Chilling temperatures & effect on honey

[David1976]

This warm weather is playing absolute havoc with my soft set honey making and it needs sorted before orders back up and customers complain or worse go elsewhere!

I'm struggling to find a reasonably priced wine chiller that would maintain the temperature and fit the standard honey buckets.

I do have a commercial fridge that will cool to a max of 8' do you think this would do for just now or will this adversely affect the look or consistency of the honey?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

you need to keep it at about 13-15°c any colder and it will take ages to set.
I've managed to make soft set honey in this weather by putting the bucket in my warming cabinet (turned off or set to a few degrees C then chucking a few cool blocks from a picnic cooler in there

 

[Ian123]

Why are you trying to chill it in buckets, I could understand if in jars and making soft set.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Why are you trying to chill it in buckets, I could understand if in jars and making soft set.

I tend to keep mine in buckets, stirring daily until it gets fairly gloopy, before jarring then still keeping it in a cool place

 

[David1976]

Why are you trying to chill it in buckets, I could understand if in jars and making soft set.

I find if I mix the seed and honey and let it set, then warm slightly, mix again and jar it, it comes out better than just setting straight from mixing

 

[ics19]

I'm struggling to find a reasonably priced wine chiller that would maintain the temperature and fit the standard honey buckets.

Ahh, the great quandary

I eventually got one of these:
https://subcold.com/collections/wine-coolers/products/28-bottle-wine-coolerbut it seems to have gone up a bit (ok, quite a bit) since a couple of years back. When I clicked on the page just now, it did offer a 5% off code though. It may seem a pricey luxury, but it's allowed consistent soft-set to be made anytime of year without phaff.

You can easily get a 30lb bucket to sit safely on the bottom shelf (only the front section of the bottom 'shelf' is wire racked as the compressor is enclosed at the rear). The shelf spacing means you could get two buckets in, but the individual wire shelves aren't looking up to supporting a full bucket!

If you do the "warm the bucket to jar up", then "cool the jars" process, then you can easily get all the jars distributed on the shelves to re-cool, but you'll need flat square baking trays or similar to sit the jars on and take out alternate shelves. Beware there can be a temperature difference between top to bottom of 4C or so, and with a bucket you may need to set to 12C to get a 14C at the bucket.

 

[David1976]

Ahh, the great quandary

I eventually got one of these:
https://subcold.com/collections/wine-coolers/products/28-bottle-wine-coolerbut it seems to have gone up a bit (ok, quite a bit) since a couple of years back. When I clicked on the page just now, it did offer a 5% off code though. It may seem a pricey luxury, but it's allowed consistent soft-set to be made anytime of year without phaff.

You can easily get a 30lb bucket to sit safely on the bottom shelf (only the front section of the bottom 'shelf' is wire racked as the compressor is enclosed at the rear). The shelf spacing means you could get two buckets in, but the individual wire shelves aren't looking up to supporting a full bucket!

If you do the "warm the bucket to jar up", then "cool the jars" process, then you can easily get all the jars distributed on the shelves to re-cool, but you'll need flat square baking trays or similar to sit the jars on and take out alternate shelves. Beware there can be a temperature difference between top to bottom of 4C or so, and with a bucket you may need to set to 12C to get a 14C at the bucket.

Cheers,

I went for this one last night as it was on offer a £179, glad I did as the price has gone back up this morning! Amazon let me pay ot over 5 months as well.

Fingers crossed for hassle free soft set.