So I've been looking for some really good honey to make some high quality mead. Ideally what you want is something that has never been heated, filtered or otherwise adulterated. Heating honey causes some depredation of the aromas and flavor. If you have never smelled or tasted raw honey you are in for a big surprise. Honey can be heated for pasteurization. If honey is filtered, they will likely have to heat it to get it liquid enough to run through the filter. In order to get it to run through a filter you have to heat it to 110 degrees.
The next thing you are looking for is honey that the keeper knows the pollen source for. Ideally it is single source honey from someone who lends their bees to orchards and the like.
If it was a perfect world you would be able to get honey that was just harvested from the comb which meets all of the above criteria
AND has a really good fragrance and flavor.
Well guess what, I got super lucky and found some honey that is perfect, meeting all the above conditions.
Curt Bronnenberg is a second generation beekeeper and has been involved in beekeeping his entire life. He runs
Spring Valley Honey Farms in Perry Iowa. It is on a gravel road to the west of Perry.
I made a pilgrimage there today. I met Curt and he is the nicest guy you would ever meet. He is so incredibly enthusiastic about bees and honey. We talked for almost an hour about the health of his bees, how the honey business is coming along and the current batch of honey.
The whole time I was there I was standing up next to that forklift in the center of the photo. All these bees were buzzing around like crazy because he is currently harvesting honey. He has some of his 2000 bee boxes sitting there buzzing away like nuts.
I didn't mind all the bees because they added to the ambiance. We talked about what to look for in a premium honey. As luck would have it, he was harvesting "early honey" today! The honey I bought literally went from the comb to the centrifuge and into my bottle. There was no heating, no filtering no messing with the honey whatsoever.
Early honey is the best honey because it is much lighter in color and has an amazing amount of aromatic aroma. You can smell flours, sweetness and all kinds of other smells that you can only smell in fresh raw honey. There really is that much of a difference.
Check out the jug of Spring Valley Honey Farms Honey vs. the store brand.
Look in the handle of the jug at how light the color is!
Curt told me that it is only for about a month and a half a year that you can get it this fresh. He only harvest combs for about a month and a half. Later in the year the honey crystallizes and he has to heat it a little to get it out of the barrel. So really I got incredibly lucky to get honey today.
As for the floral source for this current batch, Curt said the bees were around apples, white clover and basswood. He says that this is one of the best flavored and best smelling batches he has made in a long time. How lucky did I get!!??!?!?
The next thing that will be ready for bottling will be the Irish Red Ale and that will be in about a month. The buzzy beer won't be ready to bottle for at least 7 to 8 weeks. The peach ginger mead won't be ready to bottle for probably another 3 to 6 months. The plum crazy mead will not be ready for at least 6 to 9 months.
Hefeweizen is traditionally a summer beer because it is very refreshing. Hefeweizen yeast produces a flavor of cloves and banana in the beer. It is usually very lightly hopped so it is not too bitter. 
I went back to the spring fed well to find out that it had been capped.
Our family also owned the farm across the road so we went to the pumphouse to draw some water.
This pumphouse is less than 100 yards away from Buzzy's spring so I am sure it is fed from the same aquifer. We let the water run for about 10 minutes. I tasted the water and as with all things involving Buzzy, it went way beyond what I was expecting. 'Our Man in the Field' relayed the info at pumpside that he occasionally fills his water tank on the sprayer with this water. If it sits a while it turns the tank a little yellow and leaves a line. He postulated that the water has a high iron content.
I wanted to make something that would be legal to use in a competition with super high quality ingredients.
I pitched the yeast just now (4PM).
For the next 3 days, I am going to add 1/2 t yeast energizer and 1/2 t yeast nutrient and stir really well. The idea is to get a really robust fermentation going. It is supposed to take about a month for the process to complete.
Then my naughty wife helped cut them up.
The weight of the peaches after peeling and pitting was exactly 8 pounds.
I used 12.5 pounds of honey, which was about a gallon. I topped it off with enough water to make 5 gallons and stirred the heck out of it with a sanitized whisk.
I also added 2 1/2 teaspoons of pectinase enzyme. That is supposed to help break down the peaches and ginger so that more juice gets into the mead.
I used a strain from White Labs called WLP720, a sweet mead/wine yeast. It has an alcohol tolerance of 15%. To make the starter I boiled 6 cups water, 1/4 t yeast nutrient and 1/4 t yeast energizer for 5 minutes. After I removed it from the heat I dropped in 1/2 cup honey and let the whole thing cool to room temp. Then I dropped in the yeast and shook it up. 
The whole time I was there I was standing up next to that forklift in the center of the photo. All these bees were buzzing around like crazy because he is currently harvesting honey. He has some of his 2000 bee boxes sitting there buzzing away like nuts.
I didn't mind all the bees because they added to the ambiance. We talked about what to look for in a premium honey. As luck would have it, he was harvesting "early honey" today! The honey I bought literally went from the comb to the centrifuge and into my bottle. There was no heating, no filtering no messing with the honey whatsoever. 
Look in the handle of the jug at how light the color is!
Curt told me that it is only for about a month and a half a year that you can get it this fresh. He only harvest combs for about a month and a half. Later in the year the honey crystallizes and he has to heat it a little to get it out of the barrel. So really I got incredibly lucky to get honey today.
