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Brasswood honey/Wild apple blossom honey

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psychopomp23

psychopomp23

NewBee
Registered Member
Nov 21, 2012
230
3
0
Gatineau, Quebec, Canada
Hey everyone i'm in the process off buying more honey and the place i was looking at ( https://beesweetontario.com/categories/HONEY/ ) sells Brasswood honey and wild apple blossom honey. It's hard to find honey that isn't wild flower or clover in the area so i'm willing to spend the extra money on it.

My question was: Is Brasswood honey good to make mead? It seems a bit 'rare' and it would make it a bit special but if it doesn't turn out good what's the point?

Another question: For the wild apple blossom honey what kind of mead would you recommand? Show?,mel? Any suggestion/idea would be great!

Thanks in advance

Eric
 
I haven't used any of those honeys yet, but you could go with the Schraam method and make it traditional, see how it tastes, and if it tastes great as a traditional then great. If it might tastes better with some spices or fruits you can always add some.

The website says it has a "butter candy" flavor so I would try to make a dessert wine out of it, if those characteristics are successful in coming through.
 
I think you mean Basswood (aka Linden blossom), which has a hint of mint flavour.

The French use Linden blossom tea to help them sleep at night. I find a teaspoon of the honey at bedtime doesn't help me get to sleep any faster, but it does seem to kick-start my dream life.

I've used it in Scarborough Fair (in the mead log) and plan to make a traditional with it.
 
yes, sorry i mean basswood!

I like both suggestions but i think i might go with a dry-er meed than sweet or dessert one because i allready have possibly up to two batches that will be sweet ones.

I think i might try with some spices or vanilla or cacao...Any suggestions everyone? I've never used spices in mine and i don't want to use the wrong things
 
Well Medson was doing something with chocolate in the mead log and he used a chocolate powder, and ended up advising to use nibs since the powder will absorb a lot of liquid and you'll lose a lot of mead when racking.

I will be racking my maple wild blueberry vanilla mead this weekend. I used two whole vanilla beans split down the center. I'll let you know how much has come through so far, but I believe it mellows out as the aging continues.
 
Great i think that i made up my mind...I'll do a 3 gallon batch using about 3.2kg of basswood honey with some vanilla beans and cacao nibs and nutmeg.

If possible i'll try to find some dark chocolate nibs. I'd like to have the bitterness of the chocoalte and use the sweetness of the vanilla and nutmeg to add to the flavor.

Now i just need to figger out where to find those cotton bags/pouch people have been talking about...

I'll start a brew log about it when i do it the first week-end of February
 
I think all the real bean nibs are "dark" since they're the raw cocoa beans and not sweetened. looks like Amazon has a good selection and these in particular are guaranteed to be beans form the same place.

http://www.amazon.com/Organic-Cacao-Nibs-16oz-Tisano/dp/B002YH58GI/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1359049047&sr=8-5&keywords=cocoa+nibs+organic

And if you don't use them all you can snack on the rest for a good source of antioxidants. You should be able to get one of those all grain beer pouches for dirt cheap. It looks like panty hose with bigger holes and beer brewers fill it up with their grains to boil them in. I would look for some of these at your local homebrew supply store.
 

Personally when I do finally get my hands on some varietal honey that I've never had before, I plan to start out with a traditional, no spices or fruit, just to get an idea of exactly what that honey will ultimately contribute to a mead, and so I have something to compare against my clover, wildflower and golden honey meads.

BeeSweet makes an AWESOME goldenrod and aster honey, if I were made of money I would make a lot of mead with that stuff!
 
Chevette Girl said:

Personally when I do finally get my hands on some varietal honey that I've never had before, I plan to start out with a traditional, no spices or fruit, just to get an idea of exactly what that honey will ultimately contribute to a mead, and so I have something to compare against my clover, wildflower and golden honey meads.

BeeSweet makes an AWESOME goldenrod and aster honey, if I were made of money I would make a lot of mead with that stuff!
Click to expand...

Yeah i understand but from what i read about and what the owner told me about it i think those would be a good match to it so i'll see how it goes :D They seem to make great products and yesterday i had an interview in the market and there's always a stand that sells maple sirop and honey there and they have blueberry,raspberry and apple flower honey for 25$ 3KG container. I'll make sure to buy some of theirs later :D


I think all the real bean nibs are "dark" since they're the raw cocoa beans and not sweetened. looks like Amazon has a good selection and these in particular are guaranteed to be beans form the same place.

http://www.amazon.com/Organic-Cacao-...a+nibs+organic

And if you don't use them all you can snack on the rest for a good source of antioxidants. You should be able to get one of those all grain beer pouches for dirt cheap. It looks like panty hose with bigger holes and beer brewers fill it up with their grains to boil them in. I would look for some of these at your local homebrew supply store.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the link :) It makes sense that they would be 'dark' because their raw so one less thing to worry about! And yeah i'll go see at the homebrew store i hope they should have some
 
Just curious if you've tasted your basswood mead yet. I've had one person advise me away from basswood as a mead honey; he was told the mint aspect can give the mead an unpleasant flavor. But this was at least two degrees of separation from the meadmaker.

Basswood is one of the robust spring crops in our area (though not reliable depending on the weather), so it's something I can obtain pretty easily.
 
You will want to roast your nibs a bit to make the chocolate come out. Not very much mind you and not for very long. I would stop just as you can start to see a color change. If you don't do this the nibs will only give you a woody essence. There are bitter/dry tasting so monitor things as you have them in your batch. You can always add more but you can never take some back.
 
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