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Raw material influence in mead production

Publication . Santos, Regina; Pereira, Ana Paula; Estevinho, Leticia M.; Caldeira, Ilda; Anjos, Ofélia

Honey can be fermented to produce different types of mead given their sugar concentration [1]. Mead is a beverage produced by the alcoholic fermentation of diluted honey. This beverage present an alcoholic strength ranging between 8 – 18 % volumes [2]. The aim of this work is characterize the quality of honey mead with different kinds of raw-material: Lavandula honey; Castanea honey and a mixture of waxes and Castanea honey resulting from the beekeeper uncaps process. To produce the honey must the different raw materials was diluted with natural spring-water (37 g of honey/100 mL of water) and mixed to homogeneity. The honey must was inoculated with a commercial wine yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae QA 23 at a concentration of 0,3 g/hL and incubated at 25 0C. Throughout the fermentation process biomass concentrations and reducing sugar of the must were regularly measured. At the end of fermentations the meads were treated with bentonite (100 g/hL). In the meads produced, °Brix, pH, total acidity and assailable nitrogen concentration were evaluated. It was observed that the yeast grow is more efficient in the Castanea honey than in the other samples. Given the results showed in Table 1 it is possible conclude that the meads produced with different raw material are similar and the differences could be attribute to the differences of honey, with different chemical composition. According to the obtained results it can be concluded that it is possible produce mead also with a mixture of waxes and honey resulting from the bee-keeper uncaps process with an important economical benefice.

2016Conference object

Open access

Distillation process characterization for honey spirit production

Publication . Santos, Regina; Caldeira, Ilda; Pereira, Ana Paula; Estevinho, Leticia M.; Anjos, Ofélia

Honey presents a higher amount of carbohydrates (60-82%) [1] mainly fructose and glucose and other minor compounds (proteins, enzymes free amino acids, essential minerals, vitamins and polyphenols). Given their higher amount of sugar, yeast could be convert them into alcohol through the process of fermentation. The more usual alcoholic beverage produced from the honey is mead, however, some spirits are also produced, but no scientific research is known in order to characterize this beverage. The aim of this work is to characterize the distillation process of honey spirit resulting from distillation of mead obtained from different honey raw material: Lavandula honey; Castanea honey and a mixture of waxes and honey resulting from the bee-keeper uncaps process. In the distillation process different fraction were collected during the time. The alcohol strength was determined by distillation and electronic densimetry. The volatile compounds of the samples (acetaldehyde; ethyl acetate; methanol; 1–propanol; 2-methyl-1-propanol; 1–butanol and isoamyl alcohols) were analysed by gas chromatography-flame ionization detection (GC-FID) [2]. The honey spirit does not present methanol in the majority of the analysed fractions or it is present in a very low quantity (<0.062 g/L) what is an advantage of this beverage in comparison with other distillates. The raw-material used in the production of the beverage as well as the distillation time has a significant effect in the composition of the fractions collected during the distillation process (Table 1). The different volatile profile suggests a different quality given the botanical origin of honey used as raw material. The production of honey spirit from waxes and honey resulting from the uncap process has a good quality.

2016Conference object

Open access