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Honey Wash

edited July 2013 in Recipes

Any body ever make a wash with honey? Friend of mine wants to know if it can be done since he has a few hives and should have 80lbs of honey in the fall. He wants to stay with plain honey no sugar. I'm thinking someone must have tried it.

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  • I don't know about straight honey,but there was some one that was distilling out mead after it finished! :)>-

    It is what you make it!

  • Wouldn't 80 lbs of honey be worth ... a lot more than whatever you could distill out of it? Not that that fact should end the discussion, but it's something to consider.

  • Honey is 80-85 BRIX. You can water it down to more acceptable range say 25 BRIX (20.56 ABV Potential) You will need to add nutrients for the yeast just like using sugar as Honey does not have enough of the required nutrients good fermentation. Other than that should work fine. Just look up a recipe for Mead to get a ball park of what nutrients to add and how much.

    Honey is already fructose and glucose so it is made of Monosaccharides the yeast can actively consume unlike table sugar that is sucrose, a Disaccharide that must be broken into Monosaccharides by Invertase enzymes in the yeast before the yeast can consume it.

    Bee's synthesize their own Invertase and use it to break down Nectar which is a Disaccharide so when it is stored has Honey it is already in a form the Bee's can later uses as a food source fructose and glucose.

  • @monty Yes it is but that's what he is wanting it for. Most everything he is producing is for homemade beer or wine.

    Thanks RDD .... I think we will give it a try. He wanted to try a honey mead too so that will be a good start. Make the mead and if its not what he likes to drink we run it through.

    Thanks guys

  • Sounds like a good plan. :-)

  • Be aware that mead takes at least a year and possibly much longer to become drinkable. Not that i have ever made it, but that is the word of those that do.

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  • Perhaps Davin from Sherwood Spirits can weigh in also? His outfit will be specializing in honey based products as he is also a bee keeper. I'll bump him and see if he would care to share.

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  • Hi everyone. As Smaug mentioned I am opening Sherwoods Winery & Distillery in northern minnesota with in the next month. I just recieved my federal basic permit. We will be making several different kinds of mead along with Vodka, Brandy and Bourbon all from honey.

    It takes about 2.5 lbs of honey to make 1-750ml bottle of vodka depending on your cuts. If you've ever had vodka made 100% from a honey wash (mead) you would absolutely agree that it is worth way more than the $5.00 a pound that you can get from selling it.

    You can make a good mead out of almost any yeast you can get your hands on as long as you add your yeast nutrients at several different stages in the fermentation process. If your just making a mead to drink I would recommend using any wine yeast. If your going to be distilling it i'd recommend using a champane yeast and make sure it ferments out completely dry. Oh and DO NOT BOIL before pitching the yeast this ruins all the deep flavors and delicate aromas that honey has. So to answer the original question yes it can be done with incredible results if done right. If you've got any questions please feel free to ask and I'd be more than glad to post a basic mead recipe along with instructions if anyone is intrested.

    Chalmer, I dont know if anyone will agree with me you said " he will make the mead and if its not what he likes to drink we run it through". From my experience a bad wash makes an even worst spirit b/c of the flavor concentration. Thats just my opinion though. Hope this helped.

  • Thank you for dropping by and especially for sharing Davin. Please don't be a stranger.

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  • Also not to drift too far off topic Davin. But if you do have an instance when your "wine" may not be quite fit for the bottle,,,do distill. It is very much possible to render a delightful brandy from "off " wine.

    A great way to turn a loss on the wine side into a profit on the spirits side of your business.

    StillDragon North America - Your StillDragon® Distributor for North America

  • Thanks Davin We would like to try it if you have a good recipe and instructions would also be helpful.

  • edited July 2013

    Or if you want to cheat some, it is not a wash but maybe you can incorporate it some how!

    Honey-Spiced Vodka Recipe - Polish Krupnik

    It is what you make it!

  • Dang Bent that sounds yummy. Any thoughts on that recipe Davin?

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  • Yea looks good bent I bet honey sunshine tea would be good too..

  • Bent that sounds pretty good i will have to give it a shot. I am posting a link for a great mead recipe. Beware that it is very very involved. I met this guy that is the head mead maker at KooKoolan Meadery when I went to the Le Cordon Bleu french culinary school back about 14 years ago.

    When you read the instructions your gonna think to your self WTF but I am telling you right now if you want to make a mead that you can be proud of, follow the steps meticulously and trust me you will not be disappointed. If your looking to distill this mead i would recommend using a distillers yeast. When its done fermenting run it through your still and enjoy.

    http://traditionalmead.blogspot.com/p/way.html

  • every time i see the thread title....

    I think....

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    honey wash....

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  • @Law_Of_Ohms, that pic definitely is way to small!

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  • edited July 2013

    Doesn't honey take a long time to ferment out?

    @Moonshine said: Law_Of_Ohms, that pic definitely is way to small!

    True, but I'm now wondering what else LoO has in repertoir :))

  • Would make a nice bottle label too! Mama might not like it though...

    Milk and Honeyshine...

  • @Davin thank you... Looks good.

    @Law_Of_Ohms Looks good too.

  • @Chalmer I have only messed with honey once. A high sugar content melomel made with Tupelo that I pot distilled single run and it was not anything special maybe if I ran it twice but then I would be losing more flavors and it was for a special request. It turned out too expensive to bother with. I did keep one gallon to age proper and it is on 3rd racking and 4 months old. I will let you know how it turned out sometime next year :))

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  • Looks nice.Hope it has a good taste.

  • It has to bee good.

  • @Chalmer and @Lloyd I must admit I sipped on a bit of the bottoms on the 3rd racking and it tasted good but like a wine cooler that went flat and lost carbonation but I dont know squat about mead. My mentor will test it in the future and he will advise....but heck, thats months away... and then he said, by the way, the best mead I ever made was based on tupelo honey and cranberry juice instead of water, so who knows. Wish he had mentioned it earlier, so we'll just have to wait and see. That is why I dont care much for it, having to wait an eternity to even tell how it turned out.

  • having to wait an eternity to even tell how it turned out.

    To me, even 4 months of ageing seems like forever. And with sip, sip, sip, it's usually gone before it gets great.

  • I am a big fan of fermented honey products, but I never really had much success with distilling them. Adding honey to a distilled product - like putting it into rum - is a different issue.

    Most of mine though ends up fermented with fruit, so it is melomel as opposed to mead.

  • One correction, what I attempted to make is called a sack mead, not a melomel (oops) since I did not use any fruit but did shoot for above 14% ABV. Maybe I will try the cranberry version or even a tupelo and peach...but just a small batch due to price of honey in general and specifically tupelo has gone thru the roof!!

  • yep, if a friend gives you a couple 6 gallon carboys full mead that went off a bit after the airlocks dried out in his closet and the wife wanted them gone, those would be good to distill and share with your fellow BJCP mead Judge friends...

    The honey does come across nicely, but not enough to use 100% honey for vodka in my opinion... I think if you back-sweetened with extra high-quality local honey for a cordial, you could get the price it would demand commercially for a niche product... or maybe thumper the honey... I will probably attempt an oak-aged honey spirit when we get open commercially, I have gotten medals for oak aged meads and beers. By only taking the mead to whiskey strength you would leave enough flavor and aroma for the barrel to accent...

  • I pot distilled it single run avg 55% and the flavors came thru nicely, I just did not like it.

  • edited November 2013

    I Often make mead. He should dilute it to around 12-14% brix. (easier to finish fermentation this way. honey musts are notorious for getting stuck, also I find that tha shorter fermentation preserve the aromatics better). He should keep some of that honey to add to his low wines for extra honey aromat.

    Use DAP or other yeast nuetrient by 0.2 g\L.

    I like cotes des blanc yeast or 1118. ferment below 16c to preserve aroma.

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