# Mead using silan?



## mennyg19 (Aug 11, 2016)

Hi, has anybody tried making mead out of silan? Its honey made from dates. Im wondering if and how it would work out


----------



## BernardSmith (Aug 11, 2016)

I have made date wine from date syrup, but I don't think that that is recognized as a mead.


----------



## mennyg19 (Aug 11, 2016)

The biblical "honey" mentioned in the bible, is date honey 
Thanks Bernard, how did it come out?


----------



## jwaldo (Aug 12, 2016)

According to wikipedia, date honey is 'a thick dark brown, very sweet fruit syrup extracted from dates', so not really 'honey' (as made by bees). I would guess this would throw it into the Melomel category. Apparently it is made up of very simple and very quickly absorbed sugars - not sure what this would mean for fermentation, but I guess that yeast would love it.

At $20+ per pound (yikes!) it might be better to just toss some chopped up dates into the bottom of the primary/secondary (unless you have been gifted a jar).

Thinking about dates and their flavor however, I think it could make a very interesting tasting mead.

Please post your results if you go for this.

Thanks,
Jim.


----------



## mennyg19 (Aug 12, 2016)

Thinking of trying it out. Its WAY cheaper than $20 a pound here in Israel... Maybe thats why its called the land of "Milk and Honey"


----------



## hounddawg (Aug 15, 2016)

from your mouth to God's ear.
I can tell you one thing I'll never call honey expensive here in the U.S.A. again.
an I pray ya'll from the holy land knows most of the U.S.A. are furious over the way that freak obamma treats ya'l
Dawg 





mennyg19 said:


> Thinking of trying it out. Its WAY cheaper than $20 a pound here in Israel... Maybe thats why its called the land of "Milk and Honey"


----------



## mennyg19 (Aug 16, 2016)

hounddawg said:


> an I pray ya'll from the holy land knows most of the U.S.A. are furious over the way that freak obamma treats ya'l
> 
> Dawg



Thanks for the support Dawg, but I dont think its good to get too political on here. Not the place


----------



## BernardSmith (Aug 16, 2016)

Hi Menny - The date wine I made I made from date syrup which is available here in the USA. And by the way, I very much agree with you about the meaning of honey as the word was used in the tanach (bible) and in talmudic literature. It does seem clear that the word referred to the juice or syrup of dates. Indeed, it is not obvious that honey was viewed as kosher (suitable for food) until the middle ages: unlike some crickets, bees are not considered a kosher insect and any product of a non kosher animal is not kosher so honey was likely viewed as non kosher. During the middle ages it was determined that honey was not the equivalent of milk and so was viewed as kosher... Rashi, the great commentator on the Torah (b 1040) , was a vintner and I assume that he had some professional familiarity with bees, discusses how honey is produced by the bee. Not sure how scientific his account is but that, as they say, is another story. But his account is invoked to explain why honey is a kosher product.


----------



## mennyg19 (Aug 16, 2016)

BernardSmith said:


> Hi Menny - The date wine I made I made from date syrup which is available here in the USA. And by the way, I very much agree with you about the meaning of honey as the word was used in the tanach (bible) and in talmudic literature. It does seem clear that the word referred to the juice or syrup of dates. Indeed, it is not obvious that honey was viewed as kosher (suitable for food) until the middle ages: unlike some crickets, bees are not considered a kosher insect and any product of a non kosher animal is not kosher so honey was likely viewed as non kosher. During the middle ages it was determined that honey was not the equivalent of milk and so was viewed as kosher... Rashi, the great commentator on the Torah (b 1040) , was a vintner and I assume that he had some professional familiarity with bees, discusses how honey is produced by the bee. Not sure how scientific his account is but that, as they say, is another story. But his account is invoked to explain why honey is a kosher product.




Thanks for all that Bernard. I knew about the whole controversy regarding the kosher status of (bee) honey but didnt know all the details.
How did your date melomel come out? Worth the try? It'll be my second wine. First was a DB


----------

