Blackberry Mead

[Crash]

I found a recipe fpr the above and it includes Black honey. Could anyone explain what black honey is.
Cheers
Crash

[Crash]

[Crash]

Has anyone made mead before? If so could you tell me how much difference using a cheap honey will make.

[trojanrabbit]

Basically, colour is governed by the types of flower the bees are feeding on, which in turn affects flavour. For example heather honey is fairly dark and has a very distinct flavour, but so does orange blossom which is light in colour. There are a variety of types of honey which can be extremely dark, sometimes called black, but these days people like to specify the main flower type (presumably to get a better price).

So saying black honey is not really very helpful unless you know the flora in that area, and even then it's hard to be certain.  Some of the darkest I've seen is greek mountain honey, and perhaps holme oak honey we found in Spain. There are certain types of english honey which are really dark, but I can't remember which.
I'd just pick one with a flavour you like. :)

RE: cheap honey, dunno. My best guess is that the only risk is having more "unripe" honey content, plus more particulates and wax fragments which might increase cloudiness of finished product.

Just a few thoughs, hope they might help.
cheers
Pete

[Crash]

Thanks Pete for the reply. I called into Aldi on the search of honey and found 250g jars for 99p Pine, Orange and acacia. I used mostly pine and acacia for this one and saving Orange honey for ancient orange and spice mead. I did read on wines at home forum that some of the regular mead makers are just using cheap blended honey but as you say I wanted to try to go for best flavour. After all we will have to wait 2-3 years before trying it.

[heeby]

hello crash hows your turb cider doing im just going to start an ancient orange and spice with morrisons all clear honey from morrisons 99p a lb
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