Honey vodka

[woodduck]

Since I'm a beekeeper and I've got the honey on hand and sick of family and friends asking if I've made somthing out of honey yet, i thought i may aswell give a mead come vodka a go. I've read a bit about meads and have tried one but didn't like the orange and crap in it. So I'm not looking at making a mead i am after somthing to distill, honey vodka if you like.

I've based this on the recipes I've read about the place.

This is what I've just wacked together.

3 ltrs blue gum honey. (That's our premium over here and it's what i had lying around.)
12 sultanas (cause it sounded good)
1 teaspoon of dap (just incase, i don't want to wait till Christmas to run it but probably will anyway :laughing-rolling: )
1/2 teaspoon of citric acid (i thought honey would be acidic already and need bicarb but by my ph metre it was 6.1 so in the acid went. Now at 5.5)
1 desert spoon of ec1118 (just a guess)

Method

I've just done mine in a 22ltr bucket cause that's what i had because all my fermenters are full :handgestures-thumbupleft: .
10 ltrs of hot water out of the tap. Add honey, sultanas, dap. I then stirred it with a paint mixer to get some air into it.
top up to 20 ltrs with cold water, stir, then check ph, add citric if needed.
i mixed it until it was down to 30 deg then pitched yeast.

SG was 1065

Not sure how it will go but hey, worth a try.

I'll report back next year when its ready to run :laughing-rolling: :laughing-rolling: :laughing-rolling:

[RuddyCrazy]

G'day WD,
I did do some research on this mead and on the FB mead group asked about using 6 kg's to make a 20 litre drop and replies came back don't expect anything above about 7-9 %ABV from it. Thought I should mention this as the yield may be too low on that wash so it may pay to wack another 3kg in the wash mate.

Now in your post you didn't say what the OG of the wash was either so if it is high enough take what I just wrote as a grain of salt mate.

Just hate to see a 2-3 month ferment only produce a buggerall yield.

Cheers Bryan

[woodduck]

Just a bit of an edit on the above post.

I thought since talking about mead i should probably chuck that first lot i did that was sitting in the corner for the last few months, out. Well just before i turfed it i thought, ah what the hell I'll give it one last chance. So i poured a little into a glass and gave it a try. The smell of the orange is a bit much but the taste wasn't too bad. It has a sweet taste with a bit of a wine type of bite to finish, not much of an orange taste just smell. It is alot like a liqueur, with that smooth mouth feel and It leaves "legs" on the glass like a good port.

Hell i may even keep this now just for something different. I guess the extra month or so really did help.

I've never tryed to discribe a drink or done a review before, how'd i go? I tryed to use the big words :laughing-rolling: :laughing-rolling: :laughing-rolling:

[RuddyCrazy]

So i poured a little into a glass and gave it a try. The smell of the orange is a bit much but the taste wasn't too bad. It has a sweet taste with a bit of a wine type of bite to finish, not much of an orange taste just smell. It is alot like a laquer

Now I hope that quote 'It is alot like a laquer' is supposed to mean 'alot like a liqueur' unless you like tasting furniture finishs :laughing-rolling: :laughing-rolling: :laughing-rolling:

[woodduck]

My bad, spelling was never my strong suit. :angry-banghead: not even spell check can help sometimes 8-} :laughing-rolling:

[woodduck]

Well guys i ran this wash today so heres my results,

It finished (well i got sick of looking at it) at 1000 and had been there for more than a week, so that's about 9%. from my 20ltrs i got 7x 150ml cuts at 94% at 3ltrs an hour to try get some flavour through and 1.4ltrs of tails down to 20%. At this stage there isn't any real flavour in the hearts. I may have messed up a bit by not going deeper into tails because the tails jug has a real honey smell to it but it's a bit hard to blend in now it's in one big jug :angry-banghead:


I'll let the cuts air and I'll see what i get tomorrow.

[Urrazeb]

I wonder if you could run a neutral strip/spirit run and run the hearts with honey added?

I have been thinking of maybe an inline thumper for this too, direct the vapour through a honey bath above RC :think:

[woodduck]

I have read somewhere that blokes do add honney to the boiler aswell as rub honey on the roof of the boiler. honey can be quite strong so you probably wouldn't need alot. Might be something to try.

I'm thinking more along the lines of carter head mmmm..... :handgestures-thumbupleft:

[5 o'clock]

I've just been offered 15 litres of honey (canola flowers were the source if that makes a difference).

Woodduck - I'm interested in your thoughts on your honey experiments in hindsight. Would you do it again? How would you change your process?

Cheers,

Richard

[woodduck]

No I probably wouldn't do it again, too much pain for very little gain. Honeys expensive and takes a long time to ferment. If you want to do something I would try mead. That lot i did came good with time and is now quite drinkable. I've still got that run i did through the still sitting on oak and still don't like it. You would be better off with some of the ideas above, thumper, add to boiler etc I recon.

Now I know there's no such thing as crap honey just different degrees of great but canola honey is right down the bottom for me. It has the smell and taste of margarine, canola oil if you ask me and i don't recon it would give real good flavors through the still but might be ok in mead?? Not sure.

[5 o'clock]

Thanks for the advice Woodduck. I think you have just saved me a lot of time and disappointment.

I might not bother. It wouldn't have been expensive as the honey was going to be free but my time is worth more than nothing to me. I have three ferments which have been waiting for months to be run as it is.

Cheers,

Richard

[TDick]

I have read somewhere that blokes do add honey to the boiler as well as rub honey on the roof of the boiler.
..... :handgestures-thumbupleft:

A bump in 2026 . In a spot.
Gifted two pounds (jars) of local honey.
Planned to mix with 70% blueberry macerated WPOSW.
Made a small trial and the honey just doesn't come through.
So I did a 1:1 with remaining WPOSW neutral, so should be down around 35%.
It's been resting about a week. So far it just tastes like a thin honey syrup with an aftertaste of alcohol.

I don't know whether to add some spices, lemon and orange peel or since the honey wasn't fermented, add yeast for a second fermentation with a single run in my air still.
If I can create something nice, ups my chances of getting a lot more honey.
Open to suggestions!

[TDick]

I have read somewhere that blokes do add honey to the boiler as well as rub honey on the roof of the boiler.
..... :handgestures-thumbupleft:

\

I don't know whether to add some spices, lemon and orange peel or since the honey wasn't fermented, add yeast for a second fermentation with a single run in my air still.

If I can create something nice, ups my chances of getting a lot more honey.
Open to suggestions!

I hit the submit button before I was through. :teasing-tease:
Of course I can't do a secondary fermentation of roughly 30-35% honey shine as is. :angry-banghead:
What I wanted to ask is if it's practical to bring it down low enough to ferment the honey or just oak it for a while and see if it mellows out ??