Fermenting with Honey & Beeswax

Honey is a magical ingredient, an alchemic blend of floral nectar transformed into sweet gold when mixed with the enzymes found in the stomachs of honey bees. Housed in a wax cell created by the bees and then fanned for an hour to reduce the water content to create a delicious substance with an eternal lifespan. 

This incredible ingredient is brilliant for kickstarting ferments to preserve foods for long periods of time and enrich foods with sweet, herbal flavours. Honey ferments include mead, honey fermented jam, fermented sauces and more. 

Come along to this unique workshop with fermentation and bee expert, Rachel de Thample, to open up a whole new avenue of ferments to get your taste buds tingling. As well as honey, Rachel will also throw a fun fruit ferment into the mix using another wonderful bee ingredient: bee’s wax. If you’ve never had strawberries or butter fermented in beeswax, you’re in for a treat.

You’ll also learn lots of fascinating facts about bees. Did you know that they forage herbs and medicinal mushrooms to help protect themselves from disease? 

Rachel’s new book is the River Cottage Bees & Honey handbook and her previous book River Cottage Fermentation both make her the perfect candidate to marry one of the most desired ingredients with one of the most popular and nutritious ways to preserve food.

 

Learn how to make:

• A fermented jam featuring local honey and summer fruit
• Honey fermented ketchup, barbecue sauce and chilli sauce – summer sauces sorted!
• Homemade honey vinegar
• A sparkling mead with wild yeasts 
• Bee’s wax ferments – including summer berries and butter

Whether you’re a beginner or an experienced fermenter, this workshop is a fascinating introduction to a lesser known fermentation technique. 

 

What to bring

We ask participants to bring 3 jars (approx. 400ml ) and a tupperware box to take your beeswax ferments home in. This encourages re-use of objects you already own.

 

Cancellations

We appreciate that there will be circumstances whereby you will need to cancel your course or change the date. Given two or more weeks notice we are happy to offer a full refund. For cancellations within two weeks of the class date a full refund will be offered if we can refill your booking or 50% refund if not. If the notice is given 1 week before the course, the refund is at the discretion of The Fermentarium. We are unable to refund cancellations with less than 24 hours notice of the start of the class.