# Drums Crystralised honey



## sweetas (Apr 16, 2012)

I have the opportunity to buy 6 drums of crystallised honey at a good price. I don't have the facility to warm up a whole drum. 

I have thought about using a wood auger to drill a hole in the honey then put a stream tube in it to melt the honey.

Would a 1" to 1.5" auger work.

Any other suggestions.

thanks

Geoff


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## deknow (Jul 17, 2006)

Geoff...make it easy on yourself.

Build an in insulated box that will fit over the drum plus some room for the following:

Electric heater (a consumer unit...I use an oil filled one in the shape of a steam radiator...it has 2 elements that can be enabled independantly). If you want to process them all at once, build it big enough for all 5.

A small fan

Some kind of thermostat. I use a high quality ranco unit, but there are lots of inexpensive options.

Wire it up so you can set (and read) the temp from the outside, set the thermostat to the temp you want the honey at, and have the fan blowing all the time (NOT wired to the thermostat).
Small fan


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## FlowerPlanter (Aug 3, 2011)

Were you planning to blow stream in, or a closed pipe?
The steam will condensate and turn your honey to water. 

http://www.northerntool.com/shop/tools/product_200577801_200577801

If it's crystalized I could be raw honey, you would want to heat it slow and lowest temp possible as to not damage it.


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## Tenbears (May 15, 2012)

just buy a barrel band heater. In the long run it will be cheaper.


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## deknow (Jul 17, 2006)

My setup would cost less that that $150 (you can probably repurpose an existing heater and fan) amd maybe take 2 hours to put together. ...most importantly, you won't burn the honey. I isn't reasonable to expect a band heater to properly heat the whole barrel and not overheat the spots with the band.

You gain a lot in this process whem you are hearing the air around the drum.


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## sweetas (Apr 16, 2012)

Thanks for the suggestion.

Yes, I could make a small room from 3" coolroom material. Have some globes to heat it up. I still have some incandescent globes ( 10% efficient for light, 90% heat.) I use an old 400 litre freezer on it's back , can heat up 6 buckets or 120 kg at a time. I use 1,2 or three globes with a good fan blowing all the time. The drums are heavy at nearly 300kg.

In a 1,000 litre commercial freezer, I do have an electric column oil heater that seems to cut out at just above 40 degrees C, so that could work.

Keep the ideas coming

thanks


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## Rader Sidetrack (Nov 30, 2011)

>> Keep the ideas coming

OK 

>> I still have some incandescent globes ( 10% efficient for light, 90% heat.) 

Note that in a closed box (whether a homemade box or a re-purposed freezer etc), ALL light bulbs are always 100% efficient at generating heat. Since no light escapes the box, the visible light just bounces around, _partially_ reflecting off the box walls until it is _all_ absorbed as heat. It doesn't matter what kind of bulb you are talking about, the result is the same, _all_ the energy is used in heating the box. (Of course, a bulb that has a smaller wattage will heat more slowly than a bulb with a larger wattage.)


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## deknow (Jul 17, 2006)

.....except (I think) that if the task is to heat the air inside the container, that heat generated by the bulb accomplishes that task more efficiently than heat absorbed by the walls due to light bouncing off of (and being absorbed by) them.....unless your insulation was 100% efficient. Try heating a box with bright (consumer) leds.


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## Riverderwent (May 23, 2013)

Rader Sidetrack said:


> >> Keep the ideas coming
> 
> OK
> 
> ...


Then it is 110% efficient if you sit in the box and read.


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## Rader Sidetrack (Nov 30, 2011)

>> ... that heat generated by the bulb accomplishes that task more efficiently than heat absorbed by the walls ...

Note that the walls will reradiate (inwards) some of the heat absorbed from visible light. I did fail to point out in my post above that some of the light that is 'bouncing around' after being reflected by the walls will hit the barrel of honey and be absorbed as heat there. How much heat actually escapes the box is dependent on how efficient the insulation is. One would be hard pressed to demonstrate a difference in overall heating performance between LED bulbs and any incandescent bulbs of equal wattage, IMO.

I suspect that using foam board with reflective foil adhered to the 'inside' face of the foam would provide the best performance. Something like this ...







photo credit


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## BB1980 (Jan 22, 2016)

Build a giant solar oven around it with cardboard and foil?

+1 on the band heater for ease.

Wrap water hose around the outside of the barrel, hook up a small recirc pump and recirc water from hot water heater through hose and back into cold side of water heater.


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## HillBilly2 (Jul 26, 2015)

Electric Blanket folded in thirds long way. Wrap around barrel and duct taped. Wrap with fiberglass house insulation. Plug it in and come back in a week.


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## sweetas (Apr 16, 2012)

I have done a set-up for something similar to that for warming up drums that need warming up. Put food grade hose into drams that have a large opening.



Used solar hot water pump. Pumps about 300 litres an hour. So nice and slow.

Use my unboosted solar hot water. Plenty of heat in Perth.

Thanks


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## Roland (Dec 14, 2008)

Good job Rader.

What say you on the outcome of 1KW of incandescent bulbs vs. 1KW of LED bulbs inside an enclosure? I vote they heat the same.

Crazy Roland


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## beeware10 (Jul 25, 2010)

heat is a result of energy used. If led uses less energy they must run cooler? my mother has a lamp for reading as she is nearly blind. 60 watt is the most recommended and I put in a 100 watt led and it runs cool. I don't really know but that's what I found.


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## grozzie2 (Jun 3, 2011)

Roland said:


> Good job Rader.
> 
> What say you on the outcome of 1KW of incandescent bulbs vs. 1KW of LED bulbs inside an enclosure? I vote they heat the same.
> 
> Crazy Roland


After you put enuf LEDs to get to a kilowatt there will be no room to fit the drum in anymore


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## deknow (Jul 17, 2006)

> The energy consumed by a 100-watt GLS incandescent bulb produces around 12% heat, 83% IR and only 5% visible light. In contrast, a typical LED might produce15% visible light and 85% heat.


The above is what I found most quickly. I use a heater in my warming cabinet that produces zero percent visible light...edit..

The heat and the ir together heat the inside if the cabinet and the drums. In the case of the led, the 85% heat is coming from only 1/3 of the power for the same light (I think it's an exponential rather than proportional relationship)...ie, manufacturers seem to claim that 15 watt led is equivalent in light output to 100 watt incandescent. 

The leds that produce noticeable heat are producing a lot of light.


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## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

In this case, Rader is correct and most of the rest of you did not pass 10th grade physics. When you put a heat source in an enclosure, all energy is converted to heat at 100% efficiency. Does not matter the rated efficiency of the bulb or whether incandescent or LED, when it is in an enclosed container, all it produces is heat. This is essentially a "black body" paradigm which you can google if you want to see why it works this way.

The giant solar heater proposed above takes no external energy to achieve the desired result, therefore would likely be the cheapest in terms of energy consumed. Unfortunately it is very hard to regulate solar energy at this level. The temperature would have to be maintained about 40C and no higher than 50C to avoid partially caramelizing the honey. Presuming the solar setup was enclosed with glass and used passive absorption, the amount of direct summer sunlight required to meet this temperature is roughly what would come through the windshield of an average family size car. A temperature activated vent would have to be installed to ensure it does not get too hot. I could build a solar barrel warmer from a few sheets of 2 inch building insulation such as styrofoam, a sheet of glass appropriately sized, and a cheap greenhouse ventilator.

Another possible heating option, but much more expensive to set up would be an insulated room tied to a heat pump. Cost would be high given the heat pump, but this would still use less energy than direct resistive heat.

What would be the cheapest method? If you have an old van sitting in direct summer sun, put a barrel or two of honey in it and the temperature inside should do the job. Effective cost of this method is zero since you would be re-purposing something you already have and the heat source would be the sun.


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## Rader Sidetrack (Nov 30, 2011)

Roland said:


> What say you on the outcome of 1KW of incandescent bulbs vs. 1KW of LED bulbs inside an enclosure? I vote they heat the same.


I do agree that 1Kw of incandescent bulbs vs 1Kw of LED bulbs would heat the closed box the same amount.

.
.
.
.

However, after I had purchased 1Kw total of LED bulbs, I would have _no money_ left to pay to pay the electricity bill!


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## zhiv9 (Aug 3, 2012)

Recent thread on heating drums here:

http://www.beesource.com/forums/sho...t-your-pic-on-how-you-heat-your-drum-of-honey!


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## deknow (Jul 17, 2006)

...I was just going to say that a 50w led bulb for a car (with 10x5w cree leds) is $65....on ebay. So if you want to heat with leds it will cost.

But heat isn't the only consideration....I use the oil filed electric heater instead of a simple electric element heater because of the thermal stability provided by the oil. I keep the fan on all the time, amd with an element exposed to air, it is likely to cycle on and off...with the oil filled radiator, the air from the fan is still picking up heat even when it is cycled off.


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## zhiv9 (Aug 3, 2012)

deknow said:


> I keep the fan on all the time


This is key to maintaining and even temperature in the enclosure. Especially if you are trying to keep temps below 45 deg C. I do the same in my pail heater.

I recently purchased a couple of 100W ceramic reptile heaters to replace the incandescent bulbs I have been using. The 100w bulbs have poor availability now and my stash is dwindling.


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