PSA: Avoid Trader Joe's Turkish Pine honey for bochets

[TandemTails]

I just did a 1 gallon test bochet using 3 lbs of Trader Joe's Turkish Pine honey. I caramelized it for 42 minutes until it was the color I wanted and then added the water as normal. When I sampled the must, the sharpness from the honey completely overpowers the caramel flavor.

I'm going to add some coffee, vanilla, cinnamon and oak cubes for a week in secondary and I'm really hoping between that and aging the sharpness will fade away.

For the time being though, I'd definitely say avoid using this honey unless you're a huge fan of gin or something along those lines.

 

[Deafmeadmaker]

I just did a 1 gallon test bochet using 3 lbs of Trader Joe's Turkish Pine honey. I caramelized it for 42 minutes until it was the color I wanted and then added the water as normal. When I sampled the must, the sharpness from the honey completely overpowers the caramel flavor.

I'm going to add some coffee, vanilla, cinnamon and oak cubes for a week in secondary and I'm really hoping between that and aging the sharpness will fade away.

For the time being though, I'd definitely say avoid using this honey unless you're a huge fan of gin or something along those lines.

Noted. Thank You. Don't want to start a war, but are you sure it was honey? Some times imported 'honey' isn't 100% what they claim to be.

 

[195877]

"True Source Honey" certify's honey in an attempt to protect consumer's, retailer's etc. from illegally sourced honey.
Here is an alert issued (11/2014) by them, concerning honey labeled as coming from Turkey!
http://www.truesourcehoney.com/newsroom/2014-11-25-press-release.pdf

Their website also has a listing of approved countries, and high risk countries, etc.
http://www.truesourcehoney.com/

Most recently they have issued an alert (09/2015) for honey shipped from Thailand and Taiwan,

 

[195877]

"True Source Honey" certify's honey in an attempt to protect consumer's, retailer's etc. from illegally sourced honey.
Here is an alert issued (11/2014) by them, concerning honey labeled as coming from Turkey!
http://www.truesourcehoney.com/newsroom/2014-11-25-press-release.pdf

Their website also has a listing of approved countries, and high risk countries, etc.
http://www.truesourcehoney.com/

Most recently they have issued an alert (09/2015) for honey shipped from Thailand and Taiwan,

Just for fun I sent a letter (email) to Trader Joe's in regard to this issue. It really pisses me off when companies have no regard for the quality of products their selling.
There is an article on "True Source Honey" about recent Government involvement (generally I think the government is involved in far too much, but not in this case)
Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA) is apparently calling on the FDA to establish a federal standard of identity for honey to help protect U.S. consumers, beekeepers and honey producers from the continuing threat of illicitly sourced honey and false honey products.

 

[nitack]

Honestly, I don't know why you'd use any special honey for a bochet. The carmelizing process really kills any distinct flavors. For bochets I go Costco clover all the way.

 

[TandemTails]

Honestly, I don't know why you'd use any special honey for a bochet. The carmelizing process really kills any distinct flavors. For bochets I go Costco clover all the way.

That was actually the point. I bought the honey because it was fairly cheap and I'd never heard of it before. After I got home I read up on it and found out that some people really didn't like the flavor. I figured making a bochet out of it would burn off any of the weird flavors but instead it seemed to intensify some of them.

 

[nitack]

Interesting how that happened. In addition to your additions you might want to split it out