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Sgt. Rock

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Some 12-13 years ago now (it was before our oldest daughter was born) my husband and I did some mead making. The straight batch of just honey mead turned out poorly (some sort of containment got in there at some point) but the batch of strawberry infused mead turned out great. We sold off all the equipment ages ago, but its always been in the back of my mind to give it another go. 

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Dude, you totally should! It's an incredibly rewarding hobby. If you want some pointers, I'd be happy to share. I've been brewing mead for close to 15 years now, and I just started on beer, too. My personal recipe for mead is 12 lbs. honey to 1 gallon of water, heated just enough to melt the honey, with White Labs sweet mead yeast. Great stuff.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Last year I made 19 gallons of mead and 12 gallons of beer (kit, no mash setup) with a non-ordo buddy.

This year we'll likely make closer to 30 gallons of mead, 6 started already. We tend to bulk age it 10+ months after secondary fermentation before bottling. Fun hobby; lots of waiting with occasional checking.

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Wow. You have a lot more patience for aging than I do, I usually can't make it past 6 months. Of course, I live dangerously and don't usually put it through a secondary; I get a great sparkle out of it at the slight risk of detonation. I gotta get out to the apiary so I can start my next batch. Where do  you get your honey, if I might ask? I haven't been doing a lot of brewing since I moved down here from Seattle, so I'm still looking for the best places for ingredients.

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Last year we largely used Costco clover honey, but did all gimmick meads like a bochet, melomel, or otherwise flavored mead where the honey itself was a relatively minor player.

This year we might get a 2-gallon bucket of fancy honey from flying bee ranch in Salem for a traditional mead.

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Oof. I'm impressed you got the Costco stuff to ferment properly. I used to use it, but I found out they were either cutting it with or feeding the bees corn syrup, and it wouldn't ferment properly for me. After that, I only go to the apiary. It's a little more expensive, but it's worth it. There's a place in Vancouver that I plan on going for my next batch that can hook me up with 12 lbs. for $45, which is about $15-20 cheaper than what I used to pay in the Seattle area.

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14 hours ago, Sgt. Rock said:

Oof. I'm impressed you got the Costco stuff to ferment properly. I used to use it, but I found out they were either cutting it with or feeding the bees corn syrup, and it wouldn't ferment properly for me. After that, I only go to the apiary. It's a little more expensive, but it's worth it. There's a place in Vancouver that I plan on going for my next batch that can hook me up with 12 lbs. for $45, which is about $15-20 cheaper than what I used to pay in the Seattle area.

We've never had a problem with it, but we typically use a champagne yeast, aim for 23-14% ABV by OG and target FG. Degassing, staggered nutrient additions, and good temp control all help them chug along to the finish line.

I want to use a fancy honey, but figured we're going to make sure we're getting decent results with cheap stuff first and really dial our processes in well before investing in it.

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