I store my honey in 5 gallon buckets that have gates on them. I keep the buckets in my pantry, and dispense into quart/pint jars when needed. Maybe because of my location, and how dry the air is where I am, but I have yet to have ANY of my honey crystallize.
I just saw this. I wish I had one of the blankets versus the metal band that I have. When I first got my bucket heater, I melted a bucket when the honey level got too low.We have lots of 5 gallon buckets with honey in them. They store just fine.
If it crystallizes, we use a bucket blanket heater that works oh so nice!
I just bought one of these. Left it on for 3 days. Bottom of the bucket was still full of crystalized honey. I also had condensation under the lid of the bucket. Any suggestions for helping the bottom of the bucket and the condensation on the bottom of the lid.We have lots of 5 gallon buckets with honey in them. They store just fine.
If it crystallizes, we use a bucket blanket heater that works oh so nice!
We sometimes get condensation. We just wipe it off. Maybe crack the lid a bit.I just bought one of these. Left it on for 3 days. Bottom of the bucket was still full of crystalized honey. I also had condensation under the lid of the bucket. Any suggestions for helping the bottom of the bucket and the condensation on the bottom of the lid.
IMO "Boil" is too hot, it is like 212. I would recommend "Simmer" 120-150 should be hot enough to melt the honey. I use the "low" setting on the stove it never boils but does de-crystallize.Place the whole bucket inside a large pot with water on the stove and slowly boil the water on a low setting of course.
that is a great idea, can do many more than a pot full as wellI have built a cabinet to warm honey to deCrystal honey. A couple hours in the shop to build. Out of scrape plywood. And a dimmer switch and a light bulb. I Amit that I now use a thermostat controller for the lightbulbs . But can be done for a twenty dollar bill
thanks the pdf is in the to do list, seems easy enough. this years honey is setting up already, be nice to do many instead of 3 or 4 at a time.Here is the link to some plans to a honey cabinet I built with a dimmer switch. Like smokepole, I put an Inkbird thermostat on it to dial in the exact temp, although that really is not necessary. And like ericweller, I have since purchased a bottling tank, however, I still put my buckets in the heater over night before I pour it into the bottling tank. For the exact reasons eric gives above.
http://www.michiganbees.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Bucket-Heater_20100726.pdf
We did that and it still crystallized on the bottom, and it is on a butcher block counter so we can dispense it to customers; our next step is to buy a seedling warming pad that would be used for germinating seeds. They sell them on Amazon. Then you could put that on top of the insulation under the buckets you dispense from. We have a warming blanket around them set on a timer to control the honey temperature in the dispenser. We use food grade buckets to store the honey in and use a warming box that uses a 100 watt bulb for heat, with an adjustable dimmer switch to control how much heat is put out. DebWhen researching the bucket blanket heaters at least one supplier recommended setting the bucket on something to insulate it from cold floor temperatures.