[Sca-cooks] honey

[Audrey Bergeron-Morin]

Also, the (pasteurized) honey that I buy from a local farm doesn't
crystallize (or it takes a really, really long time), while whatever brand
I buy from the grocery store always seems to crystallize really quickly.

Audrey

On 28 April 2016 at 10:55, Galefridus Peregrinus <galefridus at optimum.net>
wrote:

> Yeah, as Bear says, it's pretty much the pasteurization issue. One of the
> things the confection recipes in al-Warraq call for is heated and skimmed
> honey. If you use grocery store generic honey, the foam you skim will be
> yellow-tan with caramel flavor undertones. You'll also have to heat it
> hotter to cause the foam to rise. Raw unfiltered honey produces white foam
> starting at a lower temperature and produces a lot more foam besides.
>
> -- Galefridus
>
> > Message: 2
> > Date: Thu, 28 Apr 2016 13:33:15 -0500
> > From: "Terry Decker" <t.d.decker at att.net>
> > To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
> > Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] honey
> > Message-ID: <EFBCCE5F0F964025AD52AA10D26EC042 at Vishnu>
> > Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="utf-8";
> >    reply-type=original
> >
> > The difference could be pasteurization.  Commercial honey is often
> > pasteurized to reduce moisture content and reduce potential fermentation
> > (bacteria doesn't live in honey, but some yeasts do)  It also slows
> > crystallization.  And commercial honey often has the impurities removed.
> > Raw honey, as from the farm, tends to have a higher moisture content and
> > some impurities even after cleaning.
> >
> > Bear
> >
> >
> > Galefridus commented:
> > <<< Inexpensive
> > grocery store honey is OK for initial practice, but the higher quality
> > honey behaves differently and results in a more delicate flavor. >>>
> >
> > Ok, I can believe that the generic grocery story honey has a different
> > flavor, but what do you mean it behaves differently?
> >
> > I think that common grocery store honey is honey that comes from bees
> > feeding on unknown plants or at a variety of plants that the beekeepers
> > couldn?t really track. Usually clover honey here in Texas.
> >
> > Suey, here in the U.S., the food laws and the food labeling laws are
> fairly
> > strict, although with a few loopholes. But diluting the honey down or
> adding
> > sugar water to it would likely bring the authorities down on anyone doing
> > that. Does your country not have similar laws?
> >
> > As others have mentioned, buying from natural food stores might be an
> > alternative. You can also get specialized honey by mail or on the web. I
> > know some of our local brewers have banded together from time to time and
> > bought drums (30 gallon? 55 gallon?) to get something other than the
> generic
> > (here, clover honey) at better prices.
> >
> > At one time there was a merchant at Pennsic and Gulf Wars who sold a
> large
> > variety of different honeys. Not cheap. :-) But when he went out of
> business
> > I bought a lot of small jars of a wide variety of different honeys.
> > Unfortunately, as a diabetic, I can?t indulge in these as I might like,
> and
> > still have most of these. Somewhere.
> >
> > Stefan
> > --------
> > THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
> >   Mark S. Harris           Austin, Texas          StefanliRous at gmail.com
> > http://www.linkedin.com/in/marksharris
> > **** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
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