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The liquid gold. (question!)

max_335787

Hallo everyone,

My name is Max and I am a 17 year old teenager from Holland and I absolutly love cooking.

One day I was standing in the kitchen making some tea while I noticed this giant bag of dried lavender taking up way to much space. So I naturally tried to think of a way to get rid of it all at once and make something truly delicious in the process.

I made a strong tea out of the lavender and started reducing it to a concentrate to make a kick-ass Italian merengue. And the best part about it was that you could really taste and smell the lavender aroma so intensely. And while I was patting myself on the back I looked at this jar of honey standing in the pantry.

And then came up with the idea of making a honey without all the sugar and water. Now, before you call me crazy just think of the explosion of taste. Sadly however I have no clue of how to actually extract most of the glucose and fructose (leaving in a bit for flavour) from the honey.

And since Chefsteps does a lot of molecular cooking I wondered if you guys could help or any of its food loving members.

The idea is probably a bit nuts and I think the results will probably not taste as wonderful as I hoped it would. But I am sure it will at least provide an interesting challenge.

I love what you guys do there at Chefsteps and keep up the great work.

Edit: I have the idea that a centrifuge is a plausible solution to separate the sugars from the rest of the honey, considering the molecular shape of sugars, what do you think?

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brian_martin2001

What do you mean making a honey? nevermind the "without all the sugar and water" how exactly do you intend to make honey? Honey is a collection of various sugars, including: fructose, glucose, sucrose, maltose, isomaltose, maltulose, turanose, kojibiose, as well as some plant matter (pollen), bee digestive products, and so on. that all being said, what exactly are you going for here? and if you're trying to mimic real honey, how exactly do you propose to create a substance that is mostly sugar and water, without sugar and water?

pgcath

I was wondering if he meant that he wanted to extract the volitile flavor compounds and get something with the floral and organic flavors without the sweetness. Not sure if it could be done.

Also. Hello Max, pleased to meet you. I'm also Max, and I spent three years living in Amsterdam. Welcome to the forums!

fisher23

Honey powder has the flavor with the water removed, but I don't know of a way to remove the sugars and still get the flavor of honey. Honey powder

max_335787

As you probably know you have many types of honey, ones made from bees that only have access to roses or lavender for example. And I noticed how different types of honey can taste very different and I wondered why. So after reading a paper on bees and honey it concluded the amount of different type of sugars stays about the same throughout these different types of honey, suggesting the flavour comes mostly from the pollen and bee digestive products you have mentioned.

Lets compare this to whiskey, most whiskeys start of as the same clear liquor and ripe in burned wooden barrels. Most of these barrels where used to store, for example cherries or appels. This, together with the wood gives the whiskey its distinct flavour. However I find the alcohol taste in whiskey overpowers this distinct taste. This same overpowering taste is found back in honey with the amount of sugar. Therefore if one were to remove some of the sugar out of the honey you would get that all natural and distinct taste that honey has.

While I was working in my aunt's ice cream shop I learned that fructose, dextrose and glucose all taste very different so I thought lessening the amount of the water and sugar to about 10% would create a better flavour.

Just like pgcath said "get something with the floral and organic flavors without the sweetness."

brian_martin2001

So you're not actually trying to make honey, but extract certain flavor components, or remove an amount of the sugars and water. This actually makes much more sense. A centrifuge may work, as it Will separate by density, however shape of the molecule has nothing to do with it. If you're looking about using shape, or size, of the molecule, they do make separation beads, but these are somewhat costly. If some of the sugars are of the same molecular weight, they will be in the same layers that are separated when using a centrifuge. You may consider using a rotary evaporator, as this devise is used frequently in flavor extraction or isolation. You also might get ideas from contacting flavor companies. A buddy of mine works for IFF, and they have a remarkable amount of research into the individual components of flavors. Good luck!