I hope you learned from this article that honey (fermented, more commonly unfermented) is used to make mead with water and yeast. As I always say, there’s nothing wrong with experimenting, but it’s safest to use plain (unfermented) honey with added yeast, which you know is commonly used to make mead.
Honey can be fermented into alcohol. Alcohol made from honey is mead. Mead is a drink that was once popular in northern Europe, but its significance has declined due to waning bee populations. Nowadays, mead is experiencing a slight return to popularity due to its association with Scandinavian culture.
Well, you can use fermented honey to make mead, but since it’s fermented, it will have a different flavor that will change the taste of your mead. Now that you know the general steps for making mead, let’s talk about whether it’s possible to make mead from honey that’s already fermented.
Fermented Honey Is Mead
The hallmark of mead is that most of the fermentable sugars in the drink come from honey. Mead can have a variety of flavors depending on the source of the honey, additives including fruits and spices (also called “additives” or “gruite”), the yeast used in the fermentation process, and the aging process. Three main factors affect the taste of mead: honey, alcoholic yeast strain and fermentation conditions. In mead (/mi*d/), honey is fermented with water, sometimes with fruit, spices, grains or hops, to make an alcoholic beverage.
Due to the high sugar content of honey, it ferments easily into an alcoholic and honeyed wine drink known as mead. Some have an almost bready taste due to the type of yeast found in honey, which is why it can be called baking honey. Raw honey has a lot of yeast that ferments alcohol, and I taste it (more or less) like our ancestors did. If the water content of the honey becomes high enough, some types of yeast can survive and ferment the honey a little, creating alcohol and thereby spoiling the honey.
Although unlike other bacteria or microorganisms, fermentation due to the natural presence of yeast does not make honey unsafe to eat. Bacteria and yeast can get into honey from dust, dirt, pollen and even the guts of bees, and if there are enough of them, the honey can go bad, which can be a rare, albeit rare, health concern. If honey is harvested prematurely with high moisture content, or if it is not stored sealed and absorbs moisture from the atmosphere, it will ferment. For this reason, many beekeepers freeze or store honey with a high moisture content in the refrigerator: this delays the fermentation process.
The Rick of the Overuse of Honey
If too much honey is used, the mixture may not reach the desired moisture content (18-20%) needed for fermentation. As the honey crystallizes, the moisture content of the remaining liquid increases and fermentation becomes more likely. As you understand, in most types of honey there is less of it, therefore, to start the fermentation process, water must be added to it. In the primary fermenter, honey will also lighten the body of what you’re doing and raise the expected alcohol content.
If you add honey at this point in the brewing process, you may improve the flavor, but keep in mind that your gravity will also increase. When the moisture content of raw honey is high enough, live yeast grows by fermenting some of the sugars, producing more yeast, alcohol, carbon dioxide, and acetic acid, which change the flavor of the honey over time.
The main thing to note is that because the honey has undergone fermentation, the sourdough has already caused the honey to develop its own flavor (which tends to be tart and a bit quirky). Heating honey above 37.7°C (100 F) will kill yeast spores, thus eliminating the risk of fermentation and preventing crystallization as a bonus.
How Beekeepers Preserve Their Honey
Many beekeepers and honey producers heat their honey to 176F to kill any bacteria and yeast inside and kill any micro-organisms that dare to live in the products. What you may not know is that, given the wild yeasts on fruits and vegetables, in addition to those already naturally present in honey, mixing these wet elements with honey will release their water into the honey, which will lead to fermentation, similar even to mead. without the addition of commercial yeast.
Historically, mead has been fermented with wild yeast and bacteria (as listed in the above recipe) found on the skin of the fruit or in the honey itself. In addition to the traditional mead (diluted fermented honey), many variations can be found, also containing herbs and spices (metheglin) or fruits (melomel).
The Health Value of Fermented Honey
Mead contains ethanol and many other compounds such as sugars, acids, vitamins, phenolic and mineral compounds, also depending on the ingredients added besides honey. Fermented honey, the nectar and sweet wine of the Greek gods, and the main ingredient in mead, has been prized since ancient times. Mead is an ancient fermented honey drink that is especially popular in upper Scandinavia, but is actually quite common in Europe, Africa and Asia.
If you want to enjoy honey fermented foods, you won’t need a glass of wine or a mug of beer, as it has far less moisture than mead. In fact, honey ferments a little more easily than wine or beer—it doesn’t need to be mashed or germinated. By simply placing the food in a jar with the same amount of honey, you will take care of the water needed to start fermentation.
While raw honey has antimicrobial properties, as you can see in our recent post, it can also be fermented to create honey-based alternatives. For the production of honey wine, wine yeast strains are usually used, since the characteristics of sugar, pH and nitrogen in mead are similar to those of grape must. For those who like to be creative in the kitchen, we also offer other offerings such as fermented mango honey and fermented cranberry honey.