best ways to strain....

so, i [used] my honey extraction today.... quite interesting, quite messy, and quite a bit slower than i thought it would be.... i use a hand crank to spin 3 medium frames at a time. i do NOT have an electric knife, so i had to resort to scraping open the caps with a fork. This leaves quite a bit of wax to be strained after spinning.... i strained through 3 different sized screens and never heated the honey at any time. Is there a way to speed up this process short of buying an electric knife? The honey looks like lemonade, perhaps just a bit darker.... i'm waiting for bubbles to rise before bottling the stuff.

There was a long thread with lots of ideas on this a couple of months ago, but basically the way I do it takes a couple of buckets with honey gates. Drain honey from the extractor into bucket number 1 with a gate. Let it sit for a while (depending on temperature), but it usually doesn't take long for 90% of the large wax to float to the top. Put this bucket on the edge of a table and under it put another bucket with a strainer on top. Open the honey gate and let the mostly clear honey go through the strainer. You can be filling the next bucket (without a honey gate) from the extractor. When the second bucket is under the extractor is full, pour it into bucket number 1. Again the wax will float. At some point you will need to strain the floating foam/wax, but most of the honey will strain quickly.

thanks! When you say: "Let it sit for a while (depending on temperature), but it usually doesn't take long for 90% of the large wax to float to the top.", could you give a rough time estimate?

It depends on temp. and how stiff your honey is. Also how much patience you have. With my normal honey, I start straining in an hour or less. Most big stuff that clogs your strainer will be up near the top by then. The longer you wait the less stuff in your strainer, but you can start pretty quick if you want.

What I found best to strain honey is go to an automotive paint store and look for a paint strainer they come in 5 gallon bucket sizes. They are great for straining honey and the cheap

agree swith savage... I put a filter right into the bucket (made for 5g buckets) and right out of the extractor into that. Separates out any wax pieces quite easily. I uncapped with a heatgun though, so there wasn't much wax anyways.