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Mike a

Drone Bee
Joined
Feb 13, 2010
Messages
1,785
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Location
Hampshire
Hive Type
Langstroth
Number of Hives
Between 17-20
I'm putting together some useful info for our new members ready for next year. I'd be grateful for some help.

75'F-24'C prepares blossom honey and seed honey for creaming; de-crystallizes semi-granulated honey in jars.
80'F-27'C blossom honey extraction (12 hours minimum)
90'F-32'C heather honey extraction (36 hours)
100'F-38'C liquefies semi crystallized honey (Stir 2-3 times / day)
120'F-49'C liquefies solidified rape honey (Stir 2-3 times / day)
122'F-50'C+ honey will be begin to lose flavour and aroma and spoil.
Over heated honey should only be labelled and sold as cooking honey.


Am I missing any other important temperatures?

I'm also trying to find information on how to lower the water content without damaging the honey without using a dehumidifier or refractometer and was told that gently heating the honey to approx 90'F-32'C or slightly higher for a day before taking a reading with a humidity gauge to would give a rough reading to the water content levels of the honey (Caveat - if heated in a reasonably air sealed cabinet or converted fridge) ?

Best advice of course is to beg, borrow or steal a refractometer to test but I thought I'd ask in case their is another simple method.

Cheers in advance :hurray:
 
I'm also trying to find information on how to lower the water content without damaging the honey without using a dehumidifier or refractometer and was told that gently heating the honey to approx 90'F-32'C or slightly higher for a day before taking a reading with a humidity gauge to would give a rough reading to the water content levels of the honey

Mike - good stuff, should be very helpful, thanks.

At our local honey show last weekend <cough, best light honey, cough>, the judge suggested that you could lower water content by leaving the honey in a shallow tray in a warming cabinet. Interesting chap, he also said mentioned that honey left at the bulb end of a warming cabinet would turn darker than that left further away, and this trick could be used to darken up honey to get it in the right category for shows.
 
You might find the enclosed paper of interest. It describes a way of reducing moisture content by circulating the honey using bubbles of air and also drying the honey whilst still in the comb. It is a bit long-winded but worth reading.

I am not sure about your "50C+ - honey begins to spoil". It depends on time and I would have thought it doesn't really happen until at least 55C and probably more like 60C, again depending on time. My experience is you need to heat up to around 50C to melt OSR honey. You have shown 49C for this but the honey doesn't suddeny spoil if you go one degree over.
 
Thank you all.
Grats Monsieur Abeille

:hurray:
 
Best advice of course is to beg, borrow or steal a refractometer to test but I thought I'd ask in case their is another simple method.

Why beg, borrow or steal when they're £15 on ebay?

Other than that, great idea compiling stuff like that, looks really useful.
 
Could this be stickied?

I'm putting together some useful info for our new members ready for next year. I'd be grateful for some help.

75'F-24'C prepares blossom honey and seed honey for creaming; de-crystallizes semi-granulated honey in jars.
80'F-27'C blossom honey extraction (12 hours minimum)
90'F-32'C heather honey extraction (36 hours)
100'F-38'C liquefies semi crystallized honey (Stir 2-3 times / day)
120'F-49'C liquefies solidified rape honey (Stir 2-3 times / day)
122'F-50'C+ honey will be begin to lose flavour and aroma and spoil.
Over heated honey should only be labelled and sold as cooking honey.


Am I missing any other important temperatures?

I'm also trying to find information on how to lower the water content without damaging the honey without using a dehumidifier or refractometer and was told that gently heating the honey to approx 90'F-32'C or slightly higher for a day before taking a reading with a humidity gauge to would give a rough reading to the water content levels of the honey (Caveat - if heated in a reasonably air sealed cabinet or converted fridge) ?

Best advice of course is to beg, borrow or steal a refractometer to test but I thought I'd ask in case their is another simple method.

Cheers in advance :hurray:

Admin, is this not worthy of a sticky?
 
I am not sure about your "50C+ - honey begins to spoil".

My experience is you need to heat up to around 50C to melt OSR honey. .


My experience is too that over 50C honey start to get extra aroma which resembles melted wax. And with that you are going to loose your best customers.

I have not succeeded to get crystallized rape honey any more liguid. It is better to leave to next summer and bees do the cleaning and melting work.

I use to keep crystallized honey buckets in the warm water bath. 55C water is maximum, but not more.
I am going to do it just now.

.
 
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You could heat air to 40C then blow it over the honey, chill the air that comes off the honey to 20C in some kind of heat exchanger to condense the water then recirculate though the heater again...
 
M. Abeille

<cough, best light honey, cough>

Good result from the show....as you also now know how to win the dark categories!
 
You could heat air to 40C then blow it over the honey, chill the air that comes off the honey to 20C in some kind of heat exchanger to condense the water then recirculate though the heater again...

That I do not understand.

If I look professionals system, he has a heating room. I need heating closet.

Combs should be warmed up 6 hours before extracting. If air does not flow between frames, heating does nlot help. It needs strong air movement.

When you continue 2 days heating, the honey starts to become too dry to extract.


My friend handle honey extraction in the temp ofg 20C and she do not heat combs. Awfull.
If she takes combs from hive and extract them at once, it goes better....but....awfull...
 
I always thought that heating honey over 40°C was bad because it kills the pollen.
When I melt honey, I do not raise the temperature. I just leave it longer.
 
.

Creamed Honey - Theory

Nicholas W. Calderone
Dyce Laboratory for Honey Bee Studies
Cornell University

http://www.masterbeekeeper.org/dyce/creamhoney.htm

Fine crystal honey treatment was once patented. Patent was released 1952.

Look at this By Cornell University

"The most satisfactory method for controlling honey spoilage is pasteurization – a process in which the honey is heated rapidly to 145 °F (63C) for 30 minutes - or 150 °F (66C) for 15 minutes - and then rapidly cooled. The elevated temperature destroys the yeast, thereby preventing fermentation.

The rapid heating and cooling process is essential to minimize damage to the honey from heating. Many people prefer not to heat their honey to such a high temperature; however, heat related damage to honey is cumulative and should be kept in perspective.

Honey stored at 77 °F (25C) for 40 days will incur as much damage as honey heated to 145 °F for 60 minutes.

The take-home message is simple – heat your honey for adequate control of crystallization and fermentation, cool it as rapidly as possible, then store it at 70 °F or less. While pasteurization eliminates fermentation, honeys heated to this temperature usually begin crystallizing again in a few weeks or months. The crystals that form after pasteurization are invariably large and coarse and make the resulting crystallized product undesirable for table use.

Therefore, liquid honey must be creamed immediately after it has been pasteurized.".




.
 
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When I say 'longer', I mean a couple of days... I thing my longest 'defrost' period was 4 days and was rock hard before warming.


Maybe a 'little' off topic. Interesting what you are saying about the heat killing the yeast.

I am just about to bottle my first batch of mead (it is amazing!). I have read numerous times about being careful of a 'foreign' yeast entering the mead and spoiling it (as per normal, I trial, then read about it during the test! :blush5: )

I have not considered pasteurizing the honey before it goes in the fermentation bucket (and not entirely sure I like the idea). Is this necessary?

Trial 2 will be starting next week! :)
 

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