raw honey vs. heated honey???

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jahdrummin

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Hey everyone, another question for ya....


Pertaining to the proper honey to use for mead, what is the difference between raw honey and heated honey is and which (if not both) is best suited for the production on quality mead...?

Thanks in advance
 
raw still has waxyness in it, heated honey is a different animal. If you buy honey that is still in the raw state then most people will tell you to heat it and skim the floaties (wax) off the top. Since the place I get mine from spins it and heats it to a very low temp to get the wax out I dont do anything to it, other than ferment and eat. However, I dont see why using raw honey would be a problem since the wax wont ferment I dont see why it wouldnt fall to the bottom with the yeast cake. If you do decide to heat your honey then know/remember heat and honey dont get along, think oil rags and fire. Heat will destroy the delicateness of the honey and you will probably end up with something like walmart special honey.
 
I'm definitely not an expert, but from what I've read, TooooMany is right on the money. If you feel the need to heat honey for sterilization or whatever, keep the temp low...in the range of 150F-160F for 10 or so minutes. It is generally accepted that higher temps release compounds contributing to aroma and taste. I could be wrong, but this is what jumped out of my head when reading your questions.
 
I found a chart on Gotmead.com that shows you what temps and how long you will need to keep it at that temp to pasteurize.

Temperature (°F/°C) ---- Time (minutes)

123/51 ----- 470
130/55 ----- 170
135/57 ------ 60
140/60 ------ 22
145/63 ----- 7.5
150/66 ----- 2.8**
155/68 ----- 1.0**

** Extrapolated from logarithmic curve constructed from Townsend's data.

I will tell you this though. I was thinking the shorter time that it was on the heat the better and realized that by the time i had gotten it to 145 it had already ben on the stove for 20 minutes. By the time it had gotten to 150 it had been on the stove for 22 minutes. I took it off one minute after it reached 150. Icebathed it immediately. While it was coming down in temp it was still pasteurizing.

I watched a guy (on of the guys in charge of brewtribe.com) make a mead at our club barbecue. He didn't pasteurize the honey at all. He of course was not using raw honey.

:tank:
 
I would say that if you want to play it absolutely safe then heat the mead. This will eradicate any chance of unwanted yeast and bacteria.

If you are a bit more adventurous try it without heating.

For a middle of the road solution you might try sanitizing your honey and water must mix with a metabisulfate then let it sit for 24 hours.
 
Many mead makers have had great success without using any heat an raw honey, including myself. Honey is 80% sugar and 20% water. At this concentration microorganisms cannot survive. Only a few bacterial spores can survive in the honey and these don't last long in the low ph fermenting must.
The wine yeasts used in mead making are very aggressive and they are given a big leg up by pitching at the rates we use. This all means that there is very little chance for unpasteurized honey to infect and spoil you mead. The advantages of keeping all of those volatile aromas and flavors out ways the very small risk.

So sanitize the equipment. Use clean water and mix you raw honey with the water without heating. Pitch properly rehydrated yeast and you should not have any problems.

Craig
 
Hey everyone, another question for ya....


Pertaining to the proper honey to use for mead, what is the difference between raw honey and heated honey is and which (if not both) is best suited for the production on quality mead...?

Thanks in advance
I have never heated any of the honey I've fermented with. I do however sulfite the must & super areate it approx 36 hrs after. Though there are some who swear up & down that heating their honey is the best way to do it; just seems unnecessary to me. Regards, GF.
 
NO. you do not need to heat honey. All you need is energizer and nutrient, however these arent even absolutely neccessary as I have done mead with no additions at all and they were fine.
 
Though there are some who swear up & down that heating their honey is the best way to do it; just seems unnecessary to me. Regards, GF.

It's not only unnecessary it's pretty much straight up stupid. You really ruin your honey and in make your mead very bland and boring by heating your honey.

Also, this goes for honey in beer as well. Add it to the boil and you might as well just add some random fructose/glucose solution.
 
Honey by nature is antibacterial which is why it has such a long shelf life stored properly. The differences between raw and heat or ultrasonicly treated honey are small, sunlight can cause more damage to the important enzymes. I know my friend who is a druid priestess has never heated her honey for mead and never seems to have an issue.
 
All good points. Homebrewer99 is the only guy I know of that swears by Boiling his honey, and even he is willing to try a no heat method.

I will be trying 2 1 gallon batches that will be 100% the same except 1 will be boiled. This will help me to be able to picture what you'd loose by boiling.
 
noooooooooooooo dont do it kahuna, oh well I guess an actual experiment could be a good idea, but i still wanna be stubborn and say no.:)
 
All good points. Homebrewer99 is the only guy I know of that swears by Boiling his honey, and even he is willing to try a no heat method.

I will be trying 2 1 gallon batches that will be 100% the same except 1 will be boiled. This will help me to be able to picture what you'd loose by boiling.

I am very curious about this experiment. Ofcourse even if there is no noticeable difference I still will not be boiling because that just takes more effort :)

Craig
 
I am very curious about this experiment. Ofcourse even if there is no noticeable difference I still will not be boiling because that just takes more effort :)

Craig

I will take it on in the next week or 2....I am hoping to hit a LHBS in the next 10 or so days, I'll pick up 2 extra gallon fermentors just for this project.
You know I'll post the progression.
 
Only negative results come from heating honey. Most beekeepers subscribe to the idea that heating your honey over 105 degrees starts to degrade the natural enzymes and protiens that are so wonderful about raw honey.

I personally don't heat my honey at all unless I have to. It is pumped through a cheescloth type filter and left to settle in my tank. There is no wax or settlement by the time it gets bottled.

Any honey at least left to settle will not have any of this waxiness you speak of.
 
You know I'll post the progression.

waiting.jpg
 
My bee club president just gave me a taste of the best mead I've ever tasted in my life. When I asked him how he made it, he pretty much said that he dumped in one gallon of raw honey with 4 gallons of spring water, mixed it, and left it alone for a very long time. He says sometimes he doesn't even take the cappings out or strain the honey. I think that you probably get the "yeast nutrient" effect from very raw, unstrained honey. If you ever saw that series on Dogfishhead beer, you'll notice that when he makes the Bitches Brew beer he uses some seriously raw honey, complete with little bee bodies in it and everything. I wouldn't heat it if I were you.
 
If you do decide to heat your honey then know/remember heat and honey dont get along, think oil rags and fire. Heat will destroy the delicateness of the honey and you will probably end up with something like walmart special honey.

I suppose we're resurrecting a very old thread, but I have to jump in!

I know this is the party line for many, but check out the data. I've personally made a couple meads that required boiling for part of the process (hop metheglins) and they are very, very good (IMHO...and that of a local BJCP judge who really wants me to submit it to a competition). Boiling isn't the devil that some make it out to be...it may even have it's advantages!
 
It's not only unnecessary it's pretty much straight up stupid. You really ruin your honey and in make your mead very bland and boring by heating your honey.

Also, this goes for honey in beer as well. Add it to the boil and you might as well just add some random fructose/glucose solution.

Again, taking exception to the first paragraph, but in parcel agree to the second...you will get much better expression of "flavored" sugar additions in beer (honey, molasses, maple syrup) if you add them late in the primary as it starts to slow down.
 
One thing I noticed is some say its good to heat up your honey others say its bad. Its seems most have no actually looked into this enough. If using organic honey there is an enzyme within this honey which will be destroyed if heated above a certain tempuarture. (I just heat it enough for it to be usable, I do not boil!)This enzyme is the exact same enzyme that is in malt extract. It helps fermentation of your brew. So yes you can heat it and kill the enzyme if using raw or organic honey, but why would you want to. I personally recommend using raw or organic honey to get this exact enzyme to help with fermentation. If using pasteurized honey this enzyme is killed so basically its just like using simple sugars...
 
One thing I noticed is some say its good to heat up your honey others say its bad. Its seems most have no actually looked into this enough. If using organic honey there is an enzyme within this honey which will be destroyed if heated. This enzyme is the exact same enzyme that is in malt extract. It helps fermentation of your brew. So yes you can heat it and kill the enzyme if using raw or organic honey, but why would you want to. I personally recommend using raw or organic honey to get this exact enzyme to help with fermentation. If using pasteurized honey this enzyme is killed so basically its just like using simple sugars...

Can you provide some data to back this up?

I'd definitely take exception to you statement that "most have no actually looked into this enough." Please check the link in my earlier post...

Generally speaking, malt *extract* has no enzymes, and certainly nothing that "helps" the fermentation (the yeast do this all by themselves...) Regardless, even if malt extract had enzymes (it certainly has some protiens in it), the common procedure for beer is to boil...while people do definitely make mead without boiling, there is no such thing as "no boil beer" (as far as I know...)

It would be helpful if you could explain exactly what this enzyme is, and how it helps the fermentation process....
 
I'd definitely take exception to you statement that "most have no actually looked into this enough." Please check the link in my earlier post...

While I disagree with Dondlelinger's enzyme assertion (I don't think there are any in there that are needed for fermentation), I will agree that we really haven't looked into the question of boiling honey musts enough.

Erroll's comparison is good information and though there were some shortcomings with his method, I still consider it valuable. If you do a little searching, you'll be hard pressed to find ANY comparisons done with scientific rigor (even a little basic triangular tasting). There is a thread on GotMead where a few of us are conducting some comparisons. I just posted up some results from two batches of mint honey mead (dry traditional) that were sent to the Mazer Cup competition. The results are interesting.
 

This is the same test that biochemedic and I are referring to. Up to that point it was the only comparison readily available though if you follow the link I posted you'll see there was an old batch in the mead lover's digest archives.

I'm going to start a comparison with orange blossom honey soon. With some of the dark/stronger honey, boiling can potentially improve the mead, but I've haven't seen a comparison of something more delicate.

Medsen
 
I have been making honey mead for a while now. I used raw unpasteurized honey in 3kg pails from a fairly local farmer. Keeping the honey in a natural state keeps all the wonderful flavour of the honey in your mead. It makes your mead healthy. Honey does not require pasteurization, it is a natural antibiotic and antiseptic. The vitamins present in honey are B6, thiamine, niacin, riboflavin, pantothenic acid and certain amino acids. The minerals found in honey include calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium, sodium and zinc. Honey also has antioxidants. Most of these are destroyed if the honey is boiled.

I do 25 litre ( a touch more than 5 gallon) batches.
6kg honey (13.25 lbs)

They yeast is up to you.

Lavalin 1118 makes a strong mead up to 19% alcohol, nice stuff, but has vapour trails, removes panties fast!

Lavalin 1116 is nice to keep more flavour, 14-16% alcohol and turns down the vapour sensation and makes a nice sweet mead.

Do a primary fermentation like beer for 10 days in a pail
Rack it into GLASS carboys for 3 months
Rack it into GLASS carboys for 3 more months, the air lock will bubble the WHOLE time! When it stops...
Bottle it.

Let it rest for at least 1 year. It will be as clear as liquid gold.

I keg it and carbonate it. WoW! Good stuff!

Add 1/4 glass ice
1/2 Honey mead
1/2 Ginger Ale

perfect on a hot sunny day....
 
Rise! Rise! Rise Necro thread! From the depths of 2011 you live again!

Lol

Over the years my views on boiled honey has changed a lot. I have grown to like boiled honey. And with orange blossom specifically I have found a lot of flavor is retained in the honey even when boiled.
 
lol from the ashes this one comes =)

With honey being heated, hate to say but what would a bochet be without it? I don't go "burnt" with mine but do get a nice level of caramel color and it didn't obliterate the profile either. Possibly because it was crystallized orange blossom but I Really like how it is working.

For my other meads, not sure I'd put my honey on heat without testing it first. I have a new one in that's very delicately floral I know I wouldn't but that's one honey of the masses of different ones offered. But I think if you find a preference for it or it accents the notes you want then is it "wrong" no, does it alter the honey, sure but so does the whole process.
 
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