Well, this might be fun.

[Henry Krinkle]

I just agreed to buy 60-90 pounds of unpasteurized honey from a friend who keeps bees in the city. This will theoretically make me 25-30 gallons of mead @10-12%ABV. I have never done his before.

[Dan R]

Some years, I have brewed more beer than I am legally allowed to, but never did try mead.

Do keep us posted!

Dan

[skywatch]

I made wine for 10 years. Wine is rather forgiving of mistakes, but not forgiving of vineyard or vintage. My understanding with beer and mead is to keep the parts very clean - these are a bit less forgiving. Especially in the case of mead, the ferment can get funky if the batch gets infected with bacteria, and mercaptans can be a challenge if the saccharomyces yeast gets grumpy. I assume you'll use all your meticulous skills and end up with something awesome!

[Strange]

In order to drink mead aren't you required to dress like an Arthurian knight and have a name like 'Gawain' or 'Perceval'? And don't you have to be on a quest to find the Holy Grail or the Golden Chalice?

[skywatch]

In order to drink mead aren't you required to dress like an Arthurian knight and have a name like 'Gawain' or 'Perceval'? And don't you have to be on a quest to find the Holy Grail or the Golden Chalice?

And it helps to know the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow.

[Raza]

In order to drink mead aren't you required to dress like an Arthurian knight and have a name like 'Gawain' or 'Perceval'? And don't you have to be on a quest to find the Holy Grail or the Golden Chalice?

I thought mead was more of a Viking and/or Egyptian thing.

[crownpuller]

And it helps to know the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow.

African or European swallow ?

[meijlinder]

I thought mead was more of a Viking and/or Egyptian thing.

All whole lot of different cultures have made alcoholic beverages from honey, however I do believe only the Vikings had mead that came from the teat of a goat
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heiðrún

[geoffbot]

Sweet! Literally. Will you use any honey to eat?

[Henry Krinkle]

I made wine for 10 years. Wine is rather forgiving of mistakes, but not forgiving of vineyard or vintage. My understanding with beer and mead is to keep the parts very clean - these are a bit less forgiving. Especially in the case of mead, the ferment can get funky if the batch gets infected with bacteria, and mercaptans can be a challenge if the saccharomyces yeast gets grumpy. I assume you'll use all your meticulous skills and end up with something awesome!

Well, I will use my genetic attention to detail. We'll see what product I end up with.I will only make one batch at a time. The first will be plain ordinary mead. When we were in Quebec a few years back we managed to explore their mead culture, which is huge. They still make 17th Century Norman mead and it is quite wonderful. The second batch will probably be made with Saskatoonberries added for a more modern style mead like one finds on the West Coast. By the time the second batch is ready for bottling the first should be just about drinkable for testing purposes. Then the third batch will be another plain one potentially with adjustments based on the first batch