Honeys Sugar

Honey has lots of different sugars based on what the bees had available when producing their wonderful syrup. Reading through the Complete Mead Makers guide I found he had a chart that would outline the percentage of each type of saccharides based on the flowers and vegetation available to the bees.

Since Sucrose gives off a ... "cider" taste, would it be best to use honeys lower in sucrose?

Would honeys higher in maltose and other more complex, and exclusive to honey saccharides fit the bill when coming to making meads?

And is it these complex saccharides that give honey darker colors/flavors?

The more I learn, the more my questions seem abundant, and important :cross:

none of the fermentable sugers are complex,, bread flower is complex potatos are complex.

compleax saccharides are not mono thay are poly and dont taste sweet.
with out mashing and amalase emzines.

however i have worked twared what your are talking about
in my local there is a ton of locus , thissle and other low sucrose honeys i have sout out to make meed with that were good.

but the sucrose cider thinkg is really over blow and applys only to beer , you arnt makeing beer, and a cider tast in ,mead would be hard to pick out as it too has a cider tast
that and its very common to add apple juice to mead

I'm assuming that by saying complex, OP meant something more along the lines of 'uncommon' or 'exclusive" like trehalose, maltobiose or maltulose.

My only comment (Still a newb to brewing) is that most honeys seem to have a less than 1% composition of disaccharide, so I'm not sure if trying to alter that is going to make a hug difference.

I ment more complex, not complex in general... like
Maltose is a disaccharide which is more complex than
Fructose,Dextrose as a monosaccharide

To be more direct, here is a list of the common sugars found in honey :
Fructose (levulorotatory glucose) 38.2%
Dextrose (Dextrorotatory glucose) 31.3%
Sucrose 1.3%
Maltose 7.3%
higher sugars 1.5%

Now, thats an average, but per say if the honeybees feed mostly on sumac the honey profile jumps to :
Fructose 31.46
Dextrose 24.39%
Sucrose 1.77%
Maltose 8.21%
Higher Sugars 6.29%

So my question. Does a higher amount of Maltose and Higher Sugars relate to the honeys color and flavor complexity? I know that sumac honey is almost black, instead of the amber quality of standard commercial honey.

Fructose is much more sweet than any other sugars in the profile. So would this honey be sweeter at a final gravity than another honey with a lower fructose content?

Without doing the research, my answer isn't conclusive, but don't forget, its less about the sugar make-up, as I believe its correct to say that all those sugars are fermentable.

So, its more about the amount of honey used, the start gravity and the characteristics of the yeast. Any of the published data about the yeasties usually alludes to grape musts. So as I understand it, the best result would be to make comparative batches, with the same start gravity and ingredients, but with different yeast.

Rather than getting too anal about the technicalities, go with honey that you like the taste of.

There's plenty of guidance about honies that make good meads.....

The different sugar components probably don't have as much to do with color. Most of those sugars are all going to be very light in color as well. The differences in honey color probably have more to do with ash content, and other pigmented materials.

As for flavor, the different sugars will have an impact. While glucose, fructose, sucrose and maltose are all readily fermentable by saccharomyces cerevisiae, some of the more complex sugars are not. That means a mead made with a honey that has a higher content of these sugar may retain more residual sugars and have a sweeter taste after fermentation. If fermenting an amount of honey that doesn't allow allow the simple sugars to be consumed, at the end of fermentation most of what is left will be fructose and the higher sugars as the glucose is metabolized more easily. The relative amounts, in theory, could leave you with different levels of sweetness at the same level of residual gravity when using different types of honey.

"Since Sucrose gives off a ... "cider" taste, would it be best to use honeys lower in sucrose?

Would honeys higher in maltose and other more complex, and exclusive to honey saccharides fit the bill when coming to making meads?

And is it these complex saccharides that give honey darker colors/flavors?

The more I learn, the more my questions seem abundant, and important "

seems the only way to truly answer these questions is to make all these different meads, sample, and report back. i'll await the results. for second opinions, send some to high ridge, mo.

The sugars aren't necessarily the issue when it comes to color as I said before. Unless you caramelized the sugars with heat. Ash content and other factors such as HMF have more to do with color. The flavors come from all the acids, sugars, and other nectar components.

The best honey for making meads, depends on what type of mead you want to make. If you want to make a dark braggot, some of the dark strong honeys may shine. If you want to make a light sparkling mead, a light colored and less-phenolic honey will work better. You can make GREAT meads with all sorts of different honeys, but the fresher and less-processed they are, the better.

The flavors of the honey really depend on the pollen source like honey from avocado flowers tend to be more buttery in flavor where clover honey is rather bland still sweet but lacking any real characteristics. The colors you see in the honey are decided by two factors most importantly where it comes from because the pollens impart other chemicals aside from sugars into the mead and how processed the honey is. Clover honey is very clear because it has been boiled and strained and filtered to oblivion it also generally comes from one source which is clover and clover has a very light colored pollen that gives a nice amber color to mead. As for local wild flower honey or honey from an independent supplier like at your local farmers market hasn't been touched except had the comb removed and the bee parts skimmed off.
since it is from a wild flower source many flowers lend their pollen to the honey mix and the color can very from very light to deep umber depending on the source and what types of flowers are wild in your area.
To find out what kinds of honey you like the flavor of you should try and make what is called a show mead a show mead consists of water yeast and honey and nothing else this will give you a good idea of how the honey will taste when mixed with other ingredients plus it will help get your process down and will show you any off flavors previously hidden by over powered ingredients
Ask always message me if you have any questions I will share what I know I may not always have the answer but I will do what I can to find it