Newbie attempting raspberry melomel with raw honey

[Cheesy_Goodness]

I've done a few batches of JAOM with store bought honey, but I'm a total newbie with "real" mead.

My wife works with a guy that keeps bees. They got to talking and a deal was struck that he'll give us 15 pounds of honey to make mead, and the end result will be split with him 50/50. Given the price of honey, I couldn't pass that up. He said the honey has been filtered, but not pasteurized. Also, he mentioned that it will be mostly "autumn honey" (not quite sure what that means), and as such be a bit darker in color.

Normally I'm not opposed to experimenting, but since this guy is doing us a solid by providing honey, I'd like to get this right the first time. My plan is to do a 5 gallon batch of raspberry melomel. I'm looking for it to be semi-sweet, but not as sweet as JAOM.

My initial thoughts are to add the following to the primary:
15 lbs of honey
2 lbs of raspberries (this is what I have on hand, if need be I could pick up some more)
2.5 tsp of pectic enzyme
1 tsp nutrient
4-5 campden tablets (not sure if this is necessary)
Top off with hot water.

After 24 hours, I'll pitch a TBD yeast.

When the fruit looks to be bleached, I'll rack to a secondary and let it clear as long as it takes.

Does this look reasonable? As I mentioned I'm a newbie with mead, and working wing with raw honey is something entirely new.

 

[RegarRenill]

More raspberries, 2-3lbs per gallon. Add 1/2 in primary and 1/2 in secondary. Also some potassium (bi)carbonate to balance the raspberries acidity. Other than that the recipe looks solid. Consider cotes des blancs or 71B for yeast, I understand they do well with raspberries, I missed the raspberry season here in PA, but I'm planning on a similar recipe next year

 

[Cheesy_Goodness]

Thanks for the reply

I picked up about 9 more pounds of raspberries yesterday, so I should be ok with the 2-3 pounds I've got already. By a happy coincidence they were on sale yesterday

Does the potassium bicarbonate get added initially, or after the 24 hour rest? What should I be looking for in terms of acid range? Also, do I need to do anything special to get the raw honey ready for fermentation, or is it enough to heat it up to about 160 to liquify it and mix it in with water?
Do mead makers usually use a starter, or is it enough to rehydrate the yeast?

Sorry for all the questions, but I have no clue what I'm doing here haha

 

[RegarRenill]

Thanks for the reply

I picked up about 9 more pounds of raspberries yesterday, so I should be ok with the 2-3 pounds I've got already. By a happy coincidence they were on sale yesterday

Does the potassium bicarbonate get added initially, or after the 24 hour rest? What should I be looking for in terms of acid range? Also, do I need to do anything special to get the raw honey ready for fermentation, or is it enough to heat it up to about 160 to liquify it and mix it in with water?
Do mead makers usually use a starter, or is it enough to rehydrate the yeast?

Sorry for all the questions, but I have no clue what I'm doing here haha

Add the bicarbonate initially. You should be shooting for a pH close to 3.5. No need to heat the honey that high, use a warm water bath for the honey jars to let the honey become free flowing and rinse out the jars with more warm water. This will also help add some extra O2 to the must. I use a starter, but just rehydrating is usually enough. Don't forget to use nutrients and an energizer mix and a SNA (Staggered Nutrient Addition) schedule. Honey is fairly nutrient deficient compared to grapes or grains.

 

[Cheesy_Goodness]

Thanks for your help!

I'll try to remember to get document the process and report back.

Do you foresee any odd flavors resulting from a bold flavor like dark honey and a lighter flavor like raspberries?

 

[Cheesy_Goodness]

Got this in the carboy yesterday evening, plan on pitching tonight. I'll post stats when I can get back to my notes.

 

[Cheesy_Goodness]

Here's what I ended up doing:
Boiled 5 gallons of water and let it chill a bit (it was probably about 150F or so), add 15 lbs of honey and stir like a fiend. Then I added most of the half frozen raspberries to the kettle and stirred those too. It came out a goopy mess, but it did fit through the funnel!
pH was about 3.8, OG was 1.080
I added 4 campden tablets, 2 tablespoons of pectic enzyme, and one tablespoon of yeast nutrient and gave it a good stir. It's been a little more than 20 hours since it came together, so I've got some Lavlin 71B-1122 rehydrating getting ready to pitch.

I plan on adding nutrient (and possibly energizer) a few times during the process, rack to a 5 gallon carboy with the rest of the raspberries after primary is complete, then rack one more time to clear.
If this turns out any kind of good I'll post a separate thread and document it all a bit better.

 

[fimpster]

I'm interested to hear how this turns out. I've never made mead or melomel, just braggot twice and mostly beer. My wife thought a raspberry mead sounded good and a quick search brought me here.

Good luck, keep posting!

 

[Cheesy_Goodness]

Quick update:

I pitched not long after my last post, and it had blown the airlock and bung off the next morning. It looked like it peaked in the night and was receding, as the krausen level was now below the top of the carboy. I cleaned up, reattached a bung and another airlock, and went to work thinking all would be well.

Nope.

My wife took this shot when she got home less than 24 hours after pitching. After that I learned my lesson and attached a blowoff tube. It bubbled pretty heavily for about a week and has now slowed down pretty dramatically.

I added a tsp of yeast nutrient and a tsp of yeast energizer over the weekend and expected some immediate reaction, but didn't get one. I'll give it somewhere between a week and a month and rack it again onto some more raspberries and go from there. I may end up splitting this racking between one 5 gallon carboy and one 1 gallon carboy depending on the volume I get from it.

 

[garlicbee]

Autumn honey means honey the bees made from autumn flowers. Ususally means a darker honey than say clover or basswood honey which is lighter in colour and taste. Let us know how it turns out

 

[TheNovice]

Im looking forward to hearing how this turns out

 

[Cheesy_Goodness]

Update:
I racked this into a 5 gallon carboy on 10/31 with the rest of the raspberries (they all didn't fit in the primary). Happily, I had enough to fill another 1 gallon carboy. After I get past the losses from the raspberries and trub, I hope to have pretty close to 5 gallons of a finished product (after extensive aging).

I hope the one gallon I've set aside pans out. I tried something similar with a blueberry, but the one gallon got infected...but it did have a lot of headspace. Time will tell.

At racking, I believe gravity was about 1.000. I intended to add more nutrient/energizer, but it seemed like a moot point given the gravity reading was so low.

I'll give it another week or so and rack into a 5 gallon carboy to get it off of the raspberries. They look like they've done their part already.

 

[Cheesy_Goodness]

Looooooooooooong overdue update:

I racked and stabilized this two weeks ago. My plan now is to backsweeten with more honey from the donor and bottle next week. At racking we added a bit of honey to taste and it really brought out the raspberry flavor without being overly sweet. This thing will be delicious when finished.

I'm trying to figure out the best way to add the honey to the whole batch. This is fresh honey, not from a store so I'm not sure if it needs any kind of preparation or if it can just be added like store bought. My understanding is that bacteria can't reproduce in honey (spoiling it) due to low water content (and probably other sciencey reasons), but when liquid is added, inactive bugs can go nuts. The mead is around 11% so anything will have a tough time gaining any traction, but I'd rather play it safe at this stage.

So, how do you all prepare fresh honey for backsweetening?