Honey drum liners

[sharpdog]

Hi guys,

When I last barreled honey, we just used standard drums that were previously used for honey. (20 years ago) We washed them with a pressure washer and thats about it. These days coop sells barrel liners, are these required, or recommended? What about epoxy lined drums? What do the packers want these days?

Thanks in advance,
Luke

[jim lyon]

Things haven't changed much in 20 years it seems. Make sure your drums are clean and dry and have a good epoxy lining with no bare metal showing and you are good to go. Some packers are touting the tote but I believe there are more disadvantages than advantages to making the switchover.

[Roland]

If you have money to burn, get reconditioned drums from a barrel supplier. Ours stay in house, so we can afford to keep all the barrels looking good.

Crazy Roland

[Ian]

I would be in favour of the tout

[dback]

I would be in favour of the tout

So you tout the tote

[Broke-T]

Are you refering to the big plastic totes? How do you get the honey out when it crystalizes?

Johnny

[jim lyon]

Yup and make sure more than one buyer is on board with your program

[Keith Jarrett]

How do you get the honey out when it crystalizes?Johnny

Pretty much the same way you get the honey out in barrels, barrels are painfully slow.

[Roland]

If you put a solid tote in a hot room to liquefy, does any of the plastic diffuse in to the honey?
I wonder if anyone has tested for it.

Crazy Roland

[jim lyon]

Good question. I know the buyer I talked to about them said that they sure like them if the honey is liquid but that they are not at all efficient to liquify when they are granulated.

[Ian]

handling the honey in a tote would make handling honey very efficient. But I have also wondered about granulated honey. Also, has anyone tried to clean out one of these things? If I ever got a dirty one like I get dirty drums from time to time, I would not enjoy cleaning the tote out

[jim lyon]

......then there is the matter of filling them. Even if you are set up pretty well, they take a loooong time to fill, unless of course you walk away and at that point the fill rate increases by a factor of about 5. Someday there may be a lot better (and also more marketable way) to handle large volumes of honey than the steel drum but if there is I haven't seen it yet.

[Keith Jarrett]

Use to sell to a local store chain ( Bel-air, Raley's, Nob Hill, food source, 100 plus stores) that had a central bakery, sold to them in totes, they use to have the tote right in there mixing line, they just kepted a light underneath it to keep it luke warm for pouring.

[sharpdog]

What about using the poly drum liners? How do you get the honey out with out the poly blobbing into the tank? I use totes for other things, they sure are nice to handle, but cleaning them would suck.
Luke

[doc25]

I'm guessing you could dump the contents of the barrel and cut the poly off after.

Honey (Packers or Pasteurizers)
Establishments packing and/or pasteurizing honey must ensure that:
•Written procedures are in place to ensure incoming honey and containers in which it is packed do not pose any biological, chemical or physical hazards; and meets compositional standards of honey.
•A system is in place to inform suppliers of specifications/requirements for incoming honey, including the use of food grade liners when the drum history and/or interior coating type are not known to be suitable.
•A mechanism is in place to communicate and follow up on non-compliant issues.

This is from CFIA website.

[Ian]

That goes for honey processing plants as well