fermenting honey....

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we have a dozen jars of spring (set) homey which have signs of fermenting.

we have given some away so quite embarrassing.

it read at 18.5% when we jarred it, so not sure whats gone wrong

So

- could have been refractometer calibration
- could be i tested top of honey and not the whole batch as i mixed a few supers into one bucket

can i test it now it is fermenting and check or will the reading now be irrelevant

very embarrassing
 
The top is always the poorest reading. the honey with the highest water content rises.in my experience anyway! How is it fermenting? Smell, taste, bubbles or excess gas in the jar! Just interested!
E
 
What may have happened is some of the sugar has crystallized leaving behind a liquid with a water content > 20%.
 
I can honestly say I have never had osr ferment.not doubting you, just really unusual! I suppose it hadn't been open to the air for a prolonged period? Sounds like a mead job!
E
 
Common occurrence with set OSR, according to the text books, as glucose content so high it starts to crystalise out leaving excess water at the surface which starts the fermentation process.
 
Common occurrence with set OSR, according to the text books, as glucose content so high it starts to crystalise out leaving excess water at the surface which starts the fermentation process.

And I am still learning. Thanks beeno
E
 
Common occurrence with set OSR, according to the text books, as glucose content so high it starts to crystalise out leaving excess water at the surface which starts the fermentation process.

Its the reason the Dyce process (making soft set honey) involves an initial pasturization step 120F or a shade under 50C to kill the yeasts.
 
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I have a picture here on this thread of one of 25 jars of rape honey that i soft set..it fermented like this and smelt sour..kind of like apple cider vinegar..i now know it was caused by stirring it too fast during the soft setting stage which induced too many fine air bubbles that i have never done since as the lot went down the plug hole..

https://beekeepingforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=44958&highlight=Fermented+honey
 
I have a picture here on this thread of one of 25 jars of rape honey that i soft set..it fermented like this and smelt sour..kind of like apple cider vinegar..i now know it was caused by stirring it too fast during the soft setting stage which induced too many fine air bubbles that i have never done since as the lot went down the plug hole..

https://beekeepingforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=44958&highlight=Fermented+honey

i think this may be it Millet

half of it (jars) i tried to soft set by stirring...half i didnt. it may be i stirred too fast?

can i use refractometer now to test out of interest or pointless as reading will be skewed by fermentation?
 
Actually turning fermenting honey into mead is trickier than you might think. It's fermenting already with wild yeasts so would need to be "sterilised" first with a yeast killer, and after that I am not so sure a wine yeast would take off.

PH
 
Actually turning fermenting honey into mead is trickier than you might think. It's fermenting already with wild yeasts so would need to be "sterilised" first with a yeast killer, and after that I am not so sure a wine yeast would take off.

PH

Oh! That will be interesting too as I am making some mead where I used one jar of fermenting honey with two jars of none fermenting honey. It's bubbling ok at the moment! Be interested to see what it turns out like!
I think everything I said at the start of this thread has been shot down in flames!.:)
E
 
Actually turning fermenting honey into mead is trickier than you might think. It's fermenting already with wild yeasts so would need to be "sterilised" first with a yeast killer, and after that I am not so sure a wine yeast would take off.

PH
You can kill the natural yeasts in honey by heating up to around 75C..other than that they are hard to kill without using chemicals and most of the time it does not kill the yeast anyway..all it does is stop it from mutating..
 
I am no expert when it comes to wine making but I have done it off and on for a fair number of years and every batch of mead I have made starts by taking the must to over 80C prior to adding a good quality high alcohol yeast pre started.

And then the fun starts as one lot will go like the proverbial bat and the other toddles along.

PH
 
Most wild osmophilic yeasts are not very alcohol tolerant so they will die off as the alcohol levels increase to around 1% by your wine yeasts. It's what happens when you make elder flower champagne using the natural yeast found on the flowers.
It's when you bottle it from a beer fermenting bucket that hasn't been properly sterilised and has brewing (alcohol tolerant) yeasts that it gets interesting.
 

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