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From Hive to Bottle

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    From Hive to Bottle

    My wife and I are amateur beekeepers. We have 4 hives here in S.A. and a couple in the hill country. This year 2 of our S.A. hives did incredibly well and we ended up with 105# at the end of the season. 4 months ago I took some of our honey from the last 2 harvests and waded into the world of making mead. I've been homebrewing beer for 6 or 7 years now but I've never made wine.

    3# of honey per gallon. I did 1 gallon of traditional mead (honey, water and yeast only) using our light spring honey and 1 gallon of Christmas using our dark fall honey. They both finished out at ~14% ABV. The traditional is a little drier than the Christmas but neither required back sweetening after stabilizing. All-in-all this was incredibly easy to make but it definitely requires a lot of patience.

    After 4 months of resting and racking 3 times to clarify today was bottling day. I have to say that while I'm not a big white wine fan this stuff is delicious!!! It took a lot of self control to keep from pouring off a few glasses while bottling [emoji16]

    Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk
    Last edited by JonBoy; 12-30-2018, 07:43 PM.

    #2
    Cool! Really like the way your pics turned out, good eye!!

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      #3
      Awesome, thanks for sharing. I’ve considered getting into bee keeping at my property in the woods.

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        #4
        Grew up with two hives in the back yard. Lot of work twice a year, and numerous stings throughout the year. Two neighbor husbands took my day out front down by the light pole and explained to him why he was getting rid of the hives.
        I have never thought about starting back into all the fun.......

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          #5
          Those look right nice. I made Meade a couple of times. Took a couple of years of aging before I felt it was mild enough to really drink. Good stuff though!

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            #6
            Originally posted by MetalMan2004 View Post
            Those look right nice. I made Meade a couple of times. Took a couple of years of aging before I felt it was mild enough to really drink. Good stuff though!
            Sounds about right. The folks who have been doing this a lot longer than me said to save off 4 bottles of each and have 1 each year to see how it changes with time. Wine & mead making is definitely the slow play hobby as a batch usually has to rest 18 months minimum before its decent to drink.

            Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk

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              #7
              Unfortunately a good portion of mine was wasted to drunks. I bottled mine in beer bottles because, like you, I was/ am a home brewer. Had a couple friends try it and they weren’t fans. After that, anytime I had a byob event and someone ran out but wanted to keep drinking they got some mead. It never ended well.

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                #8
                Nice! Do you guys sell your honey?

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                  #9
                  Originally posted by Efren View Post
                  Nice! Do you guys sell your honey?
                  We started selling this year. In past years we only harvested enough for personal consumption and to give away to friends/family as gifts. Sold about half of it off so far...lots of folks at my work were buying it up to give as Christmas presents.

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                    #10
                    If you can wait five years it even better! You will lo e making mead. Especially since you have access to honey!

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                      #11
                      Originally posted by JonBoy View Post
                      We started selling this year. In past years we only harvested enough for personal consumption and to give away to friends/family as gifts. Sold about half of it off so far...lots of folks at my work were buying it up to give as Christmas presents.
                      Do you still have some to sell?

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                        #12
                        Originally posted by lovemylegacy View Post
                        Do you still have some to sell?
                        Interested as well.

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                          #13
                          Pretty neat!!

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                            #14
                            Dilly dilly

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                              #15
                              I have a hive in my back yard, and just got into beekeeping. 4 full frames of brood/honey/pollen, and I am pretty excited about the spring.

                              Can you share your mead recipe? or a link?
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