is it possible to just use honey instead of malt ?

Yeah, it's called a mead.

I can recall at least one good thread about mead (with good links as well) here on TB. Making good mead is a bit more than mixing honey and water and pitching yeast (though not much more difficult). Most large liquor stores carry mead. You can give it a try. I bought a melomel (cherry mead) from our local grocery store and it was mighty tasty (and it was my wife absolutely went nuts over it).

If you mix the two it's Braggot and it's good. I've got two 1 gallon batches fermenting right now. One a citrus spice and the other blackberry. The downside is that Mead takes about a year to age well. I've made a Braggot as well. It was ready in a few months, but it's still improving.

Actually with techniques that just recently have begun receiving publicity mead can be drunk just after several months and taste better than before. Here's the thread I was thinking of. http://www.tastybrew.com/forum/thread/182412

Right on, marky! Here's a more direct link to the info...

http://www.beertown.org/events/hbc/presentations/KrisEngland_NHC.pdf

At NHC recently, I tasted a 5 week old mead from one of the authors and it was freakin' incredible. You would have thought he'd aged kit for years based on conventional mead theory.

Reading that makes me want to make a mead!

I use campden tabs to sterilize my honey and water mix before fermentation. I don't like the idea of losing any aroma form the honey or any of the good stuff by boiling. I bought raw honey for a reason,

Okay, well I have a question aboot using honey to make mead, and since this thread was already started, I thought that it would be a good idea to post this question here.

I am able to get my hands on honey imported from Zambia...it is a amber color honey and it tastes great. Somewhere I remember reading aboot using honey that was amber color and reading that it was no good to use. Any comments or suggestions?

I currently have 2 5gal melomel's in the fermentor, that's mead with fruit. One is blue berry and the other is strawberry.

All I can tell you Jason is to try it. I remember hearing that darker honey tends to give you a stronger flavor, but as long as the honey is not really old and amber because of that, it should be ok. I have been told and read that alot of things are not good to use and been told other things are awsome to use, some of what I was read and told what right and some wrong. I remember being told and reading along time ago that sugar made beer cidery, now I am being told that old extract is the reason. If you can get the honey cheap enough try it out. It will still be better than BMC beer.

The type of nectar the bees gather determines the honey color. Darker honeys have deeper, richer flavors that do well on their own and don't always compliment fruits or lighter flavors. Spices and herbs can do nicely in dark honeys. In my experience as a beekeeper and honey guy, honey doesn't darken with age. In fact honey can keep for years, lots of years without any problems.

This is the second year for my girls, so I'm expecting 50-60lbs of honey. I'm definitely giving this a try.

Don't let the color of the honey scare you away as Brandt notes. Avocado honey is very dark but produces a flavorful mead.

A cheap first mead can be made with clover honey that Costco sells. 6#'s for like $9. It's what I use in my ciders.

If you're into podcasts you can get a crash course in mead making at thebrewingnetwork.com There you can listen to the Jamil Show where they talk about mead and the "new" technique of making good mead quick.

Curt Stock, former meadmaker of the year, had an article in BYO last July/August about making melomels. Great information on how to do staggered nutrient additions.

thank you for all the great advice..........

yes thank you for all the great comments put forth on this thread!