I use a little honey in some of my hot drinks, and have a large container of it that has crystallized. I know that the honey is still good, but I tire of heating it up so it will liquefy (I only used a few drops at a time.) I got so frustrated with it that I bought a small honey bear bottle of honey, but now the sides of the bear bottle are sticky and the honey is all over the snap-lid. No amount of washing completely cleans it. So what can I do to prevent the crystallizing? And is there a clean way to store/dispense small amounts of honey?
If you're using raw honey, there's always going to be some crystallization. Don't ever heat it up in a microwave.....sacrilege to the honey. Put the bottle in hot water. You can use a chunk of crystallized honey just like free-flowing honey. Drop it in your tea and stir. I love crunching on a piece. Don't refrigerate your honey. My daughter and her husband have a honey operation as their side-hustle.
Thanks. I don't nuke it...I put it in a pan of warm water. And it stays in a dark cabinet. Do you keep yours in the original container, or do you have a preferred method of storage? One of these days I have to treat myself to some local honey rather than the grocery store stuff.
When we go see my sister in S. GA, we always bring home several jars of honey from my nephew's bees. He maintains a few hives, mostly for crop pollination since he's a farmer. The bonus is that he has plenty of honey! I keep the unopened jars (probably 16 oz size) in the dark in my pantry. We use honey quite often so it keeps well. Wipe the lid/dispenser with a wet cloth after using to help keep the stickies away.
I don't use a lot of honey because I don't have much of a sweet tooth, but, if I ever feel like I'm coming down with a sore throat, I'll drink tea with a bunch of honey in it and that usually takes care of it. I think local honey is always better than generically sourced honey. I don't find a need to sweeten very many things but if I were to do so, I'd use honey rather than sugar. Since we don't use a lot of honey, it tends to crystalize long before we've used the whole jar, and I don't think Michelle fully believes that it's still good then, so we end up with a fresh new jar of honey.
Much of the crystallization of honey depends on the honey structure. I kept bees for many years, mostly for pollination, but honey was a wonderful byproduct. I have two jars of honey that were given to me be the same local honey producer. One is from last year and has not yet crystallized, but the one from this year has crystallized completely. It is difficult to regulate but the flower selection seems to determine how quickly crystallization occurs. Here, Fireweed honey doesn't seem to crystallize at all, but "wildflower honey" does. I have read about it but I don't remember the reasons. Storage temperature also influences that, but it is all good and stores indefinitely.
I just went to my friend's greenhouse to buy a jar of locally grown honey (Eddie sells jams, jellies, honey, eggs, and a bunch of random stuff in addition to plants), and he's out. He's gonna call the guy and get some more in. Eddie likes the honey that's infused with hot peppers...I may try that. Regarding crystallization: It's a large container I bought at the grocery store several years before the crystals started forming. @Don Alaska makes an interesting observation regarding the content of the honey affecting the propensity to crystallize. I did know that it's good for human consumption forever, and they found honey in pyramids that is still edible, but the oldest [still edible] honey found to date is estimated to be 5,500 years old, found in a tomb in the country of Georgia during oil pipeline construction. I also read that stored honey slowly creates a substance (Hydroxymethylfurfural) that is toxic to bees.
I had some that had hardened because I was not using it often enough. I put it in warm water long enough to soften it and took it out of the plastic container and put it in a wide mouth pint jar. Now, even if it hardens again, I can use a spoon to get the honey out, or if I need to soften it up, it will be better to do it in the glass jar than in the plastic, which can lose its shape if it gets too hot (I have done that).
Pollen content and cool temperatures are what causes honey to crystalize. A low pollen honey kept in a warm room or pantry will last a lot longer before crystalizing.
I buy local honey and have not had any crystalized. But, I do recall getting some honey from a wanna-be honey maker once. He used a lot of sugar water at his bee hives trying to keep the bees there. His honey tasted like sugar mostly, and it crystalized pretty quick. I don’t know much about beekeeping but I thought bees need regular plant nectar to produce good tasting honey. AND honey is the only food that does not spoil.
Yeh, I worry about the plastic leeching into the honey if I get the water too hot. Maybe transferring it into a [wide mouth] jar would help. They sell this on Amazon for $11.99 (jar not included):
The mark of a poor beekeeper when sugar water is allowed to contaminate the honey. Sometimes in short-season areas like mine, sugar is used to get the bees going early when no natural nectar or pollen is available. Normally, this sugar water is used up by the time honey production really begins. Fake pollen made from soy is also sometimes used, but usually we collect pollen in a pollen trap and store it over winter in the freezer, then mix it with a little of the previous season's honey to make a cake that is fed to the bees to get the queen laying early. In warmer areas, none of this is necessary and the bees do just fine.
That looks cool. I have a honey server that's made of wood. I love all the new gadgets made to fit on mason jars now, though.
Make sure all the metal parts are made from real stainless steel. Some of the Chinese stuff is made from "not quite stainless" steel and can contaminate the honey. I even question using metal at all. I try to use glass and wood whenever possible, but sometimes plastic is unavoidable.