Wanting To Try Mead

[PolishWineP]

Look in the carboy, Waldo! There's your lost marbles but you can't have them back until the mead is done!

Both the mead and the marbles look great!

 

[Waldo]

Lets see now, that would go something like:


" I really Mead my marbles back"

 

[Vaughn]

(groaning loudly)


Waldo, stick to poetry.

Is it my imagination, or is the alcohol from from honey less "harsh" than from cane sugar? I have made two blueberry batches. One, a wine, with 2 lbs. of cane sugar. The other, a melomel (blueberry mead), with 2 lbs. of honey. I believe I came up with a similar starting SG, and the alcohol is definitely there. But the wine batch with the cane sugar starts out with a strong alcohol taste and smell(like isopropyl) and then mellows out with age. The melomel was not like that. It was smooth from the very start.

 

[masta]

Very interesting Vaughn.......

 

[Vaughn]

Very interesting Vaughn.......

Are you saying it IS my imagination?

 

[rgecaprock]

Hi Vaughn,


I have noticed that too. I made the Ancient Orange Mead that Masta posted and although it was made with bread yeast it was certainly very smooth. I have some Earl Grey Mead that is still in the carboy clearing and it seems very smoothalso so far and I used wine yeast, Montrachet I think. But then if you taste a spoon of sugar(simple syrup)then a spoon of honey you definitly get a sence of silkyness from the honey that just isn't there with the sugar. Maybe it has to do with the flowers!!!

Ramona

 

[masta]

Very interesting Vaughn.......

Are you saying it IS my imagination?

No I am not saying that...lol. I would think it would be quite the opposite since mead typically needs to age quite a long time but that is what happens when you assume. I find it interesting you and Romona both found this to be true. Maybe this will help my apple cranberry wine since i added 2 lbs of honey to it...cool!


Thanks for sharing more facts to ponder when I lay awake at night thinking about empty carboys!

 

[Vaughn]

Thanks for sharing more facts to ponder when I lay awake at night thinking about empty carboys!

Sorry, I tend to wax philosophicalwhen my carboy is empty.


(here I go) So, is there any difference in the type of alcohol produced by using different methods (i.e. different yeast, different sugars). It would seem that if the sugar used is slightly different chemically, then the alcohol produced would also be different.Maybe it is not the alcohol that makes the difference, but there definitely is a difference.


I may just resort to honey for all my fruit wines.

 

[Waldo]

Im a gonna just sit back..sip me glass of Muscadine and just watch this one

 

[peterCooper]

Ethanol is C2H5OH. doesn't matter where it comes from.
Sugar is in the form Cn(H20)n with the simplest being glucose C6H12O6
So from 1 molecule of sugar we get
- 2 lots of C2H5OH= C4H10O2H2 which means we've lost 2C and 4O,
effectively 2 molecules of CO2

We can derive ethanol from other sugars (fructose, maltose) The alcohol
is no different and the CO2 is no different but the left overs, ahh, that's
where the fun begins, and I think that's what you're experience in terms
of the smoothness. not a difference in alcohol but a difference in the
remains.

Still if it tastes better using honey then go for it.

 

[Vaughn]

See, now, I knew there was a reasonable answer for this. And whatever these leftovers are eventually dissipate I presume or become other chemical compounds during the aging process?


Honey has more complex qualities than pure cane sugar does. Honey can be used in and of itself to make a wine (mead). If we tried to make a wine with just cane sugar, we would find the results less satisfying. Are there sugars that we can use to create fruit wines that more closely resemble the sugars found naturally in fruit?

 

[masta]

Here is a basic composition of honey:

Source: http://www.nhb.org/foodtech/tgloss.htmlEdited by: masta

 

[peterCooper]

Forgot to say...
Sucrose is a combination (chemically combined, not just sat next to) of
glucose and fructose.
Maltose is a combination of glucose and glucose chains.
Fructose is what you seem most prevalent in fruit. (Fruct means fruit)

 

[masta]

Thanks Professor...it is starting to make sense now and I can see I need to set up an experiment in the lab!


Thanks

 

[Harry]

Ok now that this is settled whats the difference in lite and dark honey? Here in Alvin Tx the honey is dark. I made a 3 gallon batch of spiced orange and its beginning to clear but not the same as the clover honey (store bought).


Harry

 

[Vaughn]

Peter and/or Masta,


So what is in cane sugar? Is it mostly sucros?

 

[masta]

White sugar is essentially pure sucrose and there is no difference between that derived from cane and that from beet. Different manufacturers produce crystals of different sizes however and this leads to some apparent differences. Smaller crystals dissolve more readily and might therefore appear to be sweeter because none is left at the bottom of the cup and they seem sweeter on the tongue if eaten alone. Similarly smaller crystals have more surfaces per spoonful and appear whiter than larger crystals. [Having said that, some white sugars are less white than others: it depends on how much processing the manufacturer applies.]


Source: http://www.sucrose.com/home.htmlEdited by: masta

 

[masta]

Sweet..!!

Relation of Color to Composition 1/
JONATHAN W. WHITE, JR.
Eastern Regional Research Laboratory
Eastern Utilization Research and Development Division
Agricultural Research Service, United States Department of Agriculture
Philadelphia 18, Pennsylvania

Number seven in a series of ten articles on the different honeys of America.


Color of honey is its most quickly noted characteristic, and it has long been used to form quick opinions of its other characteristics. Many believe that the strength (or desirability?) of flavor can be inferred from its color. It is known that some analytical characteristics of honey vary with its color. Schuette and his colleagues at Wisconsin found that the darker honeys are richer in ash, potassium, sodium, magnesium, iron, copper, manganese, chlorine and sulfur. They also found that enzyme contents of dark honeys are higher than of light honeys.

Honeys Grouped According to Color
In our recently concluded analytical survey of American honey, we grouped all honey samples into 13 color groups, representing the light and dark halves of the seven USDA color classes for honey. As was done for the granulation data, described in the preceding article in this series, code numbers from 0 to 12 were assigned to the groups, ranging from "0" for the light part of water white to "12" for dark. All analyses were then grouped and averaged, to give the average analysis for all honeys falling in each of the color groups. These averages were examined for trends and statistical analysis was used to find out if the trends that appeared to be present were actually significant.


Significant Differences Between Light and Dark Honeys
When this was done, many of the compositional factors were found to change in a regular way when darker honeys were studied. As we progress from light to darker groups of honey samples, the following factors decrease, i.e. they are higher in light than in dark honey (all are listed in order of decreasing significance2/):


<TABLE cellSpacing=2 cellPadding=6 width="100%">
<T>
<TR>
<TD width="100%">Sucrose
Lactone/Acid Ratio
Dextrose
Active Acidity
Levulose
Granulating Tendency</TD></TR></T></TABLE>

These composition factors were found to be higher in darker honeys than in lighter:


<TABLE cellSpacing=2 cellPadding=6 width="100%">
<T>
<TR>
<TD width="100%">Total Acid
Free Acid
Nitrogen
Ash
Undetermined Material
Maltose</TD></TR></T></TABLE>

This is further substantiation of the fact that darker honeys are richer in minerals (ash) than lighter ones. They are also much higher in total acidity, but are lower in dextrose and levulose and have a lessened tendency to granulate.

Color of Honey Over the United States
Recently an exhibit was made up showing typical honey samples arranged with a map of the United States. It could be seen that honey of the East and South was darker and that as one went westward, honey lightened considerably. This is not a new observation, but it is of interest that when all of our honey samples were classified by state of origin and further by area of the United States, this was again shown. This may be seen by the following values. Here the code numbers for color were averaged. Whether this procedure would give the same value for color as would be obtained by blending the samples is debatable, but we feel that it gives a good approximation.

Thus, honey from the East and South in general is darker than the national average while that from the north central and intermountain area is lighter.


<TABLE cellSpacing=2 cellPadding=0 width="100%">
<T>
<TR>
<TD colSpan=3>
<HR align=left noShade SIZE=1>
</TD></TR>
<TR>
<TD width="33%">



<CENTER>Area</CENTER></TD>
<TD width="22%">



<CENTER>No. of Samples</CENTER></TD>
<TD width="45%">



<CENTER>Average Color</CENTER></TD></TR>
<TR>
<TD width="33%">North Atlantic States</TD>
<TD width="22%">



<CENTER>82</CENTER></TD>
<TD width="45%">Light half Ex. Light Amber</TD></TR>
<TR>
<TD width="33%">East North Central</TD>
<TD width="22%">



<CENTER>47</CENTER></TD>
<TD width="45%">Light half White</TD></TR>
<TR>
<TD width="33%">West North Central</TD>
<TD width="22%">



<CENTER>63</CENTER></TD>
<TD width="45%">Light half White</TD></TR>
<TR>
<TD width="33%">South Atlantic</TD>
<TD width="22%">



<CENTER>86</CENTER></TD>
<TD width="45%">Dark half Ex. Light Amber</TD></TR>
<TR>
<TD width="33%">South Central</TD>
<TD width="22%">



<CENTER>68</CENTER></TD>
<TD width="45%">Light half Ex. Light Amber</TD></TR>
<TR>
<TD width="33%">Intermountain West</TD>
<TD width="22%">



<CENTER>52</CENTER></TD>
<TD width="45%">Light half Extra White</TD></TR>
<TR>
<TD width="33%">West</TD>
<TD width="22%">



<CENTER>104</CENTER></TD>
<TD width="45%">Dark half White</TD></TR>
<TR>
<TD width="33%">All samples</TD>
<TD width="22%">



<CENTER>502</CENTER></TD>
<TD width="45%">Dark half White</TD></TR></T></TABLE>


<HR align=left noShade SIZE=1>


1/ This is one in a series of articles describing a large-scale study of the composition of honeys from over the United States. Complete data interpretation and conclusions will appear in a forthcoming Department of Agriculture publication.

2/ All factors shown gave F values in the analysis of variance for regression exceeding the critical value for the 1% probability level.

 

[masta]

This link hasplenty of info and links on everything you need to know about Honey:


http://www.honey.com/index.html

 

[masta]

Plese review all information and there will be a test on Monday!!!