# Honey temperature



## gmcharlie (May 9, 2009)

they should be set to about 105. your honey should bottle great at that temp, and it shouldn't take more than 3 hours to warm up. we run ours at 105 and its very fluid. One question is what kind of valve do you have on it??


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## Moon (May 7, 2011)

gmcharlie said:


> they should be set to about 105. your honey should bottle great at that temp, and it shouldn't take more than 3 hours to warm up. we run ours at 105 and its very fluid. One question is what kind of valve do you have on it??


No idea, a dripless honey bottling valve? It just has a 14" piece of 3/8" metal round stock coming off of it that you pull down and a metal bracket that acts as a fulcrum to pry up the valve and then the honey flows out. The tank is currently set at 109 but it's been at that temp for 3 days and the honey is definitely warming it's just not warm enough that it's clear; it still has a milky color to it (it's white honey and when I extracted it's so light it's almost void of any color. Looks almost like HFCS)


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## Glen H (Aug 17, 2013)

Have you checked the actual temperature of the honey? Is it a the set point temp.?
Maybe one or more of your heating elements are not working.
What voltage is the tank rated for?

Glen


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## jmgi (Jan 15, 2009)

Sounds to me like Moon is saying that the honey has some crystallization in it which is making it pretty thick. A temp of 109 is not nearly hot enough to dissolve the sugar crystals, you need to go up to at least 130 to do that, but at that temp you begin to destroy nutrients in the honey.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

If it is partly crystalized you will have to raise the temperature up to 140 degrees at least and more likely 150 to get rid of all of the crystals.

That sure seems like a HUGE tank. I have two Maxant Bottling Tanks which each hold 25 gallons each, which is plenty for me. I bottle as much as 30,000lbs of honey per year using both of them.

I can't imagine washing out a 55 gallon bottling tank.


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## Moon (May 7, 2011)

sqkcrk said:


> I can't imagine washing out a 55 gallon bottling tank.


Yeah it's pretty deep, I had to stand on my head to do it. We don't sell all of our honey at once so it's more of a honey storage/bottling tank. I just plan on keeping it at around 109 degrees until it's all sold.

Glen H. the tank is a 220V tank and I believe it only has one heating element. I'm sure the honey is at the set temp because there is a thermometer mounted in the tank that tells me what the temp of the water is, I'm not going based off of what the temp the heater is set at I'm going off of the thermometer.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

You can raise the temperature by the dial on the end of the heat element. You should not keep the honey at 109 for very long or it will darken. Unless you sell it quickly, I guess.


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## Moon (May 7, 2011)

What would be the optimum temp to keep it at mark?


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

What are you putting it into? Customer's jars?

I don't put any heat to it until it's time to put it in jars.


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## Moon (May 7, 2011)

Okay...

Walk me through the process that you use then if you don't mind? It was a huge pain in the butt last year for me to deal with honey that had been bottled that was already crystalized. I had to take it from a 5 gallon bucket and put it into a 1 gallon bucket so it would fit in a pot on the stove that I could put into a water bath and then bottle. It was outrageously time consuming. So this year I was just going to put it all into a bottling tank/storage drum, keep it from crystalizing and then bottle it as needed for each one of the trade shows I go to (I don't sell to stores yet because I don't have all the paperwork set up to sell through a third party).

On top of that, honey that I bottled that I didn't sell would cyrstalize before the next trade show and I would have to deal with warming up honey in plastic bottles without getting it to warm.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

I bet we have different kinds of honey, so maybe you have more problems w/ crystalization than I do.

I extract my honey and put it in 5 gallon buckets. If the 5 gallon buckets crystalize I set three into a round waterbath tank and warm them enough to make getting honey out of them more easy. Then I pour 4 buckets of honey into Tank #1, warm it to 150 degrees, and strain the honey through a nylon cloth back into 5 gallon pails. Then they sit over night cooling down. The next morning I pour these buckets into the other tank, warm them to 100 degrees and bottle that honey. I then take that honey to stores so they can sell it. Some bottled honey is kept ahead.

That's more or less how I do it.


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## Moon (May 7, 2011)

Hmm, my honey will crystalize within about 2-3 weeks. :/


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

What happens if you warm it to 150? Still crystalizes?


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## Moon (May 7, 2011)

No no, I've had it at 110 for 3 days now and I just went out and checked it and it's more or less fluid. I wasn't sure if I could keep it at 110 without causing harm/detriment to it is why I was asking what the optimum temp was or what people heated there honey to. If I heated it to 150 it would decrystalize faster but I don't want to run the risk of scorching it or damaging the honey. I've heard even heating it above 100F will destroy the pollen in it so I'm trying to be careful about the amount of heat I put into it. It just crystalizes so bloody fast, I don't know if it's because the moisture content out here on the prairie is low or if it's because I don't fully destroy the sugar crystals when I warm it. I really want to avoid pasteurizing it.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

You can't have everything. If you want liquid honey that doesn't crystalize quickly again you will have to heat your honey to 150.

What does pasturize mean?

What kind of honey do you have there? Mesquite?

You should have gotten a smaller tank.


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## jmgi (Jan 15, 2009)

Mark, what kind of tank are you using for liquifying the crystallized honey in buckets? Sounds like I need something like that myself when the honey won't come out of the buckets anymore. John


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## gmcharlie (May 9, 2009)

Mark, I run at a lot less temp than that and have no problem removing most crystals. Yea its faster at 130, but drums held at 110 do just fine. never had an issue getting it to liquefy at 110. some takes a bit longer.
There are probably a lot of crystal left, but it flows bottles and stores fine. Maybe differnt types of honeys, but never had to run up higher unless makeing creamed honey.


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## jmgi (Jan 15, 2009)

What I have found is that liquifying honey and removing all the crystals is two different things. You need to bottle a jar of liquified honey and hold it up to a light ( I use a regular light bulb) and see if the honey is completely clear or not. Those fine crystals can be hard to see swirling around in there, but if they don't get dissolved completely, your honey will get cloudier and cloudier even after a few weeks.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

jmgi said:


> Mark, what kind of tank are you using for liquifying the crystallized honey in buckets? Sounds like I need something like that myself when the honey won't come out of the buckets anymore. John


It's a round tank w/ a heat element for heating the water one puts in it. It holds three five gallon buckets. I think it came from Kelley Co. I have seen rectangular ones in catalogs recently. Seems like I recall them holding 6 buckets.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

gmcharlie said:


> Mark, I run at a lot less temp than that and have no problem removing most crystals. Yea its faster at 130, but drums held at 110 do just fine. never had an issue getting it to liquefy at 110. some takes a bit longer.
> There are probably a lot of crystal left, but it flows bottles and stores fine. Maybe differnt types of honeys, but never had to run up higher unless makeing creamed honey.


Yes, but I don't liquify barrels. I avoid using them. What I was writing about was liquifying honey for bottling. Batches of 20 gallons at a time. I serll direct to stores and don't want it crystalizing on the shelf. I have tried lower temps and found it to crystalize.

Whatever works for you.


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## jmgi (Jan 15, 2009)

Mark, thanks for the info I'll look them up then, what's the max temp you can get the water to? John


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## gmcharlie (May 9, 2009)

sqkcrk said:


> Yes, but I don't liquify barrels. I avoid using them. What I was writing about was liquifying honey for bottling. Batches of 20 gallons at a time. I serll direct to stores and don't want it crystalizing on the shelf. I have tried lower temps and found it to crystalize.
> 
> Whatever works for you.


Ahh makes more sense we are on differnt pages. Your looking longer term. We avoid that and actualy advertise as such. anything that crystalizes we take back and handle it. (hot box).

If you want a pail liquifier, an old hot tub works great, and is cheap.... Wifes not crazy about when I use hers, but I do anyway at times. Craigslist and 200.00 will get you one all set up with 105 usualy being the max you can set it at.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

jmgi said:


> Mark, thanks for the info I'll look them up then, what's the max temp you can get the water to? John


MAXANT Bottling tanks can go to temps above 200 degrees. Not that you ever want to take honey higher than 160 or it will burn.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

gmcharlie said:


> Ahh makes more sense we are on differnt pages. Your looking longer term. We avoid that and actualy advertise as such. anything that crystalizes we take back and handle it. (hot box).
> 
> If you want a pail liquifier, an old hot tub works great, and is cheap.... Wifes not crazy about when I use hers, but I do anyway at times. Craigslist and 200.00 will get you one all set up with 105 usualy being the max you can set it at.


I don't think my tank for warming buckets cost $200.00.


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## gmcharlie (May 9, 2009)

Yea, but does you tank double as a hot tub???:applause:


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## jmgi (Jan 15, 2009)

sqkcrk said:


> MAXANT Bottling tanks can go to temps above 200 degrees. Not that you ever want to take honey higher than 160 or it will burn.


Mark, I was actually referring to your water bath tank that you use for heating hard buckets of honey, what's the max temp on that tank?


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

I don't know. Probably the same. The heating element is the same as you have in your house's water heater.


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## pharmbee (Jun 21, 2013)

sqkcrk said:


> If it is partly crystalized you will have to raise the temperature up to 140 degrees at least and more likely 150 to get rid of all of the crystals.
> 
> That sure seems like a HUGE tank. I have two Maxant Bottling Tanks which each hold 25 gallons each, which is plenty for me. I bottle as much as 30,000lbs of honey per year using both of them.
> 
> I can't imagine washing out a 55 gallon bottling tank.


I can't imagine bottling 30, 000 lbs of honey. Both of our minds were blown I guess.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

It's not something one does all at once.


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## Moon (May 7, 2011)

I guess my concern with heating it to the point where it destroys or melts all of the crystals in the honey is that it damages the nutritional value of it? Maybe I'm off base on my thinking, I need to read up on honey and honey bottling more. I think I've got a couple of good books on it. I'm trying to sell the highest quality product possible and perhaps I'm under the mistaken assumption that means not heating your honey over a certain temp.

Pasteurizing: 

Definition of PASTEURIZATION
1: partial sterilization of a substance and especially a liquid (as milk) at a temperature and for a period of exposure that destroys objectionable organisms without major chemical alteration of the substance 

Based off of this definition I know people are going to say 'Well honey doesn't have any organisms or bacteria in it etc... etc... etc..' I'm just referring to heating it to a point where it alters the flavor and destroys the pollen grains in it.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

If you heat it to 160 degrees for a period of time you will alter, notice I wrote alter, the color, because you have burnt the sugars in the honey. This may or may not alter the taste. It will not destroy the taste. Unless you really burn it. Caramelize it.

The pollen is still there.

I don't think anyone really depends on nutrition when consuming honey. I think you are holding nutritional value of honey too high. It's a sweetener. A special sweetener because of how it's made, where it comes from.

If you are as concerned as you say, then you should not be heating it at all. You should be bottling it in the appropriate jars and selling it as RAW Honey. No matter what your customers may wish to have. Educate them that you don't heat it for reasons you hold. Me, I give people choices. Liquid or RAW. RAW meaning unheated and unstrained.


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