Apple mead

[booboo]

First post here and need some help. I listened to Jamil’s "can you brew it" on mead but that is about the extent of my knowledge. I home-brew but this is my first mead. My local "bee man" can get me local homey (mesquite, light or dark) fairly cheap. I also have about 9 lbs of local crab apples I cored and sliced in the freezer. I would like to make a killer apple mead with these ingredients. Anyone have any advice? I am planning on using Lalvin71b-1122.

[Jidas]

Welcome! Sounds like your on the right track..here is a link you should check out for the process. http://www.traditionalmead.com/. Apples have enough nutrients but the honey doesn't so depending on what your honey to apple ratio is you might not need to add nutrients. Let us know what you end up doing.

[booboo]

Well, I just found out the apple I thought I had are being made into apple wine. Apple wine is great so I am not too dissappointed. My next plan would be to take one gallong of honey, one 64 oz jug of apple juice from the store (no preservatives) and add water to three gallons and ferment that out. How does that sound?

[booboo]

Would you use the light or dark honey?

[ipaisay2.0]

use the honey that is local to your apples. Lighter honey tends to be spring flower honey and darker honey is fall harvested honey. However, I am sure there are exceptions.

[dmtaylor]

Sounds like an awesome idea. Use the light or the dark or both. Personally, for a cyser (that's what an apple mead is officially called), I'd go with the lighter honey, but that's just me. It's all up to you. It will be great either way.

[booboo]

How do I figure out how much juice and honey to use? How many Lbs of juice in a gallon and what is the sg or brix? I can calculate the honey in promash. My thought now is to use 3 gallons of store bought juice and 1/2 a LB of honey? What kind of OG will that give me and how do I calculate it? How does a OG of 1.080 sound. I prefer lighter on the alcohol but want it to be balanced.

[bananas]

I usually prefer dark honey mead to light. Never tried apple mead, though. I could see how a lighter honey would be good with it.