Home Distiller

It's been a couple of months since I last posted a thread on here. Everything is going well on the still front and is running like a dream. I have done a couple of gooood runs and have started steeping my fruits & herbs. I am basically steeping all kinds of fruits, one that I have on the go is frozen fruits of the forest (I'm doing my best to clone the Chambord Royale Liquere).

Last night I made a little sample from what was steeping and a simple sugar syrup which tasted really good, but I am now wondering what it would be like if a make the syrup from honey instead of white sugar. My only problem is I'm not too sure what the ratio of honey to water is, with sugar we all know it's 2-1 but i can't seem to find the answer. Don't want it to be too thick or not strong enough in taste. So if you have any clues out there just shout!!!!!.

All said a done this new hobby of mine is going great guns. Every fruit, herb, and flower I go past these days has me scratching my head wondering what it would taste like dunked in 50% ABV and some added sugar. The gear coming off my still is up there with the best and my mates can't believe how much Schmirnof and the rest are ripping us all off!!!. Good times!!!

Thanks again for all you help out there!!!!.
All the best Doddsie

with the honey the best advice I have is to make a syrup with honey and a syrup with sugar, and then slowly blend the two in until you're happy with the taste. you can always add more til you like it, but it's hard to take out! honey will give you a thicker mouthfeel by the way. looking forward to seeing your recipe when you get it ironed out!

Cheers Kiwi,
Had a feeling you would come up with some input!!!. Just tried another sample (as you do) with 3/4 brown sugar and water. Getting very close to the promise land!!!!. I'll keep you posted but so far so goooood!!!

might want to have a look at raw sugars as well - sometimes they seem to just add a little something else when i use it.

One thing that may help is that the US Standard for Identity of honey requires no more than 18% moisture. My Boss's beekeeper husband says that it always seems to be about 18%. (always gonna be some give and take with a natural product.) Use that percentage to calculate your % solids.

So:
10Kg of honey contains 1.8Kg of water and 8.2Kg of solids
If your simple syrup is typically 50/50...%kg water and 5kg sugar, and that's where you want your starting point to be for honey...

We need to determine the amount of whole honey that gives you 5kg of honey solids
5kg solids / 82% solids in honey = 6.097Kg whole Honey

with whole honey, you've already got about 1.1kg of water in the 6.1 kg of honey so...

add 3.9kg of water to your 6.1kg of honey and it will yield 10kg of 50/50 honey solids/moisture.

The honey solids aren't exactly the same as sugar, but it should give you a very good approximation of where you want to be.

Now, to Kiwi's point, you may want to change that up a bit to get more or less honey flavor. I have found that if you use a straight-off-th-farm, unfiltered honey, too much of it will make the first impression of your booze seem like it was made with bananas.

I use it though...my next mash will be made from that au naturale honey and peaches.

For honey Ive been getting around here its worked out like a chart I saw on parent site ( I think)Was that 10 lbs honey = 8 lb sugar