Strains of yeast

Hum? Well how do you know it's not the same as K1-V1116 ? Cos that's also tolerant to 18%........

The Ritchies product isn't a bad product, but I suspect there are better.

I too used stuff like that when I first started but soon found, it was worth the hassle of sourcing Lallemand yeasts (lalvin, enoferm and uva ferm ranges - mostly the lalvin ones as they're the easiest ones to find).

Are they "the best" ? Dunno ! What the difference is, is that they seem to publish more info/data on their products than any of the other makers put together.......

Yes, there is a huge range and only 5 or 6 are routinely packed into home brew size packs. If you don't mind mail ordering then you can get small packs of most of them. Or a few of the other hard to find ones you might find mentioned hereabouts.

If you want to try something more local but seemingly good, then there's Brouwland in Belgium. I understand that any HBS that has a Brupaks account can get their stuff direct (brupaks being the UK distributor for Brouwland stuff-or mail order direct-the Belgian postal service doesn't seem to be the quickest but I've not had anything lost).

It does take a bit of effort to get then better quality materials, but it seems worth it IMO......

Oh and if you wanted to try some of the liquid yeasts you'll see mentioned, the HBS in Aldershot does the wyeast ones and I understand that there's one in Salisbury that stocks the White Labs ones...... depends where you are etc......

I think a tub is a good way to start. Mead making tends to be expensive for new brewers as they have to buy equipment. Also, it might be good to get the technique polished first as a mistake might result in not so good mead no matter what yeast you use. In fact the very first recipe we suggest is JAOM which uses bread yeast. I think it would be nice to compare a good batch made from this ritchies yeast and some better yeast by lallemand. helps to refine your palate maybe