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Subject: Orange County, NC Beekeepers

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  • From: "Brian&Lanette Fee" <fee AT sprintmail.com>
  • To: "Lewis Cauble" <lewis AT hivebody.com>, "NC Beekeepers Orange County" <ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [ocba] OCBA Minutes - April 2009
  • Date: Wed, 13 May 2009 17:19:10 -0400

Minutes of the Orange County Beekeepers Association – April 2009

 

Lewis brought the meeting to order outside as we could not get into the building.  April 18th is the Magic Wings Butterfly Bash.  E-mail David if you would like to help.

 

Judy Pick talked about the honey bee exhibit at the NC State Zoo.  The exhibit opens in June.  They still need volunteers.  They would like volunteers to be long term and they will need to go through orientation.  The first orientation will be on May 12th at 2 p.m.  The summer meeting in Wilksboro will also have training.  All volunteers must wear a yellow shirt.  You will need a photo ID.  The plan is to have volunteers on weekends June through October.

Field Day – we will have an official Field Day in June about queen rearing.

 

Ben and Becky Starr of Starrlite Bee talked to us about Mead making. 

 

They recommend making smaller batches often because mead takes time to age.  They have entered in international mead making contests and won gold medals and best in show out of 212 competitors. 

 

Mead is fermented honey.  Honey doesn’t ferment on its own.  It has too little water content.  It must be diluted to an appropriate amount.  Dilute with things to vary flavor.  The dryer the mead, the less sugar it contains.  Mead is 10-15% alcohol. 

 

About 3 lbs honey per gallon will give 14-15% alcohol content.

 

First put the recipe together – you then must aerate the solution.  Yeast needs oxygen at first in order to multiply.  Then you take the oxygen away.  The anaerobic conditions cause fermentation to take place and wine is made.  Put an air lock in the bottle to allow excess carbon dioxide to escape. 

 

This is the opposite of bread making.  In bread making, you want to keep the carbon dioxide and bake off the alcohol.   Yeast need to be healthy and have adequate nutrients in order to make a good mead.  If the yeast is in poor health, it leaves odd flavors.  You can cook mead, but it leaves different flavors and kills wild yeasts, or you can add warm water to start.  Add nutrients for yeast which can be bought from the brew store.  They will need diammonium phosphate, vitamins and minerals.

 

Stabilizing agents - sulfites and sorbates.  If you want to leave sugar in the bottle, either feed the yeast until the alcohol content kills the yeast or add stabilizers.  You can also make mead and add flavors after. 

 

Rules of mead making.

Especially with citrus, don’t let pith get in. 

Measure carefully

Use pure honey – different kinds of honey give different flavors.

Use the right kind of yeast – wine yeast (NEVER use bread yeast).

 

 

Then they showed us a recipe that broke all the rules. 

This recipe is called Joe’s Ancient Orange from Gotmead.com and http://www.moremead.com/mead_logs/Ancient_OCC.html

 

Cut up one large orange and put in a jar.

Add 2-3 sticks of cinnamon

½ t. of nutmeg

1 clove

some cracked allspice

about 25 raisins

3 ½ lbs honey

1 t. Fleishman’s bread yeast

 

This is a replica of an older recipe.  Older recipes had some fruit and some spices.  Fruit adds flavors, spices cover the off flavors.  If you use chlorinated water, let it sit a day.  Sanitizing is important if you don’t want wild yeast.

 

Fill the bottle 3/4 full of water after the addition of all the ingredients. 

Shake to mix and aerate.  Put the air lock on.

After a week of fermentation, add more water – up to 1 gallon.

Ferment about 14 days.

Look for bubbling in the air lock, about 1 bubble every 2 minutes.

When the center is clear, siphon the mead out.  Don’t get the bottom of the mead.  Be careful not to aerate the solution or fermentation will begin again.

The mead is good after 3 months, but it is better to wait about 1 year.

 

They recommend Lauren yeasts for beginners K1V1116.  It is most forgiving.

On the website, there are instructions for nutrients and temperature.  You can e-mail them at starlightmead AT gmail.com

 

Great presentation Ben and Becky!

 

Connie talked about the state fair booth.  She encouraged everyone to try encaustic art.  There are handouts on making candle holders.

 

Angie has bees in the barn.  On Rogers Road there is an old road house with bees in the floor boards.  It should be easy to get to.  Does anyone want to head it up?  Let Angie know.



  • [ocba] OCBA Minutes - April 2009, Brian&Lanette Fee, 05/13/2009

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