storage between extraction and sales

[Pat]

How do folks generally store their honey after extracting but prior to selling. I usually get between 5 and 10 5-gallon buckets per year...enough to keep a handful of customers supplied. The problem is it inevitably crystallizes in the buckets after a few months, making it very hard to bottle. How do you get around this? Bottle the honey immediately and store in freezer?

[Michael Bush]

I try to sort the honey by color when I extract. The end result is some honey crystalized in a month or two and some takes a year or two. If you keep it somewhere at room temps (70 F or so, not the basement or the garage) it happens slower than at 50 degrees or so (like the basement).

If it crystalized, I put it in hot water to liquify it. I can fit about 5 buckets in the bathtub with it full of hot tap water. It takes several refillings with hot water to finally liquify it, but it doesn't hurt the flavor any.

You can also buy a heat belt to liquify a five gallon bucket. Make sure this on not on above the honey level or it will melt the bucket.

Some people use an old refrigerator or an insulated wooden box with a light bulb for heat and a thermastat to turn the light on and off.

I try not to bottle until I'm ready to sell it. But sometimes you end up with a lot of jars of crystalized honey. You can use the hot water bath method on these by heating some water in a pot on the stove and putting them in that. The newer crystal clear sqeeze bottles don't take hot water very well and will warp if you get them too hot.

[Gregg]

That is what I do, bottle it and immediately freeze it. I invested in a couple of large chest freezers for the honey house (and with the one we have at home), we can store a lot of honey in them. I also fill 5 gallon pails and liquify the honey in them with an electric heat belt and bottle what I need later in the year.

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Gregg Stewart

[ekrouse]

Michael:

If you reheat your jars in hot water to reliquify them, what happens to your labels? Are they destroyed so you have to relabel? Please seem my question under the topic "Label Glue" posted today.
Thanks

[Michael Bush]

I would postpone putting on labels until you're actually ready to sell them.

[Pat]

Thanks for the reply's. I've tried the hot water in the tub method and gave up after about 10 tub refills. A little too energy intensive for me. How long does it take to liquefy a solid 5-gallon bucket with a belt heater?

[Michael Bush]

Overnight will do it. Probably less if you want to keep an eye on it and stop when it's just gotten done.

[ekrouse]

Michael, what kind of glue do you use on the labels? Are they self adhesive or some other kind.

[Michael Bush]

I haven't needed labels. Most of my jars are Muth jars that say they are honey on them or I sell comb honey and I've only sold them directly to people I know.

[joey33]

Beekeepers are so much smarter than the average Bear. They have knowledge of science, to help them do what is needed. Honey is an unstable chemical mostly made of two simple sugars glucose (solid), and fructose (liquid). It is unstable because it is only 17% moisture. All chemicals will be affected by three natural factors; time temperature and agitation. Unstable glucose molecules are on a mission, they are going to try and form themselves into a solid crystal. Glucose molecules will do this by clinging to anything they can; dirt, wax, the inside surface of your honey bucket. These unstable molecules need some way to ‘travel’ to what they want to cling to. Air is the best road for a molecule travel. As agitated glucose and fructose molecules travel through the air trying to cling to something they absorb some of that air and become more stable forming a crystal like formation. So what does this have to do with honey storage? If there is air above the surface of your honey, it will absorb some of it and crystallize. Store honey in an air- tight container like one with a flouting lid. Other foods are stored like this, why not honey? In 1931, Dr. E. J. Dyce of Cornell University found that the very best temperature to encourage honey crystallization was 57 degrease F. That covers what I said above. Store honey at about 70 to 80 degrease F not the garage or basement. Glass is the choice of most containers used for science experiments, why? Glass is easy to clean and it transfers temperature quickly and holds that temperature well, and it is not porous like soft squeezable plastic. We all know tropical fish need a well maintained water temperature. What are the best aquariums made of? Next point, agitation; simple don’t shake up or move your honey too much. Last point; time, I’m not going to say much about this, we all have freezers.

I am not a scientist or a beekeeper, this is knowledge you all have. I share it with you from candy making.