MikeJordan
Active Member
I've been making beer for years, now I'd like to get into mead making. Should honey always be pasteurized? I have heard varying opnions. Thnx.
pasteurize?
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Only if the bees do it.
No one else on earth will agree with me, but personally I always pasteurize my mead, always. I skipped it once and paid the ultimate price -- it tasted like vomit and got dumped. Never again, not for me. I prefer to have improved control over the beasts that get into my honey/mead. Also, anyone who assumes that my mead must be terrible as a result obviously never tasted my mead, because they'd be flat wrong in that assumption.
I haven't been making mead long, just a few years, probably close to 30 gallons total. I've never pasteurized and never had a problem. I only use warm tap water to dissolve the honey and then go back to cold to meet my volume requirements.
It's very, very difficult to infected honey - if it were easily infected then it would spoil, and honey remains palatable for a very long time. Infection only becomes a significant possibility after you add the water, and then when you touch it with something or add stuff to it. So I think pasteurizing is a wasted step. It's probably not killing anything, and it has no effect on that period of time during the process when the must is susceptible to infection. Observe proper cleaning/sanitizing technique and you should be ok. Don't touch it with your hands (or let anything that you've touched, touch the must), clean/sanitize all equipment, figure out how to sanitize your additions or use k-meta.
I researched the pasteurize question and made my decision not to, before I brewed my first gallon so can't personally say "not to" results in a better tasting mead. But the discussions I found convinced me to brew without heat. Besides, one less step gets me closer to drinking and I'm always thirsty.
It's very, very difficult to infected honey - if it were easily infected then it would spoil, and honey remains palatable for a very long time. Infection only becomes a significant possibility after you add the water, and then when you touch it with something or add stuff to it. So I think pasteurizing is a wasted step. It's probably not killing anything, and it has no effect on that period of time during the process when the must is susceptible to infection. Observe proper cleaning/sanitizing technique and you should be ok. Don't touch it with your hands (or let anything that you've touched, touch the must), clean/sanitize all equipment, figure out how to sanitize your additions or use k-meta.
I researched the pasteurize question and made my decision not to, before I brewed my first gallon so can't personally say "not to" results in a better tasting mead. But the discussions I found convinced me to brew without heat. Besides, one less step gets me closer to drinking and I'm always thirsty.
bernardsmith
Well-Known Member
um... why would you pasteurize honey? Wine makers remove wild yeasts and bacteria by adding k-meta but honey is usually produced with too little moisture to support bacteria or yeast. In fact the level of moisture in honey is so low that will pull moisture from any living cell and kill it which is why honey was /is used as a bactericide.
See, I knew it. 
OP
OP
MikeJordan
Active Member
Thanks for the input. Charley Papazian recommend in his book "joy of home brewing" to boil the honey with a gallon of water for 15 minutes. Seemed like a waste of time to me so I thought I'd get other opinions. I've made braggot which the honey is added at the end of the boil. Mainly to keep the flavor but the boiling wort also pasteurizes as well.
In my experience, boiling as you described is unnecessarily messy, adds brewing time, and kills some delicate flavors (and probably attracts bees, if it's summer and you have the windows open). Despite the occasional anecdote to the contrary, boiling/pasteurizing your must isn't going to make your honey any more "sanitary" by itself. If something is spoiling a batch of mead, then it's going to be because something was introduced via poor sanitation practices (improperly sanitizing carboys, using water straight from the tap, making unsanitized fruit additions, etc.).
Honey, much like sugar and salt, is naturally hygroscopic (ie, it sucks all of the moisture out of things), which prevents organisms such as bacteria and yeast from living in it. This is the main reason it is said to have an "infinite" shelf-life, as spoilage organisms can't really live in it long enough to get a foothold.
That said, there's nothing saying that you can't pasteurize your must, it's just that you don't need to. It used to be standard practice, but has since fallen out of favor with most meadmakers. In The Compleat Meadmaker, even Ken Schramm admits to not really doing it anymore, even though the basic "starter" recipe in there calls for it (I'm at work right now, or I'd grab you some page numbers).
tl;dr As long as you sanitize properly, you should never need to boil your must. If you do need to take heat to something, that "something" doesn't need to include your honey.
Honey, much like sugar and salt, is naturally hygroscopic (ie, it sucks all of the moisture out of things), which prevents organisms such as bacteria and yeast from living in it. This is the main reason it is said to have an "infinite" shelf-life, as spoilage organisms can't really live in it long enough to get a foothold.
That said, there's nothing saying that you can't pasteurize your must, it's just that you don't need to. It used to be standard practice, but has since fallen out of favor with most meadmakers. In The Compleat Meadmaker, even Ken Schramm admits to not really doing it anymore, even though the basic "starter" recipe in there calls for it (I'm at work right now, or I'd grab you some page numbers).
tl;dr As long as you sanitize properly, you should never need to boil your must. If you do need to take heat to something, that "something" doesn't need to include your honey.
bernardsmith
Well-Known Member
Hi valverij, I suspect that the standard practice of boiling the must in the past may have been because of the use of water that may not have been so clean and disease free. But if you are using potable water and you live in a first world country in the 21st century then boiling water to remove contaminants would be something of an exception....
It's also true that the state of the art in home brewing in general keeps advancing. Stuff that was common practice a few years ago is no longer accepted. You can find recipes online and in books that are obsolete by today's standards. This is one of the great things about being part of the HBT community - we get exposed to the latest way of doing things.
oceanic_brew
Well-Known Member
About to make my first mead. If honey is hygroscopic then I'm sold.
Thanks for the info.
Thanks for the info.
bernardsmith
Well-Known Member
It's hygroscopic, perhaps too acidic (gluconic acid) to support living organisms and contains hydrogen peroxide (starsan)
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/scien...ind-honeys-eternal-shelf-life-1218690/?no-ist
oceanic_brew
Well-Known Member
haha well I'm gonna wash my equipment with honey from now on
bkvanbek
Active Member
How about when it gets to the desired sweetness. If I let my current batch go to 1.00 it will be about 13%, a little more than I am going for. But can I stop it with pasturizing? How, just heat in a pot, heat my bottles?
I have done my cider in the bottle, carbinated, I like it. I don't like chemicals to kill the yeast. But I want the mead still.
Or bottle it and heat the bottles?
I have done my cider in the bottle, carbinated, I like it. I don't like chemicals to kill the yeast. But I want the mead still.
Or bottle it and heat the bottles?
