Double Sieve Stainless Strainer

[Solomon Parker]

This is a very interesting thread. I had some troubles with the honey not flowing through my 600/400/200 micron strainers this year, I guess it was a little thicker than usual. I use two sets of them, each in the top of a 5 gallon bucket with a honey gate for bottling. I'm thinking of upgrading to three or four buckets, each with a stainless set and the plastic set. Perhaps with the 1000/500 stainless set, I can forgo the 600 micron sieve.

[kincade]

Good thread, although there seems to be some discrepancy about the size of the mesh. When I called a few days ago to order I was told it was 13 and 40 mesh (micron equivalent of 1500 and 400). I'm curious if anyone else can compare them to a known size? I don't want to filter down below 400 microns.

[beemandan]

I extract directly through a double sieve stainless strainer only. Nothing more. No cloth. No nylon. Zip. Pour it into the bottling tank, leave it for a couple of days then bottle. Any remaining junk floats to the top and since the bottling valve is located at the bottom....clean honey.
Mesh size? No idea. Small enough to catch the big stuff, large enough for pollen to pass.

[kincade]

Found the same product at Mann Lake and asked them for the specs of the mesh... Again, I don't want to filter down too far in order to leave the pollen in the honey.

The supplier tells Mann Lake that the mesh is 20 and 40 mesh, or the equivalent of 841 and 400 mesh. No idea the cause of the discrepancy, but it sounds like it will work for my use.

[Seymore]

The Double Sieve Strainer is all I use....I tell my customers that I don't filter the honey as this would filter out some of the pollen

Not trying to bust you, just wondering what I'm missing. Isn't filtering the same as straining. Read most of the thread that went into what is filtering - so I'm wondering if it is a widely accepted practice that straining is not filtering because no heat is used?

[Solomon Parker]

By definition, there is little difference. However, colloquially, a filter is generally understood to remove much smaller items from liquid than a filter.

Perhaps a better word to use instead of strain is screen. Screens by definition block large particles while allowing smaller particles to pass.

So we could say, "My honey is not filtered, but screened to [insert] hundred microns." That would eliminate the friction between filters and strainers.