Mead primary

[ShaedesBrew]

I've seen two opinions on whether you can start your mead fermenting in a bucket or if you should definitely use a carboy for fermenting.

What says the experts?

 

[tally350z]

What is your recipe? I only recently started doing meads after a few years of brewing beer, and the one thing I can say is its alot easier using a bucket when dealing with a fruit of some kind. If you are simply making mead with honey and some other little ingredients, and not using fruits of any kind. You could easily use a carboy. I just made a hibiscus mead with hibiscus tea bags and honey and put it in a 3 gallon better bottle.

 

[ShaedesBrew]

I haven't decided on a recipe as of yet. But the wife is leaning towards strawberry. So I'm more than likely going to be using fruit.

Also I need to find a cheap source of honey. Never really thought of how expensive it is

 

[fatbloke]

I haven't decided on a recipe as of yet. But the wife is leaning towards strawberry. So I'm more than likely going to be using fruit.

Also I need to find a cheap source of honey. Never really thought of how expensive it is

Unless you're happy with managing the fruit based ferment in a carboy, then use a bucket.

Your missus peobably doesn't appreciate how light strawberry really is and how much you need to use per gallon to get a convincing strawberry taste to come through.......think on whether you think fruit in primary or secodary is likely to get the preferred flavour.

You can alway rack to carbouy later on.......

I prefer buckets for fruit batches except JAO.......

 

[Iceman2197]

I prefer buckets for primary and carboys for secondary. I tried making a strawberry mead, didn't turn out very good, going on a 1 year and don't have much hope for it. Did some research and found that strawberry isn't the best fruit to flavor with. I got a blackberry mead aging that is going to be very good.

 

[Meadiator]

Buckets are okay for primary and even aging in some cases. Just make sure it has a #1 on the bottom. and I have a link to a strawberry jam mead someone is doing on the forum somewhere around here. I'll try to shoot it to you when i'm not mobile. Try to search for it though. I hear people have decided a very nice outcome using jam. Of course, if you want the strawberry fresh taste, fresh is probably the best option.

 

[aceparadis]

I use a bucket as i can use a hand blender to cream the honey (Adding oxygen), and then slowly adding water using the blender to mix.