Utilization of bee (Apis mellifera) honey for vinegar production at laboratory scale.

Abstract

Vinegar was obtained from bee (Apis mellifera) honey. The wort was prepared by diluting honey in distilled water to 21% total solids and by adding ammonium sulfate and ammonium phosphate. Saccharomyces cerevisiae was inoculated to the wort (4 g/L). Ethanol production was carried out at room temperature during 84 hours. In this study, 1 Kg of honey yielded about 5 L of wine, containing 8% alcohol (v/v), from a wort with 17.11% total sugars (w/v). The efficiency of the alcoholic fermentation was 81.34%. The acetic fermentation with an inoculum of mixed acetic microorganisms was performed by quick process in a 15 L vertical fermenter. This resulted in a vinegar containing up to 9% of acetic acid (w/v) and about 1% of alcohol (v/v). The acetic fermentation yielded between 91.24 and 97.21%. Approximately 5 L of honey vinegar with 9% acetic acid (w/v) were obtained from 1 Kg of bee honey. All attributes of honey vinegar showed acceptability index over 70%: 95.37% for appearance, 94.81% for color, 79.07% for odor and 75.56% for flavor, indicating it would show good consumer acceptability.