Simple Mead Making in Africa

[Sky Bell]

DISCLAIMER - I live in deep dark Africa with the aboriginals. I have only mason jars, honey, bread yeast and a refractometer until I reach civilization again the fall of 2024.
PLEASE don’t suggest anything I can’t act upon in the next 8 months. (Fall 2024- look out!)
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Since I started off this question , I’m understanding the connection between sweetness and ABV much better, thank you. I don’t have access to stabilizers. So I’m playing with some standard recipes to see which quantity of honey will give what I want.

Understanding what’s going on inside the mead is helpful.

Here are some things I’ve learned:

• How to use a refractometer. I had one shipped here two years ago because I was curious about my ABV. I finally broke down and figured out how to use it. It is good for SO much more!
• Not all the honey HERE has the same SG!! Clearly this means some has been watered down. No surprise in a country where nothing is properly regulated. I would not have known this without a refractometer - now I can adjust accordingly. (As a side note, I concluded one of the brands of honey I purchased was actually corn syrup. They even kindly put dead bees on top to assure me it was made “by international standards”. Ha!)
• Sweetness level - I wondered why I liked my mead at two to four weeks, but then it seemed “off” later. I realize now, if I’m going to ferment longer, I need to add more sweetness at some point.
• Also, with the higher ABV levels I’m getting from wild yeasts, compared to bread yeast, I also need to increase the starting gravity.

Thank you for your patience in clarifying things for me.

 

[Chevette Girl]

Based on the feedback about how yeast acts, I’ve concluded it would also be good for me to increase the amount of honey I use as well, especially for the batches that don’t also contain other sweetening such as fruit juice.

Back sweetening just seems wrong to me. I heard one of the ladies in the podcast say that she does NOT back sweeten and can taste the difference if a need has been back sweetened. So, it is possible to make a sweetened mead without doing that.

I'm not sure who said that or when, may have been one of our guests (hi, I'm AJ). Though I have heard some people say they can and may have repeated that, I myself can't tell the difference between a honey-backsweetened mead and one that just finished there, and I'm pretty sure Vicky backsweetens as needed as well. I backsweeten when needed, it's not a crime (sugar is still sugar, regardless of source and whether the yeast couldn't finish with it or whether you added it after they were done), you just need to be certain that your mead is really truly done fermenting or you run the risk of bottle bombs.

Adding fruit juice to an already fermented must will give you a different flavour than if the fruit juice had been fermented (the taste difference between grape juice and table wine), but the honey, as Squatchy said, shouldn't make a huge taste difference. But if you don't like it, then you don't like it, so don't do it.

If you're finding something too tart, it might have a bit too much acidity, I know hibiscus tea has a tart bite to it when I make it strong enough and a lot of straight fruit juices are pretty acidic. If you had access to chemicals I'd suggest trying something to raise the pH/decrease the acidity as I think Squatchy suggested earlier with ppotassium bicarbonate,, but baking soda is the only common thing I can think of that you might have on hand and that probably WILL impart a taste. You'll have to find that balance for yourself of how much sugar do you need to offset how much acidity, and pretty much every different mead you make will end up being an experiment on finding that balance.

One thing I do when I'm trying to push the alcohol but don't want it TOO sweet if it stalls out is called step-feeding, where I sweeten it a little at a time near the end of the fermentation, and if it consumes the sugars, I add a little more, that way I don't start with too high a specific gravity (which is harder on the yeast than a lower one) but I don't finish with too high a specific gravity either, and it feels like the yeast had a chance at the honey. I usually do this by hydrometer but until you can get the tools, doing it by taste is fine too, just make sure you never backsweeten an unsabilized mead and close it up tight.

And I'm really intrigued by your Clamato mead!!

 

[Chevette Girl]

• Not all the honey HERE has the same SG!! Clearly this means some has been watered down. No surprise in a country where nothing is properly regulated. I would not have known this without a refractometer - now I can adjust accordingly. (As a side note, I concluded one of the brands of honey I purchased was actually corn syrup. They even kindly put dead bees on top to assure me it was made “by international standards”. Ha!)

Differing moisture contents in honey can be just a thing with honey, as a beekeeper myself I can confirm that there can be a huge difference in the moisture content of capped honey from different hives, different parts of the same hive or at different times in the season. If it's got more than 18% moisture, it can start fermenting on its own, and we had one case this year where it was borderline so we bottled it, and it was fine until it started crystallizing, which dropped the SG of the rest of the still liquid honey enough that it started fermenting in the jars, so guess what my next mead will be using

And I'm sorry you got sold corn syrup with dead bees, ugh. I hope you can find a good source of legit honey. We had one batch of comb honey that tasted a lot like corn syrup, I don't know what the bees were visiting but it was really not very floral at all.

 

[Chevette Girl]

Based on the feedback about how yeast acts, I’ve concluded it would also be good for me to increase the amount of honey I use as well, especially for the batches that don’t also contain other sweetening such as fruit juice.

Back sweetening just seems wrong to me. I heard one of the ladies in the podcast say that she does NOT back sweeten and can taste the difference if a need has been back sweetened. So, it is possible to make a sweetened mead without doing that.

I'm not sure who said that or when, may have been one of our guests (hi, I'm AJ). Though I have heard some people say they can and may have repeated that, I myself can't tell the difference between a honey-backsweetened mead and one that just finished there, and I'm pretty sure Vicky backsweetens as needed as well. I backsweeten when needed, it's not a crime (sugar is still sugar, regardless of source and whether the yeast couldn't finish with it or whether you added it after they were done), you just need to be certain that your mead is really truly done fermenting or you run the risk of bottle bombs.

Adding fruit juice to an already fermented must will give you a different flavour than if the fruit juice had been fermented (the taste difference between grape juice and table wine), but the honey, as Squatchy said, shouldn't make a huge taste difference but if you don't like it, then you don't like it.

If you're finding something too tart, it might have a bit too much acidity, I know hibiscus tea has a tart bite to it when I make it strong enough and a lot of straight fruit juices are pretty acidic. If you had access to chemicals I'd suggest trying something to raise the pH/decrease the acidity, but baking soda is the only common thing I can think of that you could have on hand and that probably WILL impart a taste. You'll have to find that balance for yourself of how much sugar do you need to offset how much acidity

One thing I do when I'm trying to push the alcohol but don't want it too sweet if it stalls out is called step-feeding, where I sweeten it a little at a time near the end of the fermentation, and if it consumes the sugars, I add a little more, that way I don't start with too high a specific gravity (which is harder on the yeast than a lower one) but I don't finish with too high a specific gravity either. I usually do this by hydrometer but until you can get the tools, doing it by taste is fine too, just make sure you never backsweeten an unsabilized mead and close it up tight.

And I'm really intrigued by your Clamato mead!!

 

[Sky Bell]

Tha

I'm not sure who said that or when, may have been one of our guests (hi, I'm AJ). Though I have heard some people say they can and may have repeated that, I myself can't tell the difference between a honey-backsweetened mead and one that just finished there, and I'm pretty sure Vicky backsweetens as needed as well. I backsweeten when needed, it's not a crime (sugar is still sugar, regardless of source and whether the yeast couldn't finish with it or whether you added it after they were done), you just need to be certain that your mead is really truly done fermenting or you run the risk of bottle bombs.

Adding fruit juice to an already fermented must will give you a different flavour than if the fruit juice had been fermented (the taste difference between grape juice and table wine), but the honey, as Squatchy said, shouldn't make a huge taste difference. But if you don't like it, then you don't like it, so don't do it.

If you're finding something too tart, it might have a bit too much acidity, I know hibiscus tea has a tart bite to it when I make it strong enough and a lot of straight fruit juices are pretty acidic. If you had access to chemicals I'd suggest trying something to raise the pH/decrease the acidity as I think Squatchy suggested earlier with ppotassium bicarbonate,, but baking soda is the only common thing I can think of that you might have on hand and that probably WILL impart a taste. You'll have to find that balance for yourself of how much sugar do you need to offset how much acidity, and pretty much every different mead you make will end up being an experiment on finding that balance.

One thing I do when I'm trying to push the alcohol but don't want it TOO sweet if it stalls out is called step-feeding, where I sweeten it a little at a time near the end of the fermentation, and if it consumes the sugars, I add a little more, that way I don't start with too high a specific gravity (which is harder on the yeast than a lower one) but I don't finish with too high a specific gravity either, and it feels like the yeast had a chance at the honey. I usually do this by hydrometer but until you can get the tools, doing it by taste is fine too, just make sure you never backsweeten an unsabilized mead and close it up tight.

And I'm really intrigued by your Clamato mead!!

Thanks for all this good info. As I said, I’m pulling in all I can learn and trying new things as I’m able to now. By fall, I should have new toys.

Fortunately, I have a few recipes that work. I’m tweeting them a bit to see if I can make them better. Coming up with new ones is a little mire time consuming.

Aside from that, I’m doing a lot of things in small bottles, because I wonder, “what if…” it keeps me occupied!

You talk about lowering the acidity. I wonder if I could use papaya seeds. We use them for stomach aches. I might try it.

 

[Sky Bell]

Differing moisture contents in honey can be just a thing with honey, as a beekeeper myself I can confirm that there can be a huge difference in the moisture content of capped honey from different hives, different parts of the same hive or at different times in the season. If it's got more than 18% moisture, it can start fermenting on its own, and we had one case this year where it was borderline so we bottled it, and it was fine until it started crystallizing, which dropped the SG of the rest of the still liquid honey enough that it started fermenting in the jars, so guess what my next mead will be using

And I'm sorry you got sold corn syrup with dead bees, ugh. I hope you can find a good source of legit honey. We had one batch of comb honey that tasted a lot like corn syrup, I don't know what the bees were visiting but it was really not very floral at all.

Interesting. I testing staring gravity just out of curiosity! Didn’t expect so much difference.

I’m pretty certain it was corn syrup - I could be wrong it looked like it, it tasted like it, it was thick like corn syrup. However, I didn’t have any left when I came to that conclusion. I also wasn’t crazy about the mead I made with it. I may buy another bottle just to see. It might be good for back sweetening at least.

I’m interested in you comments about varied honey from different hives. I have started my first hive and hope to harvest some honey soon. You know it will go into mead!

 

[Chevette Girl]

This year was really interesting, we had three swarms that all got settled in at different times and the comb honey from two of them tasted different. We also had a few splits and at one point we could tell who was on the sunflowers and who wasn't by which hives had yellow pollen all around the entrances.

 

[Sky Bell]

Funny, it seems the queen bees gives different orders! Who would have thought?

Do you find a difference in ABV based on what flowers they have visited )wild yeasts that get into the honey)? Assuming you don’t sterilize your honey.