# Honey strainer getting clogged



## omnimirage (Aug 31, 2015)

The other day, I was pouring honey, and as I was getting closer to the bottom, the wax that was floating on the top started to get into the jars at excessive rates. Now there really wasn't much wax on the top, but I decided to put all the honey in the strainer.

It was going slowly, I was stirring and moving it around but not making much progress. I had to go to sleep, so I put the strainer inside my heating fridge, which was sitting at 36 celcius.

I woke up and hardly anything went through the strainer. I stirred it and not much happened, and I took a photo of it:

https://imgur.com/a/5MACa

So I've been using the crush and strain method to create my honey. I've been having a lot of issues with the honey not being strained properly. I'm now rather perplexed, as I couldnt even strain pure honey.

This sieve I'm using is one that's specifically marketed for honey. 

Could it just be that my honey is thicker? Could I get something else to strain through, maybe I need bigger holes?


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## FlowerPlanter (Aug 3, 2011)

What size filter do you use? If you're using a 200 micron it might be to much for crush and stain. You might start with 600 first them move to the 200.

When I use a 200 and it starts to get clogged I use a spoon and drag all the small bits to one side of the strainer.


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## orthoman (Feb 23, 2013)

I haven't seen anything that looks quite like your photos -- almost looks crystallized to me. Is it?

Almost any type of filter will clog up with wax, pollen, crystallized honey. I have the same problems and I suspect everyone does. I'm sure the commercial processors use heat, pressure and a series of filters to produce their clear products.

My process, that isn't unique, is that I usually start with a large commercial strainer that I line with cheese cloth to filter out the larger pieces of wax. Honey then goes into / through the double sieve ( I think you might be using same one) - followed by a 400 micron filter. 

Cappings go into a mesh bag that is tied off and hung over a bucket to allow the honey to drip through. Once done, the bag and cappings go into the solar melter.

For crush and drain, you might try putting your crushed comb into a nylon bag that can be obtained from a home brew shop ( i.e. used by people brewing their own brew), then hanging the bag above a container. Hanging it in a warm room helps or by a window that is getting a lot of sun. The honey will drip out of the bag and be pretty clean. Can then run through a 400 micron filter if you want it to be more filtered -- but even this will eventually clog up. The 200 micron filters are really fine and I personally don't use them because they clog really fast.

I have several 400 micron filters that I swap out when they clog and filtering slows down.


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## DanielD (Jul 21, 2012)

I would say it looks a little crystallized too instead of cappings on the bottom. Even so, when the filter starts to get clogged with cappings, it still filters through slowly.


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## Ravenseye (Apr 2, 2006)

Definitely crystallizing. That makes a big difference. When my strainer starts clogging I too push the wax bits to the side. Every so often I have to close the gate, swap the strainers out and clean the plugged one off. Things are worse if I do a messy job when I cut the caps off or if I use a scratcher on the comb to open the cells up. Crush and stain is messy too. Sort out the size of the strainers, keep things warm, strain clear honey.


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## ericweller (Jan 10, 2013)

When crystallized honey is strained and the crystals removed, does it affect the honey at all? Will removing crystals keep it from re-crystallizing?


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## omnimirage (Aug 31, 2015)

I'm not sure what the size of it is exactly. I mixed a few different buckets of honey, that had some variations in them, one or two buckets had rather crystallised, grainy honey in there, which didn't seem to melt down despite being in a 100 f environment for a number of days. I'm guessing this is the crystallised parts that's clogging it. 

I rather like that idea orthoman thanks.


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## omnimirage (Aug 31, 2015)

Since there's been lots of talk of honey straining, I figured I'd share some photos of what I've been doing lately:

https://imgur.com/a/i7n5w

I bought two food grade plastic storage boxs, I used a drill to put holes on the bottom of the top box, and the lid on the bottom box. I'm using some curtain cloth to strain it in, small but decent size holes. I have these buckets full ofcrystallised bits of honeycomb that I scrapped into a bucket, so I've been heating the buckets in the fridge, then tipping the honey out of the bucket into the straining boxs, it all comes out as a solid, then turns into that sludge and so very slowly strains down. I leave it in a 100 f / 36-38 c environment almost constantly. It takes an excessive amount of time and it's very difficult straining it down much further. I might try to hang the sacks above a bucket in the fridge. The buckets contain about 30 liters of honey/wax and stuff.


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## Ravenseye (Apr 2, 2006)

ericweller said:


> When crystallized honey is strained and the crystals removed, does it affect the honey at all? Will removing crystals keep it from re-crystallizing?


It'll be hard to remove ALL the crystals. There are small ones that pass right through and ultimately the honey will crystallize again. It might affect the flavor but I've never tried to remove the crystals so I'm not sure.


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## FlowerPlanter (Aug 3, 2011)

>two food grade plastic storage boxs, I used a drill to put holes on the bottom of the top box, and the lid on the bottom box.

This makes a perfect uncapping tote. Most of your wax capping are left in the top box, the honey below is easier to strain.

I would try to re-liquefy your honey before straining it any further, a big mass will take extra time to get up to temperature, it takes a few days to re-liquefy small bottles of honey at 100 deg. 

You can also re-liquefy the crystals with water and feed it back to the bees.

>When crystallized honey is strained and the crystals removed, does it affect the honey at all? Will removing crystals keep it from re-crystallizing?

Yes, honey is a mixture of glucose, fructose, maltose, sucrose and other sugars. What does not crystalize can be thinner and it may ferment. Different sugars may crystallize at different rates removing the crystals may alter the percentages of the sugars in the honey.


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