Month: juli 2014

I purchased a refractometer to measure the water content of the honey (RHB-90ATC). It is a cheap instrument and it is not that easy to calibrate. Never the less I got it done so that I was satisfied. I measured just 15% water in the honey which is just great – far from the critical level of 20%. If the water content becomes higher there is a significant risk of contamination of microbiologic organisms Just for comparison I measured the water content og a commercial product. It was 19%. This also give me some certainty that the calibration is OK, since I would expect a commercial product to be as […]

To put honey aside for a mead I need to figure out how much I need. I have been looking for another yeast that gives a bit less alcohol and I found a mead yeast capable of 15% given the best conditions   (White Labs WLP-720)   Last year my yeast maxed out at 16% and changed the gravity by about 115. Ken Schramm specifies a gravity change og about 100 for a 14% yeast, i.e 1% per 7(+) gravity change. 7.2 kg to 20L gave a OG of 120. If i want the mead to be a bit sweet I want FG to be around 20, so with a […]

I left the barrel with honey  for a few days so that bubbles and wax particles could rise to the surface. With a bit of patience the bulk honey becomes quite clear and the surface then looks like this I was actually quite surpriced how easy it is to clean the surface. Just cut a peace of parchment paper (the stuff used for wrapping in lunch boxes) in a circle just a bit larger than the surface. Lay the paper on the surface, so that the entire surface is covered an pad it where smal air bubbles are trapped. Let it sit for a short while.  Remove the parchment paper […]

Long time since my last post. Living in the garden house without internet makes it a bit expensive to use the phone… Never the less I could hardly lift the first honey compartment mid june, so then it was time. Some friends helped out which made it a very enjoyable day A week prior to the harvesting day I had inserted a plate with a one way passage to empty the magasine to be harvested for bees. It is the narrow plate between the two top magasins in the pic below At the day of harvesting there was only about 100 bees in the magasin, compared to the typical 10000 […]