Honey Wash

buzzard · 16 January 2015 07:15PM

I, i am a beekeeper in the country near Rome, is here someone that usually still mead? i still grape with a copper still, but with the mead is not the same , now i am looking at StillDragon column but...witch tipe how many plates, some one can help me? Thanks

punkin · 16 January 2015 07:49PM

I'll get in touch with a guy who distills mead regularly on an SD column. Kapea is his handle and he generally posts on the Artisan Distiller forum.

Kapea · 17 January 2015 01:30AM

Hello buzzard. I am a beekeeper too. I make mead and distill mead brandy. I mount my StillDragon 4" four plate bubble cap still onto a half barrel (58.6L) sanke beer keg using a 2 inch triclamp connection. I fire the boiler with a propane Bayou Classic burner.

This still configuration works very well for making mead brandy in small lots. There is a lot you can do to change your results by adjusting the flow of cooling water through the deflegmator, and adjusting the heat input to your boiler. I am able to achieve high proof distillate by having the deflegmator reflux set near 100%. More flavor comes through when the reflux rate is set lower.

Fermenting honey for mead is different than making a honey wash for distilling. You can speed things up significantly for distilling because there is no need to worry about harsh young flavors, or clarity with a honey wash. Distilling is the best clarifier I know of.

Also, to ferment the honey faster keep your original gravity at 1.080 or lower. Daily small additions of Fermaid K and diamonium phosphate (DAP) yeast nutrients until you reach halfway to your finished gravity target will speed the fermentation. Warm fermentation temperatures help too.

Most honey ferments drag on forever because the pH in the ferment drops too low. Don't let the pH of your ferment go below 3.0 or it will slow down and stick. You can adjust your pH up if it gets too low using small additions of potassium hydroxide (KOH). A pH in the low 4 range works best.

Mead brandy improves with age. Aging on oak or cherrywood adds complexity to the brandy. I make fortified meads (kinda like port or sherry) by adding mead brandy to a mead made from the same honey. My friends like my fortified meads the best of all the honey beverages I make. Me too.

CothermanDistilling · 17 January 2015 05:51PM

^^^^ great post....

I will add the suggestion to read: Hightest's Honey Haven

And this spreadsheet when doing nutrient additions: Mead Calculator Spreadsheet (R11) (XLS)

buzzard · 21 January 2015 10:45AM

Thanks , at the next post

Sunshine · 21 January 2015 11:36AM

@kapea: I so see myself tasting your products, they must be awsome! @buzzard: Why the boar? :@) 8->

Kapea · 21 January 2015 03:05PM

@sunshine Did you see the movie Hannibal? (re: the boar) ;)

Something else to add to the fortified mead thought: Many meadmakers go to great lengths to avoid air-filled headspace in their mead fermenters. "It leads to oxidation!" Filling their fermenters with sterilized glass marbles and such... @-)

I say:

If you're worried about oxidation, purge the headspace in your fermenters with carbon dioxide.
I don't think oxidation is a bad thing. It adds desirable character to fortified meads. Like the difference between a tawny port and a ruby port. Controlled oxidation is a good thing.

I think I might be leading the charge on fortified meads. Leastways using the same mead for the base beverage and the brandy to fortify it with. I could be wrong about that though. I don't know of anyone else doing it.

captainshooch · 21 January 2015 07:42PM

@kapea I have been contemplating the idea of a mead with Tupelo honey and cranberry juice. Any suggestions are welcomed.

CothermanDistilling · 21 January 2015 08:52PM

I think the value of honey being what it is, a good trade-off might be to take a really, really good neutral, mix honey in, distill without taking fores, stop before tails, then ferment that wash and distill it to make neutral for the next batch... like a honey eau-de-vie?

kind of like a dunder program with no bugs... or heck, throw in in bugs or something like flowersblossoms to get bugs...?

grim · 21 January 2015 09:00PM

You could ferment a mead wash and then cut it with neutral before distilling if you really wanted to extend the honey. I don't know how much you would lose in the process.

Otherwise, straight honey, that's one hell of an expensive bottle.

CothermanDistilling · 21 January 2015 09:50PM

A lot of the honey aroma goes out the airlock when fermenting... that was a way to maybe try to save it?

FullySilenced · 22 January 2015 01:34AM

I saw on moonshiners it was $200.00 bucks a gallon tax free... :))

or so the fictional story goes

happy stillin

FS

Kapea · 22 January 2015 07:38AM

There is a saying among beekeepers, "Many get into beekeeping because of the honey. Many get out of beekeeping because of the honey."

What it means is, when you have hives you have a shitload of honey. Especially if you live in the tropics where the bees do not have to winter over. There is always something blooming here. My girls stay busy year round.

I started keeping bees because I am a meadmaker. I liked the idea of having control of what happens to the honey once my girls seal it into the honeycomb. (Plus I really enjoy being around bees). Pretty soon all of my carboys were full of mead aging and dropping clear. Then all of my cornelius kegs were full of the same. Then 14 gallon plastic food grade drums were full of mead aging and dropping clear ... In the meantime 5 gallon plastic buckets were filling up with honey waiting to become mead. I sell as much honey as I can. I trade honey for fresh eggs, raw milk, and fresh fish (tuna, wahoo, mahi mahi, swordfish, marlin), I make honey vinegar. And I still have a shitload of honey stacking up.

"Dad, what are you doing to your mead?"

"Well son, I'm using this machine to make it smaller so it doesn't take as many bottles to hold it."

$200/gallon? I wish. Pipe dreams!

Kapea · 22 January 2015 07:49AM

Cranberry melomel: Mud over on the AD forum was just talking about that in the "what are you drinking" thread.

I've never made a cranberry melomel, but my thoughts are: cranberries are pretty acidic so watch the pH of your must. Fruit usually has a shitload of yeast nutrients, so additional yeast nutrient additions probably won't be necessary. If you use whole fruit in the must you will need to "punch down the cap" at least once a day. The fruit solids will catch carbon dioxide bubbles and form a dry(ish) layer on the top of the ferment. If you do not stir this fruit back into the must (punching down the cap) it will cause an unpleasant bitterness in your mead.

Kapea · 22 January 2015 08:13AM

A couple of more thoughts on mead: Yes, a lot of honey floral characteristics are blown out through the airlock. That's just the way of it. I know of no way to stop that. However, using no heat to make your must will preserve a great deal of the floral characteristics. A lesson I learned from Dan McConnell and Ken Schramm at the 1994 American Homebrewers' Conference. I've been doing no heat/no sulfite meads for 21 years now with no infections. Back-sweetening the finished mead with raw honey will put some floral characteristics back in too.

Also, non-pasteurized/no sulfite fruit additions without causing an infection can be achieved by letting the yeast get a two day head start with honey alone before adding the raw fruit. This will mean adding small doses of DAP and Fermaid K for the first two days to get your yeast rockin' and rollin'. But if you have a strong ferment going, the chances of picking up an infection from the fruit is greatly reduced.

I've not done it, but distilling mead that has been increased in ABV with neutral sounds like a good way to increase the yield of your mead brandy. I'll have to give that a try and see how it works out.

captainshooch · 22 January 2015 12:21PM

Thank you @Kapea . I will most likely use just the juice from the cranberries to make it a bit easier. :-bd

grim · 22 January 2015 12:41PM

Wonder if I can convince my father to get back into bees. He had hives for years.

He was an urban beekeeper and flew under the radar for years. The city caught wind and shut him down, calling bees livestock and a danger to public safety.

Thst was the end of bumper crop tomatoes in the neighborhood. Everyone complains every year that their gardens have never been the same. However this was before backyard chickens became the rage. (we live in the urban sprawl 12 miles outside of NY City, where there are more fried chicken joints than actual chickens).

popcorn · 23 January 2015 08:07PM

I love honey! hey @kapea maybe you could send some up my way I'm sure I could think of a few ways to use a couple gallons

LocalGoat · 29 March 2015 03:14AM

Hey everybody, I'm a little late in the conversation but I have made my best stuff with just honey, water, and yeast. For 5 Gallons I used 2 64oz things of honey threw in some hot water to dissolve it then cold water to get the temp down for the yeast. Pitched the yeast, sealed it and let it sit for 2 weeks. When I distilled a couple times I ended up with about 2 or 3 liters of 150 proof. I cut it down to 80 proof then added oak chips and let it sit for a month. Delicious!

FloridaCracker · 29 March 2015 11:11AM

That much honey (1 gallon) in my neck of the woods is bunch of coin.

Smaug · 29 March 2015 03:04PM

Need a find a bee keeper.

punkin · 29 March 2015 05:40PM

I've never heard of a mead or melomel made without nutrients before. I thought it was likely to stick.

Sounds tasty as anyway. Well done.

FloridaCracker · 30 March 2015 12:14AM

@Smaug said: Need a find a bee keeper.

We actually hire in 10 hives a season to pollinate our crop and all I get is one lousy jar of honey! AND we pay $450 for the hives.

Kapea · 30 March 2015 04:18AM

@FloridaCracker - That's a pretty stingy beekeeper. I would find another beekeeper, or better yet, start my own hives. For $450 you could set yourself up pretty good. No worries about wintering-over where you live (yearround honey).

@punkin - mead made from honey, water and yeast is called show mead. Nice in theory, but takes f o r e v e r to ferment out.

FloridaCracker · 30 March 2015 01:28PM

I tried to keep my own bees and it was too much hassle. We only need them for 2 months out of the year and the other 10 they are just in the way. During blueberry flowering the bees only acquire enough nectar to feed the hive; that's why you will probably never see blueberry honey.

The only money that the beekeeper makes during that 2 months from those 10 hives is my $450. His hives have a lot more bees than when he arrived but nothing to sell when he leaves.

grim · 30 March 2015 02:03PM

My neighbor has procured a rooster. I think I'm going to start a hive in retaliation.

Kapea · 30 March 2015 03:59PM

Speaking from experience (my neighbor has a shitload of roosters for cockfighting) after about a week you will not notice the roosters crowing anymore. Your brain learns to tune them out.

Beehives serve many purposes. Honey is the most obvious. I know beekeepers who rarely collect honey. They say it is stealing from the bees. They keep hives for pollination.

I keep them for everything, honey, wax, pollen, propolis, pollination, and relaxation. I do not consider it work at all. My girls do all of the work. I just help them keep the pests out of their hives.

They say bees will travel as far as two miles from the hive to gather nectar. A circle with a radius of two miles encompasses 8,042 acres.

FloridaCracker · 30 March 2015 04:14PM

They are incredible and invaluable to our farm. Would love to have them again but I already have too much on my plate, especially this time of year.

Kapea · 30 March 2015 04:37PM

$450 for a jar of honey sounds like a pretty good deal then. :bz

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