beer <_< )
We have a English style barley wine in a barrel at present ( 230L), so time to expand a little.

My advice would be to do a couple of small ones first.

Its hard to go wrong with a straight mead (if you use good honey) as really all there is is honey and water. You adjust acid to the right level and add a bit of tanin (though the barel age would do that for you) but a straight mead does take a long time to age. Some take over a year to become drinkable so thats a lot of mead sitting in a barrel for a long time. Fruit meads take shorter times to mature but they are harder to get the recipe right with as you have to balance the honey and the fruit. I'd do a few small ones to get the recipe right then once you have something you are happy with, move to a large batch.

The barrel will also complicate things as it will allow oxidisation and will extract the oak flavours. For wood aging, treat it like a light white wine - only a couple of months at most in new oak or maybe up to 6 months in old oak. Many light whites aren't oak aged at all and to be truthful I have never had a wood aged mead.

From memory all whites these days are fermented in stainless then moved to oak for a while to mature. Based on this I would ferment in somethign other than oak (like a large plastic fermenter (you can get them up to 200l I think) then once it has finished, run it off into the barrel. taste every week to see how the oak flavours are developing then bottle when they are just right.

Sounds like a great fun project. It would be seriously cool to have a barel of mead aging in you garage...

Cheers
Dave

 

[homebrewworld.com]

Dave,
Thanks for your reply to this one!
I take your advise and will brew a little job first, and make sure its going to be right before the big batch.
Yes, a year or more is the go for maturation ( 3yr ) was the best i tasted so far, and it will definately be fermented in plastic not the barel.

So you think a long time in the oak is no go? . We will be using a used oak red wine barel (still wet).
As you sugest, maybe just monitor its progress i guess, and stop the oak aging when it is at its best.

Hope to get this off the ground sooner than later, so will let you know how it goes!
cheers
HBW

 

[barls]

so about 1.5kg of honey to the 5L of mead then hey dave what about this 15L recipe then
4.5kg of honey
fermented with 1118 then split in to 3 5L batches
1 with 600g of raspberries
1 with 400g of blueberries
1 with a couple ofvanilla beans added

 

[Airgead]

Dave,
Thanks for your reply to this one!
I take your advise and will brew a little job first, and make sure its going to be right before the big batch.
Yes, a year or more is the go for maturation ( 3yr ) was the best i tasted so far,

When the Mt Vincent meadery in Mudgee was still going I managed to con the winemaker there out of her last case of their gold medal winning white box (the box had "Do not touch, Jane's use only" in big letters on the side). I think it was 88 vintage. I bought it in about 95 so it was 7 years old then. I drank the last bottle last year so 17 years old. Boy it was good. I still have one bottle of their lochleven liquer which we will open this year. I think its 20.

So you think a long time in the oak is no go? . We will be using a used oak red wine barel (still wet).
As you sugest, maybe just monitor its progress i guess, and stop the oak aging when it is at its best.

I think the best bet is to monitor and pull it out when there is enough oak. Thats what the winemakers do. The used barrel will impart less flavour than new wood but you will also be extracting components from the red wine that was in there. I'm not sure how red wine will go with a mead. If you do something like a dark berry or plum or something like that you should eb OK as these are flavours that go with (and are in) red wine. A straight mead may not work so well with the red wine flavours. Add a drop of red to a glass of mead to see how it would taste.

Cheers
Dave

 

[Airgead]

so about 1.5kg of honey to the 5L of mead then hey dave what about this 15L recipe then
4.5kg of honey
fermented with 1118 then split in to 3 5L batches
1 with 600g of raspberries
1 with 400g of blueberries
1 with a couple ofvanilla beans added

Barls

Looks good. Honey is pretty variable so I would add say 3.5 or 4kg then do an OG to see how much more you need to bring it up to your desired ABV. You might also want to cut down trhe fruit a bit for a first batch. you can alwaysd add more in the secondary if there isn't enough but its hard to remove some if its overpowering. In my experimentation I am starting with 50g/l (so 200g for 4l) and moving up from there.


I'll be testing my half fermented strawberry test batch some time this week (been fermenting for over amonth now and still bubbling away). That was made with 200g of strawberries in the primary. racked off the pulp after a week. I'll let you know how it tastes.

Cheers
Dave

 

[barls]

cheers dave ill adjust the recipe as needed before i mix it but i think ill be adding the fruit in the secondary which is when ill split it as well