Back in May, when we were visiting the Boulder farmers market, we picked up three three-pound jars of honey from Bee Chama Honey. The honey was delicious at the time, but I can't say that I care for their labeling system: their web site has a magic decoder card that maps symbols written on top of the lid onto honey varietals. In theory, anyway. In practice, even though I accepted this claim at face value during our interaction at the farmers market, it turns out that (a) the magic decoder card handed to me at the farmers market doesn't quite exactly match the one on their website; (b) one of the honeys I bought had a symbol on the top lid that didn't appear on either card; and (c) another jar of honey had a symbol that only appeared on the web site, so I'm rather glad I lost the magic decoder card and went to see if their web site would help. Too bad it didn't help more: I'm not sure what kind of honey this mead is being brewed with. So I'm just going to call this particular batch ↙, after the symbol on top of the lid.

2017-11-24_20_46_59_1
Bee Chama honey for batch 084, batch 085, and batch 086.

(EDIT, April 2018: The magic decoder card on the apiary's website has been updated, and this solves the mystery: the mystery honey is in fact snowberry varietal honey. Which I now remember discussing with the merchant at the farmers' market last year.)

Ingredients in this batch

Sanitized everything, then poured the honey in through a funnel. Followed this with the Fermaid O, Fermaid K, and potassium carbonate. Poured in water to total level of just over one gallon in the carboy. Agitated for five minutes to oxygenate. Pulled off enough to take a hydrometer reading, taking the volume down to exactly a gallon, Put a third of a packet of yeast in, attempting to share the yeast equally with Batch 084 and Batch 086. I'm experimenting with allowing the must to continue oxygenating as the yeast goes through the reproductive cycle, so instead of putting in an airlock, I covered the carboy neck with a piece of aluminum foil molded to the shape of the neck to allow oxygen and carbon dioxide to move back and forth while (hopefully) keeping out any unpleasant bugs that might get in and outcompete the yeast.

Brew date: 24 November 2017.
Original gravity: 1.103.
Bottling date: 4 February 2018
Final gravity: 1.024.
Estimated ABV: Approx. 11%.

Yield:

  • 8 x 12 oz. bottles
  • 1 x 22 oz. bottles
  • ~4 oz. leftover mead

Total: Approx. 122 fl. oz., or just over 95% of a gallon.

Observations

  • 2017-11-27T17:14: Replaced the foil cover on the carboy with an air lock. There's clearly vigorous carbon dioxide production: that airlock is bubbling like mad.
  • 2017-11-30T02:40: Checked the gravity of Batch 084, which was started at the same time with similar initial conditions. No nutrient addition at this time, based on the assumption that batch 084 did not need one either. Mead is clearly fermenting quite visibly still, with a lot of tiny bubbles in the must sample. Poured mead from hydrometer tube back into carboy: yeast activity is hopefully vigorous enough to make this more or less safe at this point. Still plenty of airlock activity, too.
  • 2018-01-03T21:47: Finally added a (very late) partial nutrient addition to the carboy, hoping that doing so will (a) do some good, and (b) not result in taste artifacts. Sigh. Life has been busy this last month, and that just fell off my radar.
  • 2018-02-04T17:30: Bottled and capped with green caps, resulting in nine various-sized bottles at about 11% ABV. Whatever this honey is, it certainly tastes good. (Though the mead certainly came out cloudy: maybe heating it slightly while brewing next time? But when it tastes this good, who cares?)