❗❗❗This is a very practical article, worth one hundred thousand. Although it is a bit long, if you take ten minutes to read and understand it carefully, you will be at least half a honey expert.
1. Very sweet honey.
often see buyers say "Your honey is too sweet". The seller replied: "Honey must be sweet. Shouldn't honey be sweet?" The sweetness of natural honey is difficult to express. It is mostly a kind of comfort. why? Natural honey contains organic acid, so it will have a slight sour taste when it is sweet. You can't experience it if you have eaten syrup honey or concentrated honey. After
is concentrated, the acidic substances in honey will be reduced a lot, so the taste will be sweeter and more greasy, without floral fragrance, sour taste and spicy throat, this honey is the worst. Of course, here we have to skim the error of personal taste and know how to taste it carefully.
2. How to taste honey.
Put a little honey on your tongue, use your tongue against your palate, close your mouth, let the honey slowly melt in your mouth, and carefully appreciate the taste and texture; then swallow it and feel the throat; finally use the throat Slowly breathe into the nasal cavity and experience the aftertaste of honey. Pure honey has a sweet and slightly sour taste, a soft and delicate taste, a slightly spicy throat, a light and long aftertaste, and different varieties reflect different floral styles.
The above-mentioned characteristics of adulterated honey will weaken or even disappear. Honey mixed with sucrose has a sucrose taste, honey mixed with syrup has a light aftertaste, and has a cooked corn or chemical taste....Different fake honey will have different aftertastes Taste the unpleasant taste.
3, very sour honey
I said earlier that the sourness of natural honey is light and palatable. It makes that person feel refreshed, but there is a kind of fake honey, because it uses
4, very bitter honey
. The bitterness of honey is more obvious, and the possibility of bitterness:
a: Some of the characteristics of Chinese medicine such as coptis , gall honey and so on. Honey will have a relatively obvious bitter taste, this natural bitter taste is also light, not very strong, and there is a little sweet feeling after eating
b: old honey that has been stored for many years or deteriorated honey. The color of old honey is much darker than the original one. It tastes no fragrance and has a bad spicy throat. Traditional Chinese medicine says, "Ten-year-old honey is a good medicine."
5, bubbling honey
There are generally three reasons for the bubbling of honey on the surface.
a: Gas in the product of active enzyme decomposition, such as amylase decomposes polysaccharides in honey to generate monosaccharides, water and carbon dioxide. Natural honey has a variety of active enzymes, the result of which will make the surface of honey have a delicate layer The foam; especially after transportation shock, sometimes almost the entire bottle is, and it may cause the bottle to rise.
b: Microbial metabolites . For example, sugar-tolerant yeast uses sugars in honey as food. The metabolites are alcohol (acetic acid under hypoxia), water and carbon dioxide. If the concentration of honey is low, these yeasts will multiply quickly. Make honey produce a large number of large bubbles, with wine and sour smell, which is an important reason for honey deterioration;
c: vibration process , natural honey contains a lot of pollen, propolis, royal jelly, minerals, protein, etc. These particles will become a good crystallization nucleus during crystallization, and accelerate the formation of honey crystals (this is also the reason why natural honey is easy to crystallize). In the transportation process of honey, due to the agitation, these small particles Under the action, natural honey foams easily, and these foams will gradually disappear after standing still.
6. The problem of the concentration of very dilute honey
has always puzzled consumers. Some sellers say that the thick is good, and some say that the thin is true. It is difficult for buyers to judge who is good. You have to judge this problem first. To know two concepts:
a. How is honey produced?
The process of collecting nectar by bees is generally like this: bees fly out to collect nectar and pollen, and then fly back to the hive. After entering the hive, the bees spit out honey and store it in a hexagonal cell. The honey collected in this way is called nectar but not honey. Generally, the water content is large, and the concentration is about 35-38 degrees. After the nectar is collected, the bees must brew: the bees continuously inhale with their mouthparts, spit out the nectar, and mix in during the period. In vivoTrace elements, a variety of enzymes and other nutrients;
At the same time, the bees continue to fan their wings in order to evaporate too much water. This will take about 7-15 days (depending on the honey source, weather conditions, and the strength of the bee colony) The brewing process until the bees feel that they can no longer evaporate the water, the bees will spit out beeswax to cover the hive; when taking the honey, take out the sealed honey, cut off the sealed beeswax, and use a special honey shaker The honey can be separated from the honeycomb, which is what we call "naturally capped mature honey".
b: What does Baume mean? The exact meaning of
honey concentration refers to the percentage of soluble solids in honey. Because the higher the honey concentration, the greater the specific gravity, and the concentration is proportional to the Baume degree. Therefore, in actual work, the Baume degree of honey is called the honey concentration, which has become a habitual name. In fact, there is a difference between the two, not a concept. The Baume degree of honey is most affected by temperature. When the temperature rises, the Baume degree decreases; when the temperature drops, the Baume degree becomes larger. In order to unify the comparison standard, 20°C is specified as the standard temperature internationally.
Therefore, the Baume degree on the honey product label is measured at 20°C. At standard temperature, the relationship between the Baume degree/water content of honey is as follows: 40/23.1, 41/21.2, 41.5/20.2, 42/19.2, 43/17. Some honey product labels directly indicate the Baume degree value, and most product labels only indicate the quality level of honey (first grade or second grade).
According to the new national standard for honey, the water content of the first grade product generally does not exceed 20%, and the water content of the second grade product generally does not exceed 24%. According to the above corresponding relationship, we know that the Baume degree of first-class honey should be above 41.6 degrees.
7. Brushed honey
Now, in order to cater to customers’ preference for thick honey, honey manufacturers add thickeners to the honey, or evaporate water at high temperature to achieve a certain consistency. This kind of adulterated honey is processed by honey Silk is definitely more beautiful than real honey. Really natural honey, when it is first shaken, is not too thick, so drawing can not judge the true or false, only the concentration.
The conclusion we can draw from the above points is:
a: the concentration of natural honey is generally between 39.5-42 degrees, too high concentration and too low concentration need to be carefully distinguished.
b: Honey crystallizes with temperature changes, apparently feels that summer honey is thin and winter honey is thick, but it is actually the same honey, and the Baume degree has not changed. When we measure and study, we must judge the pros and cons according to the correct method to measure the Baume degree rather than the apparent thickness.
c: The natural concentration is more meaningful, and the value of the artificially concentrated product of will be greatly reduced even if it is thicker.
8. Crystallized honey
a: If you don’t want to crystallize honey, please go to the supermarket to buy high-temperature concentrated honey, because honey basically has crystals, crystals are like water and ice, the shopkeeper is not stupid enough to sprinkle some sugar into the honey to let you see. The reason why the crystallization is not removed is for everyone to buy the original honey. In fact, it is very simple to remove the crystallization. Heating the honey over 60 degrees to break the honey crystallization nucleus is OK. The supermarket is basically the same, so the supermarket basically does not crystallize. But after doing that, the nutrients that are most beneficial to the human body are ascended to heaven.
b: Don't say it was liquid when you bought it. How come it settles after a period of time, it will naturally crystallize when the weather is cold. You can also think about it the other way around. Have you ever seen white sugar that has been melted for a few months and turned into white sugar?
c: "How can I put the refrigerator in a month without crystallization?" ---The reason is as follows: honey is easiest to crystallize at 13~14℃, if it is lower than this temperature, although the degree of supersaturation of glucose increases, Because the viscosity and density of fructose, maltose, dextrin and colloidal substances in honey are greatly increased at low temperature, the movement and diffusion of crystal nuclei are reduced and hindered, and the crystallization is slow.
d: How does your honey crystal look like sugar? It's like a human being, tall, short, fat and thin, and every variety is different. natural honey is easy to crystallize. Many people know this now. Some of the crystalline state is like oil and some granular.Like white sugar, the thickness of the crystal is actually related to the type of honey and the conditions when it crystallizes. The crystallization of
is related to four aspects: suitable low temperature, low temperature duration, crystallization nucleus and honey varieties. The thickness of the crystals of different honey varieties of may be different. A temperature of about 13 degrees is conducive to the formation of crystals, while too high or too low is not conducive to the formation of honey crystals. The crystalline nucleus contained in honey (pollen particles or other fine crystallized honey)
9, honey dripped on paper and spread out
This method is used to detect whether the honey is mixed with water. It is said that the honey will be leached if it is mixed with water, and the honey is not mixed with water. will not. In fact, this is not exactly the case. This method can detect the moisture content of honey. Those with high water content are easy to soak, and those with low water content are not easy to soak. But what is easy to soak is not necessarily mixed with water, it may be immature honey or some kind of honey with a relatively high natural water content (the national standard stipulates that the water content of lychee honey, longan honey and Chinese tallow honey is higher than that of ordinary honey. Breed issues).
Moreover, the water content of natural unprocessed honey will definitely be lower than that of artificially concentrated honey, and the degree of soaking of burr paper will be greater than that of concentrated honey. Therefore, this method needs to be selected according to the actual situation. If it is all natural honey, of course it has less water content (except for special varieties); if it is concentrated honey, even if it will not soak, no matter how little water content is, it will not be better than natural honey. Better. This method can only detect the water content, and cannot detect the true or false.
After reading these, do you have any knowledge? Apply the knowledge you've learned to your life, and fake honey can't fool you anymore.
