what is your favorite natural sweetener?

[TNGhost]

Buckwheat Honey is FINE stuff. Like NWTF Longhunter said rich, very dark with an intense honey flavor. Great flavor for adding character to meades and ales.

 

[coloradoclyde]

I made gluten free beer once for my aunt who is gluten intolerant. I used sorghum as the base fermentable. (Notice I said”¦ once). Not my favorite.
Bumble bee honey sounds interesting but I’m not going to fight the bumble bees for it”¦.they are mean and their sting hurts the worst of any bee I have been stung with. I’ll be in the house watching with a cold beer and an EPI pen. :grin:

 

[TNGhost]

Hopefully its cold enough they're not going to put up much of a fight. Saw one last night, on the doorjam in the garage, when I was working on my truck. He was moving...well, "slow as molasses in wintertime".

 

[coloradoclyde]

Float like a butterfly”¦.sting like a bee. :rotf:

 

[tenngun]

put out a dish of water with a drop or two of anise oil in it. set it near the bumble bees keep honey bees away, watch where they go. Follow that line and set down the plate and repeat. they will lead you to the hive. The honey is tasty but not much of it, hardly enough wax to make a candle,If you need to carry an epi pen dont even try.

 

[coloradoclyde]

I disturbed a bumble bee nest once and let me tell ya!
Boy did I unleash a firestorm of angry critters? Luckily I was only 3 steps from the truck.
They swarmed the whole truck like nothing I had seen before and were smacking the windows like a hail storm trying to get in.

 

[TNGhost]

On the other hand spruce beer isn't the same animal, at least in the recipes I've used. The spruce merely replaces or enhances the flavoring/bitterness, normally provided by the hops, while the body of the beer remains malted barley....

..., Did bring up another point though, malted barley has certainly been available for centuries. When it became available as a sweetener in syrup and dried form I'm not sure, but it is used in baking I think.

:haha: If you used malt in a spruce beer, you didn't have actual, authentic spruce beer from the colonial period. :haha: It was an anti-scorbutic, and was made from spruce boiled in molasses and water. They didn't age it. They began to drink it immediately, and it fermented in the barrel as they consumed it. A soldier was allowed a quart a day. I've found six recipes, and they all produce a product of the same flavor. I've had people tell me it's greatly improved if you let it age a year...problem is they didn't let it "age" in any of the references that I have found.

IF you want to try a quick simulation of the authentic product... take equal parts of regular Listerine mouthwash mixed with diet Pepsi, but just take a sip... :barf:

As for malted barley... yes they had it for centuries in Europe. Here in the colonies, not so much. I have read where it was lamented in the Virginia Gazette prior to the AWI that while barley grew well in Virginia, nobody grew it for want of a malting house. Seems there was a catch-22 involved... nobody wanted to build a malting house without a barley crop nearby....and nobody wanted to plant barely without a malting house nearby. Sam Adams, the founding father, ran his malting house into bankruptcy by 1766... the fellow the beer company is named after was a decendant with the same name.

Dried Malt Extract, coming from malt syrup, as far as I know, is from the second half of the 19th century.

LD

LD, you may want to check out this link:
http://www.beerhistory.com/library/holdings/chronology.shtml

It gives a very brief history of brewing in the states from colonial times. Included is a measure implemented 1775 allowing for the rationing of a quart of spruce beer or cider per day for soldiers and info on a brewery started in 1774 and in constant operation until 1986, in Philidelphia.

My favorite president, Thomas Jefferson, was also a brewer:
http://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/beer

(Cites beer as being ubiquitous in the early United States)

 

[TNGhost]

I disturbed a bumble bee nest once and let me tell ya!
Boy did I unleash a firestorm of angry critters? Luckily I was only 3 steps from the truck.
They swarmed the whole truck like nothing I had seen before and were smacking the windows like a hail storm trying to get in.

Maybe I'll wait until is consistently below freezing in a week or two here. :haha:

I am afraid though that I am going to have to wait until spring to try out tenngun's bumble bee tracking method

 

[Loyalist Dave]

LD, molasses or malted barley same idea

While it is the same idea, a sugar source, it is very very different in the flavor, especially when you use the spruce amount according to an 18th century recipe...or five. You could use table sugar and water and make simple syrup, and it would be the "same idea" as would be using cider.

I'd refer you to Libations of The Eighteenth Century. Although it's an older book and can use some updating, it still has valid information and documentation on the subject.

LD

 

[Katahdin]

There is a syrup made from Birch Trees,Was told folks in Alaska make it as they have few Maple trees!!!Never had any so can't say for sure,,,

 

[TNGhost]

LD,

Many thanks for the link, just ordered it. Always interested in more info on brewing, especially history.

I am a little skeptical of the veracity of the recipes, as the info on the site about the book said the beer recipes used amber malt extract, a relatively modern ingredient. If so, it may contain some "interperetive history". Still it looks like a very interesting book. I guess I'll see when it gets here.

Vomir le Chien, I saw birch syrup for sale on the same website (the one named for a big brazilian river) :grin: , 13.75 for 8 oz. :shocked2:

 

[Stringbean]

Could you pm me. I have honey bees and am interests in making mead. Thanks,
String