- Joined
- Mar 27, 2012
- Messages
- 3,103
- Reaction score
- 1,552
- Location
- Suffolk
- Hive Type
- National
- Number of Hives
- 5
I extracted the summer crop in mid August and passed it through a fairly course sieve into 30lb honey buckets. I now wish to prepare soft-set honey by mixing one bucket of summer honey with half a bucket of spring honey (partly OSR), after warming to 35C. After mixing and stirring I will pass through a finer sieve into the bottling tank.
On opening the buckets from the store room I found that the now-set spring honey is topped very little scum/gunge, however the summer honey has a thick 3-4mm layer of hard white 'lard'. I thought it might be easier to scrape it off before warming rather than warming then skimming the gunge off using cling film.
The amount of gunge is more than I remember from previous years. Grateful for your thoughts and advice. If I don't do anything the jarred honey is likely to be covered by a layer of gunge.
1st pic: Summer honey with, on the left, a scraped area revealing the 'lard' below.
Pics 2 & 3: Attempting to scrape off the lard
On opening the buckets from the store room I found that the now-set spring honey is topped very little scum/gunge, however the summer honey has a thick 3-4mm layer of hard white 'lard'. I thought it might be easier to scrape it off before warming rather than warming then skimming the gunge off using cling film.
The amount of gunge is more than I remember from previous years. Grateful for your thoughts and advice. If I don't do anything the jarred honey is likely to be covered by a layer of gunge.
1st pic: Summer honey with, on the left, a scraped area revealing the 'lard' below.
Pics 2 & 3: Attempting to scrape off the lard