Home honey better than commercial

[JC Bees]

Light hearted question here - even if maybe a bit dumb. I get the impression that home extracted honey is tastier than those in the supermarkets - why is this? I mean those of you who grow tomatoes know that they taste better than in the shops - but that's understandable as shop brought are washed several times, manhandled, transported, unripe etc. But honey? Surely everybody follows the same principal - like extract, mature/ripen, then bottle. So why the big difference. The people I given honey to, and who don't normally eat it, have all loved it and say it's better than the shops (maybe because itsfree?). I prefer my honey to anything bought in the shops - but maybe I'm just biased.

 

[psafloyd]

Light hearted question here - even if maybe a bit dumb. I get the impression that home extracted honey is tastier than those in the supermarkets - why is this? I mean those of you who grow tomatoes know that they taste better than in the shops - but that's understandable as shop brought are washed several times, manhandled, transported, unripe etc. But honey? Surely everybody follows the same principal - like extract, mature/ripen, then bottle. So why the big difference. The people I given honey to, and who don't normally eat it, have all loved it and say it's better than the shops (maybe because itsfree?). I prefer my honey to anything bought in the shops - but maybe I'm just biased.

Surely this is in part due to commercial honey being blended, removing any particular characteristics your honey may have. This is to produce a standard product that is easily replicated. But it doesn't mean it's bad, just could be a little bland.

 

[BKF Admin]

PASTURISATION
FILTERING
BLENDING

Shop honey is heated to slow down granulation on the shelf and also filtered to remove large pollen grains.

You will notice shop honey says "Pure" rather than "Raw".
Once heated it is not raw honey.

Its processed rubbish..

 

[JC Bees]

Well there you I've often wandered why shop honey on the shelves remains liquid for such a long time.

 

[whizzwheels]

I've had a couple of people tell me my honey tastes far better than anything bought from the shops, one of them didn't normally like honey.

On the subject of granulation I called in at my dad's this morning and he still has half a jar of the honey I extracted in May last year and it's still runny, no sign of granulation, but a jar I had from the August/September harvest had started to granulate by christmas.

So I guess time taken to granulate also depends on water content of honey as well.

 

[victor meldrew]

I've had a couple of people tell me my honey tastes far better than anything bought from the shops, one of them didn't normally like honey.

On the subject of granulation I called in at my dad's this morning and he still has half a jar of the honey I extracted in May last year and it's still runny, no sign of granulation, but a jar I had from the August/September harvest had started to granulate by christmas.

So I guess time taken to granulate also depends on water content of honey as well.

Water content no, ratio of different simple sugars yes,
Oil Seed Rape is an example of a high sucrose honey which granulates quickly

John Wilkinson

 

[Hombre]

High fructose content stays runny much longer than a high sucrose or glucose content.

 

[Adam]

Water content no, ratio of different simple sugars yes,

Water content does affect granulation (as well as suger ratio). Have a read of Honey - A comprehensive Survey by Eva Crane. It goes into quite some detail on how water content affects granulation.

Adam

 

[ROACHMAN]

most honey stocked in supermarkets is imported from Far East ehere the have different plants, even honey from well known companies which you would expect to be UK honey (such as Gales). Next time you are in the supermarket, take a close look at the labels

 

[Chris B]

Try sampling honey from other beekeepers. If you still think yours is the best then you'll know it's nothing to do with the processing, just a personal bias. There is huge variation in taste/quality in our local UK honey and it's primarily down to the nectar sources.

If you buy cheap honey in the supermarket it's probably from the cheapest source the packers could get, and hence probably the blandest. It's very little to do with the processing, although this will degrade the honey too. As for blending, this can be positive as well as negative.

I'll declare my bias. 50% to 80% of my honey goes for packing and ends up in Co-op's English set honey. It's relatively small batches and might include honey from half a dozen beekeepers. I challenge anyone to go out and buy a jar and run a blind taste test versus a few local honeys. If it doesn't come in the top half I'll eat my beekeeping suit.

 

[m100]

Water content no, ratio of different simple sugars yes,
Oil Seed Rape is an example of a high sucrose honey which granulates quickly

Surely you mean Glucose?

Sucrose is usually pretty low in all honeys except Borage and Clover iirc.

Fructose is the slow crystallising sugar, the more glucose with respect to fructose, the more rapid the crystallising.

 

[Flatters]

My eldest son is doing a project for his A level Biology. He initially was looking at varroa but it is proving to be too complicated for his level. He is now possibly looking at the comparison between the composition and microbiological efficacy of different sorts of honey including some of the premium ones like Manuka. He has written to the bee unit at York to see if he can go over there and get some guidance from them. Taste however cannot come into his results due to subjectivity. If people are interested I will post up his findings but it will be in 6-9 months from now.

 

[psafloyd]

PASTURISATION
FILTERING
BLENDING

Shop honey is heated to slow down granulation on the shelf and also filtered to remove large pollen grains.

You will notice shop honey says "Pure" rather than "Raw".
Once heated it is not raw honey.

Its processed rubbish..

Does that mean we should marketnour own honey as "raw", then?

 

[Russel]

This has been posted before but might be another reason why some "honey" is bland and cheap Feeding corn syrup>

A former BI stated that this sort of thing happens in this country too.....?

 

[Chris B]

This has been posted before but might be another reason why some "honey" is bland and cheap Feeding corn syrup>

A former BI stated that this sort of thing happens in this country too.....?

Russel this is just feeding for the winter. Nothing to do with honey produced.