Recent content by NZ-beekeeper

I found a bottle from a 1 gallon batch I made over 4 years ago. Boy-o-boy is it smooth. I saw someone mentioned rum. Yes, rum-like, or like a smooth whisky without the kick (8% approx). Like a good port or so. I made a coffee flavoured one at the same time, but don't know what came of it. The...

Mead is so easy to make, why not try it? Honey, water, yeast. Time. Although a friend of a friend made his own grain spirit and flavoured it with honey somehow. Very nice, but at somewhere between 35-50% abv, a little too strong to quaff.

I found the first brew a little 'flat' in flavour. The second one, which I have started drinking, is a little better, by adding 1.5 lbs honey to the gallon instead of 1, a godd thumb of ginger root (should have been grated and more added), 2 lemons, nettles and a couple of dandelion roots to the...

I cracked a bottle of this that I had bottled just three weeks ago, and after racking twice since primary (started on 30 August, 2014). Definitely not long aged, but hey! it was delicious and went down a treat. Sherry-like flavour, but with a not-altogether-subtle hint of the caramelising...

Propolis...it is a product from the beehive, and now it is springtime in NZ, the bees collect it from the trees in great abundance. I just have to wait a while because the last round would be contaminated with varroa chemicals, so I have cleaned that off and waiting for the clean stuff to come...

That may be so, but you will almost certainly be able to get Lalvin 1118

I made a bochet out of a batch of suspect honey taken off one of my hives after winter. I don't have a refractometer, but the smell, well it smelled like the honey storage shed, like you say, "winey". Boiling the honey for up to an hour will kill any wild yeast, and the burnt-ness masks any off...

Bottled it yesterday, SG was only down 0.014, so about 3.5% ABV, primed with rapadura (panela) sugar, the real 'raw' sugar. Refreshing if not yeasty flavour so far.

Here is my black tea infused bush honey mead catching the sun, almost clear now after 2 rackings. 23L carboy, but due to rack-loss, it's down to about 5 gallons. edit: This is made from my own honey

Firstly, mead doesn't need boiling...you'll boil away the delicate notes of your honey, unless you're doing a bochet. I'd scoop them and add to primary

Personally, I'd rather bottle age than bulk in plastic, but that's just me. I don't like the possibility of leachates. It might be that I'm being overreactive, but that's my opinion

That doesn't really go with self sufficiency or organic gardening, brewing, and beekeeping, but I do get what you mean!!! Still haven't tasted the brew yet though

That's very interesting. To make a sourdough starter (which is of course the beneficial use of wild yeasts), one method is to use pineapple juice with flour, and the wild yeasts seem to go nuts on that.

That's a steal considering the work that goes into producing honey for sale, and you can be pretty darn sure it's the very highest quality.

They have an unusual one of a kind taste, with a definite 'medicinal' earty smell when they are boiling. I had nettle 'cider' or 'beer' when I was on my OE in Cornwall, in the south of England. It was light, cloudy, nicely effervescent, punchy as an afternoon drink (<6%?), and very refreshing...