Sweet life: how to choose the right honey

2024 Author: James Gerald | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 14:00

Autumn is the time to stock up on honey, because right now the freshest product is presented on the shelves, and honey fairs are held everywhere, where you can buy it at a bargain price. Cleo will tell you how to choose good honey and how to store it correctly.

Where is the best place to buy honey

For packaging in an industrial way, honey is most often pre-melted. By law, one-time heating is allowed, however, at temperatures above 40 degrees, toxic compounds are formed in it, and useful properties are lost. Therefore, it is better not to buy honey in supermarkets.

If you nevertheless decide to buy in a store, choose only the honey that is mined in your region. The presence on the shelves of an imported product at a lower price directly indicates its poor quality.

It is best to buy honey either at fairs or in the markets, where a special area is set aside for honeymen. Private traders exhibit their products there.

The lowest price for honey can be found at seasonal honey fairs. There is often a mobile laboratory where buyers can check the quality of the honey. Information about the fairs is usually published in local newspapers, and also appears in the Internet versions of these publications.

When buying honey, you should ask the seller for a business card and clarify what days he is here. If at home you have doubts about the quality of the purchased product, you can bring it back and demand a refund.

In general, try to buy honey closer to the place where you usually buy provisions. A casual buyer will not always waste time trying to return a low-quality product, and merchants know this. But if you make it clear that if you like it, you will come back more than once, most likely, the seller will be more honest with you.

Checking the maturity of honey

If the honey was pumped out ahead of time, then the necessary biological processes have not yet finished. Such a product has almost no benefit, in addition, it has a high water content, as a result of which it cannot be stored for a long time.

A sign of the beginning of fermentation is foam on the surface of the honey and small bubbles in its volume (do not confuse with large bubbles that appear in honey when it has just been poured from one dish to another). Sourness appears in the taste of fermented honey, but there are varieties for which a sour taste is the norm, for example, buckwheat, melilot, heather. Therefore, before buying, it is better to find out in advance how the variety you need should taste like.

Before buying, it is better to find out in advance how the variety you want should taste like.

Ripe honey should be thick enough. You can check its maturity as follows. If you put honey in a spoon and start twisting it quickly, good honey will not have time to drain, and a thin trickle will begin to overlap in layers around the spoon.

It is not always possible on the market to do this, so ask the seller to raise the ladle with which he is pouring honey as high as possible. The trickle should not be interrupted, and the drained honey should be superimposed in a slide. If the honey drips off, it means that it is immature or a fake in front of you.

If, when storing honey, the lower part of it begins to crystallize, but the top remains syrupy, then you still bought unripe honey. If there are no signs of fermentation in it, then it is better to eat it in the very near future, since it will not be stored for a long time in any case.

Crystallization

Crystallization of honey is a natural process that does not affect the quality of the product in any way. Good honey, when stored properly, does not lose its properties at all, so if you have a familiar beekeeper, you can buy last year's product. However, it is best to buy liquid honey from an unfamiliar seller during the season, since its maturity is much easier to determine, and most of the impurities in it will be visible. When buying crystallized honey, you will no longer see any impurities. How to check their presence at home is described below.

If you buy honey in winter or early spring, then on the contrary, you should avoid liquid honey. In this case, this indicates either that the honey was heated, or that in front of you is a fake.

Checking for impurities

Unscrupulous sellers can add impurities to honey in order to reduce the cost of the product or improve its appearance.

So, ordinary sand can be added to increase the weight. To increase the density of honey - gelatin. Counterfeit honey has difficulty crystallizing, and flour, starch, or chalk can be added to mimic this process.

As a rule, special reagents are used to check the quality of honey. But some of the tests can be done at home using more affordable means.

Unscrupulous sellers can add impurities to honey in order to reduce the cost of the product or improve its appearance.

To check for mechanical impurities you need to put a small amount of honey in a transparent glass, add a small amount of distilled water (sold in a pharmacy) and stir thoroughly. If there are mechanical (insoluble) impurities in honey, they will either settle or float up.

To check if honey was added starch, to the same solution you need to add a few drops of iodine. If the product is of poor quality, the solution will turn blue.

Determined by availability gelatin the situation is a little more complicated, since for this you will need a 5% tannin solution, which, perhaps, not every pharmacy has. However, if you wish, you can find it. So, to check, you need to mix a solution of honey with tannin in a ratio of one to two. If white flakes appear, then there is gelatin in the product, if the mixture simply becomes cloudy, then everything is in order.

Rare varieties of honey

If a seller in the market convinces you of the exceptional rarity and healthiness of the product being sold, do not rush to buy. Ask him in what area honey is collected, when the honey plant blooms, how many hectares are occupied by its crops, how much honey is put up for sale, etc. Also remember well the consistency of honey, its color and smell. Then take a look on the Internet, best of all on the blogs of beekeepers, and compare the information. You will find articles on the most frequently falsified types of honey (for example, May) right away. If the honey you want to own belongs to their list, then it's better not to risk it.

Also, avoid buying creamy honey (a whipped product with a delicate texture and creamy taste). Although whipping itself, if done correctly, does not diminish the beneficial properties of honey, most often this procedure is done with a low-quality product. Even if the seller assures you that the cream is made from the freshest honey, it is likely that either last year's honey or cheaper varieties were added to it. Also, such honey may just be fake. Indeed, why do something with fresh ripe honey, because it already tastes good and has an attractive appearance.

How to store honey

The simplest and most convenient container for storing honey is a glass jar. However, do not forget that honey loses its beneficial properties in the light, so you need to either put it in a dark cabinet, or wrap it in an opaque bag and remove it away from direct sunlight.

You should not store honey in plastic, because over time, it begins to release harmful substances.

In addition, plastic has a negative effect on the quality of the products that are stored in it. For example, structured or activated water, which is poured into a plastic bottle, completely loses its medicinal properties in a few hours, while in a glass decanter it retains them much longer.

Ceramic dishes and wooden barrels are also good for storing honey. Ceramic does not react with honey and does not transmit light. As for the kegs, you should buy them only if you are confident in the environmental friendliness of the materials from which they are made.