Solid Honey - What Now?

Have you ever gone to the cupboard to grab a jar of honey and found it’s a pale hard lump in the jar, not the golden liquid you expected?

This isn’t the time to throw it away, this is a natural process of “raw” honey and there are several options for your next move!

“Raw honey” is essentially honey that has been minimally fussed with, so not pasteurised. By keeping the honey ‘raw’ you retain the goodness that the bees have created in this delicious sticky syrup. I’ll talk about how honey is actually made in another post as for this one I wanted to focus on what to do when it goes hard instead.

When I take the excess honey from a hive I’ll process it as minimally as possible, getting it from hive to jar in as few steps and with the least fuss, this results in honey jarred by hive and so you get to taste the variety of flavours produced through the bees visiting and retrieving nectar from a variety of flowers, whilst also seeing the different colours of honey from clear through to dark amber.

By following the ‘minimal fuss’ approach it also means that our honey contains small particles (barely visible) of pollen, propolis and beeswax and is filled with phytonutrients and enzymes which are claimed to have both antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties; this is also why people often eat local honey when they suffer from hay fever, as if the honey contains the pollen particles which cause the issues an immunity can be built up over time and so it’s said can ease the discomfort of hay fever season.

As a side note, I believe ‘local’ is classified as 100 miles around your location, this makes sense as the flora in say Essex is very similar to that found in Suffolk etc.

So… get to the point Stacy, why does the honey go hard?

Honey is made up of water and a mix of sugars - mostly glucose and fructose. Over time the water separates from the glucose causing the sugar to take crystal form. ‘Raw’ honey may crystallise faster than highly filtered honey that you often get in the supermarket because the crystals will begin to form on the particles of the pollen, propolis and beeswax. New crystals will continue to build upon the older ones until all the glucose in the honey has crystallised. The type of nectar the bees collect also influences the rate of the process with each flower’s nectar having a different ratio of sugars - we often find that Springtime honey will crystallise a lot faster than Summer honey for example and Heather and Rape (Canola) honey are infamous for rapid crystallisation.

How does crystallisation affect the honey?

As crystallisation is completely natural it has little affect on the honey other than colour and texture. Many people prefer a more solid honey because of its ability to spread without dripping and so many beekeepers (me included) will create a set honey which we sell alongside the runny variant. When we make our set honey we attempt to manipulate the crystal size so that it is a little smoother than if we perhaps just left it to go hard in the jar. I personally prefer runny honey on my porridge and set on my toast but I’ll leave you to experiment!

How to make honey runny again

If you’re not a set honey fan then bringing it back to runny is quite easy. I’ve tried a few different ways and find the following the simplest. The main thing to remember is not to over-heat. I find when you’ve cooked dinner and the oven is nice and warm it’s the best time to do this - have the following ready to go and then turn off the oven.

• boil the kettle

• loosen the jar lid

• pop the jar into a bowl and pour the boiling water around the outside, if possible to just above the level of the honey

• put the bowl with honey into the warm but off oven and leave, you should see the honey starting to melt back into a liquid after about 15 minutes.

I have tried the method of just standing the jar in the hot water and this will work but I find that adding the warmth of the oven helps speed up the process - just make sure the oven is warm and off; not hot, as the temperature needs to be low enough not to start stripping the honey of it’s natural goodness.

When storing your honey I recommend you keep it in a cupboard, there’s absolutely no reason to keep it in the refrigerator and this will only hasten the crystallisation process. If you’ve bought some of my honey then I recommend having it on the countertop so all your friends can see it!