Canola Honey

[Michael Palmer]

Anyone here familiar with Canola Honey? I've ben buying a Canola/Clover honey from a beekeeper, and have problems with crystallization.

I've had $15,000 in bucketed honey returned by a customer. I know it isn't all the fault of the Canola. Two loads are involved. First load had some 2004 honey, mixed in. It was very hard in the drum. Coarse, chunky crystals. My hot room didn't completely melt the harder crystals, and it is possible that some got through the system. I did heat it to 140 degrees...at least I assume I did. Second load, had none of that batch, but I noticed my final sump burned out the heater. I was only able to get the temp up to 125 to 130. Now 119 buckets of that batch are being returned. Haven't seen it yet, so I don't know the consistency of the crystals. Canola is a fine, smooth crystal.

So, my question. How hot should I heat honey containing Canola, to prevent it from crystallizing in the bucket, within say...2 months?

This is getting critical. I sell these folks 480 pails a month, and to have half a load returned is, well...

It's killing my budget!

[Sundance]

Canola does crystallize quickly.

[Allen Martens]

Canola honey tends to crystallize very quickly and very hard. If the canola honey is not at optimum crystallization temperature (above 15 C), it will form very large, course crystals. With a good percentage of clover honey blended in, it should be much smoother. If the honey has low moisture content, it with also be harder with larger crystals.

One problem with a clover/canola floral source is that bees will often chose the canola and the honey will have a lot more canola in it than clover. The beekeeper mistakenly thinks it will be a nice mix.

A large portion of the honey I produce is canola honey, I sell most of it as bulk honey. I tend to use other sources for container sales. Some packers will not purchase canola honey because it hardens in their lines and causes all sorts of problems. Other packers are set up for this. This being said, it is a very white honey.

I have found with canola honey if you doen't melt all of the original crytals and they were course to begin with, they will act as seed crytals and the honey will crystallize into a course texture.

[Michael Palmer]

>I have found with canola honey if you doen't melt all of the original crytals

So, how hot would you heat it?

[mobees]

Hi Mike

Canola is a thixotropic honey and will almost crystalize in the comb if you
leave it to long. Maybe the clover is near the canola fields, but I have a couple
of friends in Hungary that mix other honey with canola to keep it from crystalizing before it is in the jar. It is good honey, but it probably needs to get blended with a high level of clover or another like basswood. It makes good creamed honey.

[Allen Martens]

>Canola is a thixotropic honey and will almost crystalize in the comb<

Can't say that I would call canola honey a thixotropic honey in my experience. It has a low viscosity if extracted quickly enough and if it is remelted. Crystallization in the comb is a big problem with this honey. Several cool nights in fall can create cause crystallization to start. Fall supers can often have several pounds of honey left in them.

>So, how hot would you heat it?<

Can't give you an exact temperature from my experience. I fill honey into containers before it crystallizes. However, if my sump has canola honey in it, it will be solid after a few days. It doesn't seem to need a high temperature to melt, just some mixing if I want to get it all melted. From my experiences, the initial temperatures you mentioned should have been warm enough to melt the honey if the batch was kept at these temperatures for a long enough period of time.

[Iowabeeman]

In our operation we have found that some honey has to be kept at bottling temeperature longer than others to retard granulation. We don't get canola honey but some of ours will granulate in the jars within two or thee weeks if we don't get adequate heat on it. It's not entirely how hot you get it. It's how long you hold it there. This will vary with the equipment being used. We can hold our honey at 130 degrees for 10 or 12 hours without affecting color or taste. I would suggest keeping the heat on the honey for a longer period of time and see what the result is.