Filtering honey advice please

[alynewbee]

Hi All,

I've extracted a super of honey (my first - Hurrah!) I borrowed my BKA's extractor. The honey was very runny so I filtered it straight out of the extractor through a double steel filter and it went through no problem. So now I have a bucket of honey that I want to filter more finely. I bought a nylon filter cloth from Thornes but the honey is going through it incredibly slowly. I've filtered three jars in just under four days. I'm doing it in my airing cupboard which is pretty warm (I put a thermometer in there to check it out and it got up to 28 degrees). I'd really appreciate any advice. I don't have a honey warmer and the cost of hiring one I think might be a bit much considering I've only got one super to extract. What do you folk think about bottling it after just the double steel filtering? Not any obvious 'bees knees' in it as far as I can see.

Many thanks for any tips.

Alyson

 

[VEG]

Depends if its for you or for selling. The temp in the airing cupboard may be 28 but is it 28 constant.

 

[alynewbee]

No, 28 degrees is the maximum it gets up to. Do you think that's my problem?

 

[eric]

Hi All,

I've extracted a super of honey (my first - Hurrah!) I borrowed my BKA's extractor. The honey was very runny so I filtered it straight out of the extractor through a double steel filter and it went through no problem. So now I have a bucket of honey that I want to filter more finely. I bought a nylon filter cloth from Th**nes but the honey is going through it incredibly slowly. I've filtered three jars in just under four days. I'm doing it in my airing cupboard which is pretty warm (I put a thermometer in there to check it out and it got up to 28 degrees). I'd really appreciate any advice. I don't have a honey warmer and the cost of hiring one I think might be a bit much considering I've only got one super to extract. What do you folk think about bottling it after just the double steel filtering? Not any obvious 'bees knees' in it as far as I can see.

Many thanks for any tips.

Alyson

get it in jars unless showing it

 

[Black Comb]

No need for nylon filter if you've used a double steel one.
As Eric says, this extra usually only for showing.

 

[oliver90owner]

alynewbee,

All my honey goes through one of those nylon filter cloths, but simply your choice.

You may find that a finer kitchen sieve would trap more of the finer particles - so coarse and then finer and finer, allowing faster 'nylon straining'.

The usual thing is that when the coarse sieve gets a little 'blinded off', it filters very effectively, well below it's actual mesh size, but any disturbance will allow some larger bits through. This may well accelerate any granulation in your final product.

All part of not having so much to strain, nearly everything which will blind off the nylon cloth may well go straight through the coarse sieves.

I am wondering how you decapped your frames and how you are using the nylon cloth (like a 'jelly bag', or stretched over another bucket.

I often scratch some of the frames with a decapping fork and this produces copious amounts of small wax particles; I filter through the nylon cloth with an area of a 40cm circle and generally around 40 degrees C, or a little over. If there is any granulation in the honey at all, the cloth will be blocked quite quickly.

Also remember that the 'first to granulate' may result in the rest having a very slightly raised water content - not usually a problem unless an initial marginal water content in the honey and a quick granulating honey such as OSR.

And every time you filter through a fresh clean cloth you have lost a little in the last one - grrr! - your 10kg of honey is always diminishing!

The final proof of effective filtering (of runny honey) is to check the undersides of the jars for black specs, some time after bottling. Can't do that with soft-set, so it needs to be filtered effectively in the first place.

Regards, RAB

 

[alynewbee]

Thanks RAB, that has really shed light on what's been happening. Everything that is left in the nylon cloth is granulated now - still going to eat it though, its yummy. I've got the cloth lying inside a seive. I used an uncapping knife (not heated) to cut off my cappings. Then I melted all that cappings and general gook in a bain marie and got three jars of honey out of the cappings - looks a bit manky but again, yum yum.
I would like to show one jar of my precious honey as we have a novice class at our BKA that all new beeks are encouraged to enter. Looking for a jar with no black specs!

Many thanks

Alyson

 

[MandF]

I have found that many people ask for honey with comb in, because they have been advised it helps with hayfever etc. When I explain that honeycomb is just wax, and that they were probably told to go for honey with comb in because the comb would contain some pollen normally filtered out.

I then explain that my honey is not fine filtered, and will therefore contain the odd lump of pollen as well as all the pollen grains, so my honey has all the goodness of comb honey, but without the need to chew on wax. They buy my honey!

I think it pays to differentiate our honey with the rowse and gales honeys, explain ours contains pollen, that pollen pellets are sold in healthfood shops for a small fortune because it helps with hayfever etc.

In other words, dont spend lots of time and effort fine filtering unless you need to, and if a customer asks why they can see flecks of stuff suspended in the honey, tell them those are the really good bits, they are getting more for their money!

PS with regards to bee bits - they will sink to the bottom, the best thing to do is to leave your honey for a couple of days in a storage tank with tap, the air bubbles will rise to the surface which you can skim off and add to your own honey, then fill your jars but dont try and jar the very last bit - this will have all the bee bits. You can then scrape the storage tank out into another tub and fine filter this small batch to remove the bee bits - if you are squeamish about eating these in your own honey (like me!).

 

[Swarm]

There are customers and customers. Some understand the merits of the raw product but I think, in this day and age, there are far more fussy people who screw their faces up if they do not see what they expect to see.
An old beekeeper once told me that no honey compares with scraping fresh cut comb. You can have one on the comb and another extracted and the extracted will lose something in the process.

 

[Arfermo]

The warmer the honey is the faster it will run through the filter cloth and 40 - 45 C is not excessive.

 

[MandF]

There are customers and customers. Some understand the merits of the raw product but I think, in this day and age, there are far more fussy people who screw their faces up if they do not see what they expect to see.
An old beekeeper once told me that no honey compares with scraping fresh cut comb. You can have one on the comb and another extracted and the extracted will lose something in the process.

What I am saying is there is a definite market for people who actually want "stuff" in their honey. And people paying a premium for local honey are more likely to be of that mind.

I had 40 lb jars of my honey to sell at the weekend and sold them all within 3 hours. My honey is only filtered through the stainless double strainer (so 500micron max). I told most people I got into conversation with that we filter like that to keep in as much "goodness" as possible.

If they want perfectly clean/clear honey then they can go to waitrose, if I need to start fine filtering my honey to sell to customers then I will put the price of that honey up due to the extra work.

If I had more honey than I could sell, I might consider it to cater for that market, but as I said, I dont personally think there is much of a market of people willing to pay for premium local honey but who expect that honey crystal clear.

 

[buzz bee]

I mentioned on another thread that I had a request from a friend for 'cappings honey'. My honey that drips off the cappings, through muslin and then a fine nylon sieve, is still fairly 'gritty' but fine for my use. Seems other people might also be appreciating that removing less might be better.