{"id":1137,"date":"2015-12-02T17:00:20","date_gmt":"2015-12-02T23:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bohemianutopia.com\/?p=1137"},"modified":"2023-04-04T16:10:54","modified_gmt":"2023-04-04T21:10:54","slug":"de-crystallizing-honey-diy-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bohemianutopia.com\/?p=1137","title":{"rendered":"De-Crystallizing Honey \u2013 DIY"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of my best harvests this summer was from a few hives that had been near a LOT of mesquite trees while they were in bloom.\u00a0 The honey is some of the lightest, sweetest honey that I have seen.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, though, mesquite nectar tends to crystallize.\u00a0 Quickly.\u00a0 Did I mention that it gets granular and crystallized fast?\u00a0 It does.\u00a0 Really…<\/p>\n

Honey is a mixture of fructose and glucose (and amino acids) – and every flowering plant that created nectar – makes the nectar at different ratios of glucose to fructose.\u00a0\u00a0 Once the bees dehydrate the water from the nectar (from about 80% water to about 17%-18% water) – it becomes a supersaturated sugar solution.\u00a0\u00a0 Eventually – natural honey WILL crystallize – the “when” is determined by flower source (factored out to sugar ratios) and moisture content.\u00a0\u00a0 Some honeys will stay liquid for years – and some will crystallize almost before we can spin it from the frames.<\/p>\n

Here’s a shot of my last jar of my personal stash of mesquite tree honey:<\/p>\n

\"Crys_b\"<\/a> \"Crys_a\"<\/a>The entire jar has crystallized almost solid.<\/p>\n

The fix is to warm it.\u00a0 I put this particular jar in my truck – with the windows rolled down a bit to keep it from getting too hot.\u00a0 A few hours later, I checked it – and it was completely liquid again.<\/p>\n

Here it is AFTER being in the cab of the truck for about 2 hours.<\/p>\n

Be careful not to get the honey too hot.\u00a0 If it gets above about 130 deg. F, then there is a potential to destroy beneficial enzymes in the honey.\u00a0 So, keep the honey to a range of about 100-110 deg. f. to keep the beneficial aspects intact.<\/p>\n

\"Crys_d\"<\/a> \"Crys_c\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of my best harvests this summer was from a few hives that had been near a LOT of mesquite trees while they were in bloom. The honey is some of the lightest, sweetest honey that I have seen.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, though, mesquite nectar tends to crystallize. Quickly. Did I mention that it gets granular and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":873,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[97,98,83,99,12,13,15,102,11,103,46,107],"tags":[188,891,892,257,296,893],"class_list":["post-1137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bee-yard-projects","category-beekeeping","category-bohemian-life","category-bohemian-utopia","category-crafts","category-gardening","category-harmony-hollow-apiaries","category-life","category-permaculture","category-recipes","category-sustainability","category-texas-master-beekeeper","tag-crystallized-honey","tag-fructose","tag-glucose","tag-honey","tag-liquefy-honey","tag-ratio","odd"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.bohemianutopia.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/Crys_b1.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2ze45-il","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bohemianutopia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bohemianutopia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bohemianutopia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bohemianutopia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bohemianutopia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1137"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.bohemianutopia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1137\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2594,"href":"https:\/\/www.bohemianutopia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1137\/revisions\/2594"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bohemianutopia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bohemianutopia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bohemianutopia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bohemianutopia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}