Use of fermented honey

I have just gotten into the wine and mead making adventure, and have made some good batches of wine according to friends and family. I have attempted to make mead(Cherry and Orange{just honey, water, fruit, and yeast) and and while the cherry is at about 3 months age and still slightly vinegar, the orange turned into a Pale Moon/Sam Adams esqe beer that is suprisingly good. I was also able to pull a second batch of wine of the orangethat is coming along fairly well.
The thing I was wanting some advice about is I was speaking to one of my local honey producers. They told me that they regularly pull “fermented honey” or honey that has to much water in it to sell and they just toss it he offered it to me to use as a sugar sub for my wine making. Would this “pre-fermented honey” actually work for wine,mead, and/or beer?
Any advice would be welcome after all I have only been doing this for about 4 months.
Thanks
Country

I’m sure it would work. I wonder if them calling it “fermented honey” is just jargon or if it’s really begun fermentation. If it truly is fermented then you might not like the yeast that has begun the fermentation as it is most likely Brett. This would mean you would have to do a minimum pasteurization so as to kill the wild yeast but try and preserve the honey flavor which is easily lost.

Never heard of that but it sounds like something to expierimt with. I had a Bret bragot that was very tastey. Above you mentioned one of your Mead was vinegary that doesn’t sound good. The bacteria that gives you vinegar ferments the alcohol it doesn’t age out it will make wine vinegar

I never heard of it until now, but it’s apparently a thing, probably for non-GMO organic health food dorks.

If I had some, I would taste it, and assuming it tastes just like honey, I would use it just like honey. But I sure as heck ain’t going out of my way to try it.

Yes, it’s a thing. Unfortunately one of the more common microorganisms in fermented honey is mold. Much of it is not harmful, but there are some nasties that can live in honey that you may not want to carry over into beer or wine. Including a particular clostridium strain that can kill you. Proceed with caution, and consider pasteurizing to take care of the mold. But keep in mind that pasteurization does NOT kill botulinum spores. Low pH will prevent its growth (below 4.5).

I call it vinegary its that in between that aint quite ready for drinkin just yet. Ya know ya do the taste test and you taste just a hint of vinegar, its happened with all of my wines so far i call it the proofing cause it still needs about a week or two to be ready for drinking.

so adding a acid such as oranges,pineapple, or other citrus after boiling with water should make it ok to use right?

Yeah, that will help. Ideally you’d measure it with a pH meter to know you’re in the safe zone. Also, clostridium is an anaerobe, so giving it a good aeration before pitching your yeast will help keep it at bay.

I still have no idea how I managed to make beer instead of mead and then make a wine on a secondary ferment of the same mash/slop?!?!?
But the beer(around a 7.5ABV If I recall) is good nice and pale and the wine is coming along very nice another 2 weeks to a month and it should be about right(it is a very pale yellowish? color but smells amazing).
The cherry mead/wine still has at least another month to 3 months to go( hopfully by Christmas or New Years) and it will be ready and it is a beautiful dark red in color.

Huh

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