High quality natural honey can be distinguished by its fragrance and taste. The best period to stock up on honey is in summer, when it is being collected in large quantities.The ripe, freshly collected, high quality honey at 20°C (68°F) flows from the knife in a straight squirt, without breaking into separate drops. After falling down the honey should form a clear hillock. The ripe honey is being collected from the sealed honey combs; therefore it should always be of high quality.
The honey should not lay down in layers. If this is a case, it indicates the excessive humidity (over 20%) of the product, and such a honey would not be suitable for long term preservation.
A fluffy thin layer on the surface of the honey (like a white foam), or marble-coloured and white spots in crystallized honey at the wallsides of the bottle are caused by filling of liquid honey with subsequent sealing—the air bubbles are surfacing and part of them is concentrated at the wallsides. This is an indication of a high quality honey, which was filled without pasteurization (heating).
If the honey is transparent, burning with amber-like colours, then (unless it is very fresh) it has most likely been heated. Transparent and reluctant to thicken honey can also indicate its being a result of feeding the bees with sugar syrup or even sugar itself, which is bad both for the bees and for the honey they produce, as naturally they are supposed to feed on flower nectar.
A true honey that is at least one month old is usually of demure (not translucent) colours.
A 2008 Italian study determined that nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy can be used to distinguish between different honey types, and can be used to pinpoint the area where it was produced. Researchers were able to identify differences in acacia and polyfloral honeys by the differing proportions of fructose and sucrose, as well as differing levels of aromatic amino acids phenylalanine and tyrosine. This ability allows greater ease of selecting compatible stocks.
No comments:
Post a Comment