Does Honey affect fermentation?

[banannabiker]

I am on my 9th batch of wine-mostly fruit wines. My favorite batch so far was primarily Mango juice (made from store bought 100% juice) so I decided to try another batch with similar ingredients. After I started the batch-I realized that I didn't have enough sugar, so I decided to finish off the sweetening process with raw honey. The SG was about 1.045 with only sugar, and then 24 oz of raw honey brought my 3 gallons on up to a SG of 1.075. This is a little lower than I normally start the wine at (normally 1.085-1.09), but most other factors were the same as with previous batches. I normally get a good head of foam in the primary because I use about 1 pack of yeast per gallon, and I have been using Champaign yeast for the last several batches. For some reason this batch never had foam. Over the first week, the SG dropped from 1.075 to about 1.034, and there are lots of tiny bubbles (it looks like Champaign), but no foam. Temperature and other conditions were fundimentally the same, as I use a climate controlled area to work. Does anyone know if the slugishness is typical of using honey, or is this most likely just something else. The yeast was prepared about the same way (Disolved in a mixture of warm juice and sugar before being added to the primary), and the yeast was not out of date. I'm sorry if you need more info-because I am not able to get to my notes at this time and I'm going by memory. Mostly I'm JUST CURIOUS about the possible effect of the honey.

 

[Polarhug]

You're making a delicious sounding melomel! By my observation sometimes honey can take much longer than fruit or grape juice. You could try frothing a bit of oxygen in the must to keep those yeasties going.

Also you should only have to use 1 pack of yeast per 5 gallons or so. Sounds like you have plenty.

 

[BernardSmith]

The bubbles are simply the CO2 being produced by the yeast. There can be all kinds of reasons why sometimes the activity seems more ferocious than at other times (including - I think - the amount of particles floating in the must for the CO2 to nucleate around and so form bubbles or the viscosity of the must itself ) but I would simply go by the drop in specific gravity to determine whether your wine is fermenting and from your post it looks as though it is

 

[Arne]

Bernard and Polar are right on. Also, make sure you added nutrient and maybe a bit of energizer. Helps keep the yeasts happy. Arne.

 

[GreginND]

Honey fermentations can be finicky. I've had many that were very slow or got stuck. Nutrients definitely do help.