I'm looking at making my first batch of mead, and am planning to use clover honey. At the store they had both filtered and unfiltered available. My question: are there any advantages to paying a bit more for the unfiltered honey? From other posts I've read that unfiltered honey can cause the final mead to be cloudy, but does it also give the final product a more complex taste?
Any advantages to using unfiltered honey?
- Thread starter zookeeny
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Filtered honey is often heated. Unfiltered typically is not. Heating honey can remove some of the much lighter volatiles / flavor. Many suggest heating less than 100 Deg f is OK.
D the Catastrophist
Well-Known Member
Just like any other type of filtering your wine, beer or cider, it removes particulates. In many cases though it also removes flavor nuance. I would stay away from filtered honey if I have a choice. Hell, I want to try making mead with comb in honey at some point.
Thanks for the advice… this is the honey I ended up getting. It’s not the clover honey I was planning on, but this looked like it might turn out more interesting. Next batch I will look to buy direct from the source.
Johnny2
Well-Known Member
Isn't most honey unfiltered, I think they are. Well, it could be different on US markets.
It's even worse than just being processed/filtered:
Johnny2
Well-Known Member
I would probably order honey online from reliable sources
Rageisalotofwork
Member
I'm not an expert by any means, but I spent a long time researching different honey sources and prices in the US, its surprising how much honey is actually adultrated and filled with things like corn syrup. I ended up ordering 40lbs of clover honey from Crystal's Raw honey website and I'm really happy with the result, especially for the bulk price and free shipping. I've bought a few smaller containers of different honey from different sources to try, but I think thats going to be my go to for base honey. There might be a better honey out there, but like I said, I'm no expert.
As long as it is real honey and not corn syrup from China, you are ahead of the game for quality, and not getting ripped off, by getting a cheap imitation In place of honey. The rip offs are always filtered, no pollen means it cannot be traced to the source. That is not meant to say that all filtered honey is bogus however, some small producers also filter because it looks nicer to the consumer, and who wants insect parts in their tea?
Rageisalotofwork
Member
True. The stuff i got was lightly filtered to get out larger chunks, but all I saw was lots of crystallized honey and pollen. Tough as hell to scoop out, I bent 2 spoons and I was afraid of crashing my Pyrex.As long as it is real honey and not corn syrup from China, you are ahead of the game for quality, and not getting ripped off, by getting a cheap imitation In place of honey. The rip offs are always filtered, no pollen means it cannot be traced to the source. That is not meant to say that all filtered honey is bogus however, some small producers also filter because it looks nicer to the consumer, and who wants insect parts in their tea?
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Wow, I have a 2 gallon pail of blueberry blossom it’s about 3/4 crystallized. I dig it out with a small SS pitcher that also gets used for steamed/frothed milk for cappuccino. No bent spoons that way.
Johnny2
Well-Known Member
I can only get wildflower, buckwheat and imported acacia honey. If I want even the gold standard Orange blossom, I'd need to order from Spain, but they don't ship here. I found a few online stores similar to a Amazon, which do send it from the same producers. My options are very limited. I wish mead tubers would talk more about the availability of honeys.
