Is liquid honey better than thick honey? Why honey remains liquid and does not thicken

2024 Author: Isabella Gilson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:14

What consistency and what color should a natural product be, why is honey liquid or too thick, and how to distinguish a real product from a fake? It is not so easy for a beginner, and for people who are not professionally engaged in beekeeping, to understand these issues. In addition, more and more often you can encounter scammers who offer counterfeit products instead of this valuable product. Let's try to find out which honey is liquid and remains so for a long time. So let's get started.

A little about honey

Natural honey is a product with exceptional taste and nutritional qualities. This is a fairly high-calorie product (about 328 kcal), its composition is close to blood plasma. 200 g of honey is equivalent in nutritional value to 480 g of fish oil. Honey improves metabolism, enhances digestion, stimulates appetite, increases hemoglobin. Helps with cardiovascular diseases, as well as the liver and stomach. This product contains folic acid, which has a beneficial effect on the growth and development of children. It is even called the elixir of youth. You should pay attention to the fact that one liter of mature honey should contain 1.4 kilograms.

When to buy?

Honey is best bought in summer or autumn. It is during this period that the worker bees begin their work, which will continue until the last fine days. At this time, fresh liquid honey is obtained, as it is collected from bee honeycombs. After time, the moisture evaporates and it begins to thicken.

What influences choice?

Let's take a closer look at the quality of a natural product. This will help you make the right choice.

Consistency

It is she who is the first sign of a quality product. The mass must be homogeneous, no delaminations and precipitation are allowed. The consistency of the product directly depends on the time of year, air temperature. In the summer, when they start pumping it, the honey is liquid; closer to winter, the consistency becomes thicker. Usually, with the onset of cold weather, the process of crystallization of honey begins, it becomes thicker, lighter and more cloudy. The exception is acacia honey, it crystallizes much later. Natural honey in winter cannot have a liquid consistency. If the honey is liquid in winter, this indicates that it was heated on the stove or the bees were fed with sugar.

Colour

The following method is used to check only young liquid honey: you need to scoop it up with a spoon in a jar andlift up, natural stretches for a very long time and flows down in a continuous stream. If you put it on a plate, it lays down in a slide, and only then spreads over the surface. You can take a spoon with nectar and twist it around its axis, a quality product will be wound on it, and unripe honey will flow down immediately. If you take a little honey and rub it between your fingers, the natural one will be absorbed immediately, and the fake one will turn into a lump.

Taste

The taste of real honey is not only sweet, it should also be slightly bitter, cause a slight sore throat and have a tart taste.

Fragrance

Natural honey has a pleasant unobtrusive smell of flowers. A fake product either has no flavor at all, or it can be harsh, caramel-like.

Color

The color of the finished product directly depends on which honey plant the bees collected nectar from. Linden honey is amber, buckwheat honey is brown, and flower honey has a light shade. The white color indicates that the bees were fed sugar.

How to make honey liquid?

It is not difficult to make honey liquid, for this you can melt the crystallized product. However, it should be remembered that when heated above 40 ° C, all useful substances disappear from it, which is not so scary. When this product is melted, a substance is formed - hydroxymethylfurfural, which is a real poison. There are three ways to heat up honey:

1. The most popular way is to heat the honey in a water bath (in water up to 40°C).
2. Leave honey in a room with a sufficiently high temperature (for example, in a bathhouse).
3. The last thing to consider is melting on the stove, don't forget the poison content.

Why is honey liquid?

The answer is quite simple - fresh, freshly pumped honey contains about 22 percent water. After some time, the liquid evaporates and the crystallization process begins. Product consistency may vary depending on variety and storage temperature.

Which honey is better - thick or liquid?

Honey lovers often wonder what kind of honey is better and he althier - thick or liquid? The answer is simple: crystallization does not impair the quality of honey in any way. If the mass is homogeneous with sugar crystals, this is considered the norm for such a product. The benefits of honey depend on which honey plants it is collected from.

Unripe honey

Sometimes the acquired honey of a liquid consistency is observed stratification, the thick fraction settles at the bottom, and the liquid one, on the contrary, rises up, there are no sugar crystals. This means that the purchased product is immature, most likely the temperature regime was violated, as a result of which the honey has a high humidity. Therefore, honey aging is very important. A poor-quality product may soon foam and ferment.

Varieties

Among the natural varieties of honey, there are those that are candied later than others. This should be taken into account when buying.

May

This honey is the earliest, it is pumped out in the first month of summer. For him the bees collectpollen from the very first honey plants: bird cherry, apple, cherry, lily of the valley. It is considered one of the most valuable varieties of natural honey. This variety contains a lot of fructose. It is known that fake May honey is often sold, as it is very similar to the product produced after feeding bees with sugar syrup. It is better to buy such honey in the fall, when it will mature well.

Acacia

White variety of honey has a unique aroma and taste. It contains 40% fructose and 35% glucose, as a result of this and due to the moisture it contains, the product does not crystallize within 1-2 years. Acacia honey is very liquid, like freshly pumped, and retains this consistency for a long time.

Chestnut

Real chestnut honey is dark in color and has a very viscous consistency. The process of its crystallization takes from six months to a year, but even in this form it has an excellent taste. Hardened honey crystals look like gelatin granules. With prolonged storage, its structure becomes more coarse-grained. This variety has the ability to flake, but this does not mean that it is not real, but is considered its special quality.

Lime

This is another white variety honey, just like acacia honey, it is stored in liquid form - from 1.5 to 3 months. Linden honey has a viscous consistency. When crystallized, it becomes like semolina with lumps.

Buckwheat

A dark-colored variety that comes in orange and brown. Contains a huge amount of minerals. Honey has a rather tart taste with bitterness. When eating it, it can slightly tickle in the throat. It crystallizes very quickly, so it must be stored properly. Recommended to use to boost immunity.

How to store?

It is necessary to choose the right dishes for storing honey. For this purpose, you can use glass, ceramic, wooden, metal containers. In the room intended for storing the product, the temperature can be from +6 to +20 degrees, but at room temperature, the crystallization process will begin much earlier. If the refrigerator has a function of dry freezing, honey can be stored in it. This product has the ability to absorb odors, so it is recommended to store it separately. It should not be placed in a bright place, from the light it destroys the antimicrobial properties. During storage, liquid honey becomes cloudy, darkens, becomes thicker - this is a completely normal stage of its ripening.