dutch gold follow up - quality vs cost

[17oclockshadow]

I previously asked about what the best value honey for mead there is (in the orange blossom flavor). Thank you all for your responses.

After having looked around a lot, I have found that the best deal really is with Dutch Gold; the shipping is initially steep, but it increases less and less with each item, so if you get a couple 5lb containers it can be a great deal.

Now I'm wondering about the quality, and how it compares to other mead-quality honeys. What concerns me most is that the honey is flash-heated to 185 C, and then filtered. Sure, heat removes volatiles, but how much does a 5 minute flash of it take away? (Meanwhile, frematation effectively sparges the meat with CO2, which will carry out a lot of volatiles as well, so which is more significant?). Additionally, some people claim that filtering out the pollen/etc (which Dutch gold does) removes some of the flavor source as well as some yeast nutrients? Is the pollen part true? Does the nutrient part matter since we add yeast nutrients anyways?

In any case, in my searchings I have failed to find a concrete answer, so I simply ask:

Has anyone had a dutch gold mead and compared it with a mead made from a raw honey? Can you really tell the difference and is it significant?

 

[TandemTails]

I bought a 60 pound pail of OB honey from Dutch Gold since I couldn't find any local apiaries to give me any kind of bulk discount and still wanted $7+/lb. Including shipping, the 60 pound pail was less than $4/lb.

That being said, the honey seems to be working fine for my meads. I haven't done a direct comparison between the dutch gold honey and honey from an alternate source that doesn't pasteurize/filter theirs. Once I finish this pail i'll probably try to source my honey from somewhere else just to try something different.

I pretty much only do melomels so I don't think the flavor differences are going to make as much of a difference since the fruit overpowers a lot of it. If i was going to do a traditional where the honey really needs to shine i'd probably shy away from Dutch Gold though.

 

[17oclockshadow]

I bought a 60 pound pail of OB honey from Dutch Gold since I couldn't find any local apiaries to give me any kind of bulk discount and still wanted $7+/lb. Including shipping, the 60 pound pail was less than $4/lb.

That being said, the honey seems to be working fine for my meads. I haven't done a direct comparison between the dutch gold honey and honey from an alternate source that doesn't pasteurize/filter theirs. Once I finish this pail i'll probably try to source my honey from somewhere else just to try something different.

I pretty much only do melomels so I don't think the flavor differences are going to make as much of a difference since the fruit overpowers a lot of it. If i was going to do a traditional where the honey really needs to shine i'd probably shy away from Dutch Gold though.

Thanks for the feedback. Dutch Gold is especially nice because they have a number of different varieties, which other (cheap) brands don't often have as much of. But I do wonder about that heat treatment, especially since it's so high. Most other companies seem to process at 150 F or so; some at 120 or 130.

I have wondered how Dutch Gold has so low prices, while not becoming an evil company that buys from China or other adulterated honeys. Best I can figure is that what they don't get in profit margin they make up for in volume. 185F processing must be so that they can do the filtering very quickly. Also, they filter to prevent crystallization, which and honey enthusiast wouldn't care about but the general public might be picky about.