Can you “seed” honey to keep it runny for longer?

[The Poot]

As honey needs to be seeded with soft set, to ensure it doesn’t set hard, but remain soft, would adding runny honey to a batch of extracted honey, (from who knows what) keep it from granulating longer?
(Bit of an odd question……but just wondered).

 

[Erichalfbee]

No but heating to over 60, I think, will. Do any of us want to do that though?

 

[Sutty]

No, crystal formation is made easier and more rapid by particles in a solution (honey in this case) or irregularities on a surface. I suspect the heating to higher temperatures dissolves small crystals already present thus delaying crystals growing.
With some substances you can create a "super-saturated" solution where concentration is such that it should have crystallised but the crystals have no focus to grow on. Adding a crystal or a rough surface, eg ground glass rod, then makes the whole volume crystalise almost instantly.

 

[Gilberdyke John]

No, crystal formation is made easier and more rapid by particles in a solution (honey in this case) or irregularities on a surface. I suspect the heating to higher temperatures dissolves small crystals already present thus delaying crystals growing.
With some substances you can create a "super-saturated" solution where concentration is such that it should have crystallised but the crystals have no focus to grow on. Adding a crystal or a rough surface, eg ground glass rod, then makes the whole volume crystalise almost instantly.

That's taking me back 60 years to afternoons in the chemistry lab. In the days when we had bunsen burners and glassware plus various noxious/acid/caustic reagents and no one wore huge goggles or rubber gloves. The only lab coat to be seen was the chemistry masters. Somehow we didn't kill or injure anyone.

 

[The Poot]

No but heating to over 60, I think, will. Do any of us want to do that though?

No, I wouldn’t want to do that.

 

[The Poot]

No, crystal formation is made easier and more rapid by particles in a solution (honey in this case) or irregularities on a surface. I suspect the heating to higher temperatures dissolves small crystals already present thus delaying crystals growing.
With some substances you can create a "super-saturated" solution where concentration is such that it should have crystallised but the crystals have no focus to grow on. Adding a crystal or a rough surface, eg ground glass rod, then makes the whole volume crystalise almost instantly.

Thanks. Interesting little video

 

[JamezF]

That's taking me back 60 years to afternoons in the chemistry lab. In the days when we had bunsen burners and glassware plus various noxious/acid/caustic reagents and no one wore huge goggles or rubber gloves. The only lab coat to be seen was the chemistry masters. Somehow we didn't kill or injure anyone.

My son tells me they don't use bunsen burners any more, which is rather disappointing.

James

 

[Sutty]

My son tells me they don't use bunsen burners any more, which is rather disappointing.

James

Probably because someone could burn themselves!
If we mollycoddle kids so much how do they learn to risk-assess??

 

[JamezF]

Probably because someone could burn themselves!

Oh no, they're quite capable of burning themselves. It's just that bunsen burners appear to have been replaced by electrical heaters. My son is all for it apparently, because they don't have to clean soot off the outside of equipment afterwards. Flasks and suchlike are rinsed with acetone and water and stacked in a dishwasher to be cleaned, so he tells me.

James

 

[Sutty]

I remember our chemistry lab, the sinks drained into channels in the floor covered with a floorboard flush with the floor, linking each sink.
On one occasion I was washing a compound I had made with acetone down the sink (as were the other pupils), once I'd finished I "accidentally" dropped a lit match in the sink.
I'd expected the flame in my sink, but not the one across the floors and out of the next several sinks!
Happily missed by the chemistry teacher somehow!

 

[rusper]

Freezing slows down crystallisation!

 

[Gilberdyke John]

My son tells me they don't use bunsen burners any more, which is rather disappointing.

James

I recall the class clown opening one of the gas taps on the bench and lighting the gas stream. The flame was about 8 feet high. The penalty of 5 Saturday morning detentions discouraged the rest of us from similar demonstrations.