Growing grapes and making wine in Bellevue
Posted in mead on Jan 25th, 2010
Honey prices advanced in 2008, and last January it looked like we were in for more of the same in 2009. But it turns out that honey in December sold for about what it did in January. I now have my first [...]
Posted in mead on Mar 23rd, 2009
It’s been nearly two years since I started this batch. I added acid and oak chips to my simple mead recipe in making this still, dry, lightly oaked mead.
It fermented out to a specific gravity (SG) of 0.996, and I didn’t sweeten. Since the original gravity was about 1.082, I’m calling it 11% alcohol by [...]
Posted in mead on Jan 12th, 2009
The surge in honey prices, that began in mid 2008, continues. Most prices that I track rose from lofty October levels. Dutch Gold wildflower fell, but only by 2.3% and that was after a 38.9% increase in October. I made a point of sampling prices in January, to compare them with the USDA’s “all honey” [...]
Posted in Recipes, experiments, mead on Nov 17th, 2008
This is for Medsen Fey, and anyone else, who wanted to know the recipe I used in my boiling mead experiment. I want to describe what I did and why. If you think I’ve left anything out, please ask! Good feedback here can improve future experiments – and not just mine. I’d really like to [...]
Six of us gathered for a great evening that began with a tasting. Not just any tasting, it concluded a three year experiment that tested the effect of boiling on making mead. Two meads went head to head that night. I made one with a ten minute boil, and the other was as identical as [...]
Posted in mead on Oct 6th, 2008
If you make a lot of mead, you buy a lot of honey. I like to buy in bulk and keep an eye on prices – there’s been a lot to keep an eye on in the seven months since my last price report. The stable prices in March have given way to much more [...]
Posted in apple wine, mead on Oct 1st, 2008
I’ll often make a fruit mead the way you would make a second wine. I made a cherry mead like that last year, for example, and I’ll make an apple mead the same way. I saved the pulp from apples I juiced to make wine, put it in a ziplock bag, and froze it. That’s [...]
Posted in Recipes, chocolate wine, mead on Mar 25th, 2008
I mentioned this one yesterday, when I was commenting on existing wine and mead recipes that used chocolate. Here it is in its entirety:
Chocolate Mead aka Liquid Sex Mead
Lord Rhys, Capten gen y Arian Lloer, Barony of Andelcrag, Midrealm
This recipe may be quoted, borrowed, copied, or stolen by anyone under three conditions.
1. As the originator [...]
Posted in mead on Mar 18th, 2008
I’ve been discussing the effects of processing on honey with commenters Eric and Dick Adams. You can check it out for yourself here. Liquid honey that you buy has been processed by the beekeeper and possibly by a packer. Knowing what they do and why can help us understand how it affects our honey and [...]
Posted in mead on Mar 10th, 2008
As I wrote earlier, the USDA’s 2007 honey report had some encouraging news about Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). It also indicated that honey prices were virtually unchanged in 2007. They use something called the “all honey price,” which is a weighted index of different kinds of honey, in different regions, sold through retail and wholesale [...]