hey everybody, great site. forgive my lack of an intro post, i was just thinking about all of the wonderful science behind brewing, and had an idea...
im sure there may be different opinions on this, but id like to hear them all anyways...ive read in some places that if all your honey is on the bottom of your jar, the yeast will find it and eat it...and other places i have read that you should shake up your must when you fist make it, and it should be stirred so often etc...
i would think that if it were spread throughout, the honey would have more surface area, and thus would get "eaten" faster...but i dont know.
and then in the midst of considering this, i thought about supersolutions.
if you arent familar with supersolutions, ill try to explain it. say you have an amount of cold or room tempreture water, we will say a gallon. you can only dissolve x amount of sugar in it before the water just wont disolve any more. (those of us in the south who drink ice tea know all about this problem). BUT if you were to heat up the water, i think to boiling, but im not sure...you can add more sugar! it will disolve, and even if you bring the temp back down, it will stay disolved. this is how you make REALLY sweet iced tea.
so okay, here are my questions, please feel free to answer/comment or discuss on as many as you can:
1) honey, keeping it stirred or all on bottom, does it make any difference, be it fermentation time or anything else? if so what?
2) can yeast eat disolved sugar? will it eat disolved sugar faster than non-disolved sugar?
3) can honey be made into a supersolution?
im wondering if anyone has done any kind of scientific test to see if there actually is any difference in fermentation time. maybe it would be a fun expiriment to try with two or three small 1 liter bottles and a quarter of a cup of honey or something. 1 normal, 1 stirred, 1 made into a supersolution (if possible).or maybe 6...3 as above with honey and 3 with sugar.
i suppose either way, it would not matter as far as the time spent ageing, but if you could knock off a significant time off of the fermentation part, it might be worth it. plus, id really like to understand as much of the science behind the whole process as i can. ive yet to make my first batch, so im totally clueless.
anyways. sorry for the rant, and any typos. its 5:30 am here, and i cant sleep! 8)
im sure there may be different opinions on this, but id like to hear them all anyways...ive read in some places that if all your honey is on the bottom of your jar, the yeast will find it and eat it...and other places i have read that you should shake up your must when you fist make it, and it should be stirred so often etc...
i would think that if it were spread throughout, the honey would have more surface area, and thus would get "eaten" faster...but i dont know.
and then in the midst of considering this, i thought about supersolutions.
if you arent familar with supersolutions, ill try to explain it. say you have an amount of cold or room tempreture water, we will say a gallon. you can only dissolve x amount of sugar in it before the water just wont disolve any more. (those of us in the south who drink ice tea know all about this problem). BUT if you were to heat up the water, i think to boiling, but im not sure...you can add more sugar! it will disolve, and even if you bring the temp back down, it will stay disolved. this is how you make REALLY sweet iced tea.
so okay, here are my questions, please feel free to answer/comment or discuss on as many as you can:
1) honey, keeping it stirred or all on bottom, does it make any difference, be it fermentation time or anything else? if so what?
2) can yeast eat disolved sugar? will it eat disolved sugar faster than non-disolved sugar?
3) can honey be made into a supersolution?
im wondering if anyone has done any kind of scientific test to see if there actually is any difference in fermentation time. maybe it would be a fun expiriment to try with two or three small 1 liter bottles and a quarter of a cup of honey or something. 1 normal, 1 stirred, 1 made into a supersolution (if possible).or maybe 6...3 as above with honey and 3 with sugar.
i suppose either way, it would not matter as far as the time spent ageing, but if you could knock off a significant time off of the fermentation part, it might be worth it. plus, id really like to understand as much of the science behind the whole process as i can. ive yet to make my first batch, so im totally clueless.
anyways. sorry for the rant, and any typos. its 5:30 am here, and i cant sleep! 8)