Alexey Glazyrin - Russian cooking for men. Honey goodies

© Alexey Glazyrin, 2020

ISBN 978-5-4498-1393-0

Created with Ridero smart publishing system

Russian cooking for men. Honey goodies

get honey from the hive

Each type of honey has its own unique bouquet, specific aroma and taste.

Freshly pumped natural honey, which has not undergone any heating, is a syrupy liquid with a wonderful floral aroma, sweet and pleasant taste (with the exception of tobacco and chestnut, which have a bitter taste). A very liquid consistency is characteristic of white acacia, cypress and clover honey.

Liquid honey, as a rule, happens in the summer (July – August), during the period of its pumping, after 2—4 months it crystallizes. If honey is liquid in winter or early spring, it means that it was heated or falsified. The exception is white acacia honey, which has not crystallized for quite some time, and heather, which turns into a jelly-like mass. Liquid honey must be mature, that is, contain no more than 20% water. To make sure of this, you need to lower the spoon into honey and remove it. Honey should drain slowly, when you turn the spoon, wrap it with a wide ribbon, and the trickle of honey should not be interrupted. Honey should not foam and exfoliate. Both signs are characteristic of unripe honey or stored at elevated temperatures.

The color of honey can be different: from light to dark with many shades. Light honey – linden, sunflower, raspberry, fireweed, clover, sainfoin, acacia, chestnut and others; dark – buckwheat, heather, stock. The coloring of honey does not play a significant role, however, light is more valued abroad.

Honey comb

The aroma of all kinds of enjoyable honey: from weak to strong without any foreign smell. Honey, coming in a distribution network with MediaStation plants, where it undergoes the appropriate treatment decrystallization (dissolution of crystals), the removal of contained solids and insoluble substances would be liquid. In this case, the honey should be transparent, moreover it should not crystallize within 6—9 months. But the implementation of these processes often allowed overheating and disturbance regimes of sedimentation, which significantly reduces the quality of the product. For therapeutic purposes it is better to use honey, not exposed to heat.

Sales honey should not contain mechanical impurities: crumbs of wax, parts of bees, pollen, larvae, minerals, under which it is stored worse, it is the crystallization uneven, deteriorating appearance. Honey mixed with the wax when heated, it loses flavor.

Most commercially available multi honey (harvested from several species of plants). The honey, especially in large quantities, should be before the end of the summer. Honey stored in glass or enamelware. Jars of honey should not be kept together with products having a pungent odor (honey quickly absorbs odors) and place in the cheese due to its hygroscopicity.

Do not leave the honey in the light. According to German scientists, the 48-hour stay of honey in the light leads to the destruction therein of biologically active substances. If necessary to use liquid honey, it is obtained by heating in a water bath at a temperature not higher than 40—45° C. When heated to higher temperatures honey loses its medicinal qualities.

In Mature honey water content low enough. Is honey good quality and can be stored for long periods. The water content determined by refractometry. Moisture content of honey should not exceed 20% and higher grades at 17—18%. At higher moisture content present in honey yeast fungi can rapidly multiply, causing fermentation.

The composition of honey, in addition to simple sugars, glucose and fructose, and includes more complex sugars (oligosaccharides). Some types of honey contain up to 10% maltose and disaccharides, and honeydew honey can be up to 18% of raffinose and melezitose (trisaccharide). The content of sugars is determined by chromatographic techniques. This analysis allows to distinguish flower honey from honeydew and with unquestionable certainty to prove the falsification of honey by industrial glucose.

When honey is exposed to excessive heat contained in it, fructose is partially converted into hydroxymethylfurfural. The same thing happens if the honey has a long shelf life at high room temperature. Thermal degeneration (destruction) of fructose happens in the process of chemical inversion of the sucrose in the production of industrial invert sugar.

Activity diastase is one of the indicators of naturalness of honey. Natural honey under normal conditions of storage contains a number of enzymes of salivary glands of bees and they collect nectar. Important two enzymes: invertase and diastase. Invertase catalyses the cleavage of sucrose (a disaccharide) into glucose and fructose (simple sugars).

A diastase – an enzyme particularly valuable, as its content can be judged on the quality and naturalness of honey. This enzyme catalyzes the breakdown of starch and other polysaccharides to disaccharides. The diastasis is usually present in all types of honey. Its activity is connected with activity of other enzymes, so it is a measure of the total quantity of enzymes in honey. In addition, diastasis – one of the most stable enzymes, therefore its absence or presence in small quantities suggests that the content of the other enzymes is minimal. The diastasis is very sensitive to heat, so it partially or completely inactivated, by heating honey to temperatures over 50° C or long-term storage (over a year).

bees always work

Diastaza activity of fresh honey can not be lower than 7.0 units, the only exception is honey from the white acacia: the number of 5.5 units Gotha. One year of storage honey diastase number decreases.

When you add in the honey of foreign substances diastatidae activity is reduced, which can be classified as a sign of falsification of honey. Consequently, activity diastase in honey can detect the falsification of sugar and other substances, as well as its warming up. Quality of honey activity diastase quite high, ranging from 7 to 23 units Gotha (depending on the region of collection of honey). But certain types of honey, for example, Belbakaleya, kipany, lime, sunflower, are characterized by low diastase activity, especially Belbakaleya.

Determination of the activity of diastase based on the ability of this enzyme to break down starch to amylodextrin. The indicator is expressed diastase number (units Gotha), which represents the number of milliliters of 1% starch solution, split diastase contained in 1 g of honey (in terms of dry substance) for 1 hour at 40° C to substances that are not painted with iodine to a blue color.

When honey «bloom»? If the room where the crystallized honey in the banks, the air is very dry and the temperature often fluctuates, he can «bloom», that is perhaps the appearance of white spots. This is because honey loses moisture and shrinks. The added space between the crystals is filled with air, without degrading the properties of the honey.

Not all honey producers and sellers of these products know the true reason for the appearance of white spots, so I can’t explain to buyers that this phenomenon is not due to fraud. To avoid such phenomena, the honey should be well mixed to break up large crystals, when crystallization starts.