Abstract
Mead is a not very diffused alcoholic beverage and is obtained by fermentation of honey and water. Despite its very long tradition, little information is available on the relation between the ingredient used during fermentation and the aromatic characteristics of the fermented beverage outcome. In order to provide further information, multi-floral blossom honey and a forest honeydew honey with and without the addition of black currant during fermentation were used to prepare four different honey wines to be compared for their volatile organic compound content. Fermentation was monitored, and the total phenolic content (Folin–Ciocalteu), volatile organic compounds (HS-SPME-GC-MS), together with a sensory evaluation on the overall quality (44 nontrained panelists) were measured for all products at the end of fermentation. A higher total phenolic content resulted in honeydew honey meads, as well as the correspondent honey wine prepared with black currant. A total of 46 volatile organic compounds for pre-fermentation samples and 62 for post-fermentation samples were identified belonging to higher alcohols, organic acids, esters, and terpenes. The sensory analysis showed that the difference in meads made from blossom honey and honeydew honey was perceptible by the panelists with a general greater appreciation for the traditional blossom honey mead. These results demonstrated the influences of different components in meads, in particular, the influence of honey quality. However, further studies are needed to establish the relationship between the chemical profile and mead flavor perception.
Highlights
Mead, called honey wine, is traditionally an alcoholic beverage obtained through yeast fermentation of diluted honey
honey with blackcurrant (HC) was the first product reaching the stationary phase in fermentation after approx. 14 days, whereas H and BC took approx. 20 days
The products prepared with blossom honey had a longer fermentation time, and the addition of black currants accelerated the fermentation
Summary
Called honey wine, is traditionally an alcoholic beverage obtained through yeast fermentation of diluted honey. Mead is found in the history of many countries all around the world, and it is one of the oldest alcoholic beverages with variable alcohol content (8–18% alcohol v/v), mostly depending on the honey to water dilution ratio. Besides the traditional mead (the fermented diluted honey), many variations can be found, containing herbs and spices (metheglin) or fruit (melomel) [1]. The mead fermentation process is usually longer than most alcoholic fermentation, where other sugars are present and in higher concentrations. This fermentation often takes several months to complete, depending on the type of honey, yeast strain, and honey-must composition. Mead contains ethanol and Molecules 2020, 25, 1818; doi:10.3390/molecules25081818 www.mdpi.com/journal/molecules
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