Can honey thats stays a liquid still be raw?

[hootiehoo]

I buy all types of honey from a beekeeping store and the employees told me all their honey is raw, it's just heated in barrels at 100 degrees or something so it's easy to dispense.

Now I've bought local honey and it turned hard as a rock, while other types (Alfalfa-Clover, Mixed Flower) stay in liquid form. Do you reckon these are really raw?

[skier2]

I buy all types of honey from a beekeeping store and the employees told me all their honey is raw, it's just heated in barrels at 100 degrees or something so it's easy to dispense.

Now I've bought local honey and it turned hard as a rock, while other types (Alfalfa-Clover, Mixed Flower) stay in liquid form. Do you reckon these are really raw?

It often takes time for the honey to re-crystalize because it's not like oil, where it simply melts and re-hardens. Runny honeys, like acacia, stay liquidy indefinitely. Still, I prefer whole food sweeteners, like dates.

[DebB]

I don't understand about the honey... I buy from a local bee keeper and he told me his honey is raw, not heated - and it is runny. Looks like the honey in the honey bear that you buy at the store.

But if I buy raw honey at the hfs or online - it's the solid milky honey. I don't know enough about it to know what's what. *Ü*

[skier2]

I don't understand about the honey... I buy from a local bee keeper and he told me his honey is raw, not heated - and it is runny. Looks like the honey in the honey bear that you buy at the store.

But if I buy raw honey at the hfs or online - it's the solid milky honey. I don't know enough about it to know what's what. *Ü*

Honey is runny when harvested, but over time the sugar molecules, which are floating around individually in water, latch on to one another and form a lattice. It is this lattice that makes the honey hard and kinda "crunchy" instead of runny. Rewarming it reverses this, and if you "break" all of the bonds that form the lattice (i.e. if you warm it until it is totally liquid again) then it will stay that way for a while, though it will eventually crystallize again.

[domestic goddess]

Most beekeepers I know bottle their honey right after they harvest it, don't heat it, therefor it is raw. I will ONLY use honey from beekeepers that I know follow this practice. If they are heating it at all, that means they had to have left it sitting around for a bit before they bottled it. Honey takes a while to crystalize so...for me, that wouldn't be honey I would want. If my honey crystalizes in my home, that's another thing as I know it was raw and fresh when I got it.

Store bought honey is often cut with corn syrup...just so ya know....and is almost definitely heated unless it is labeled otherwise.

Local honey from a reputable beekeeper is the best way to go :)

[stellaJewels]

could be different levels of filtering that make it seem different too. When I get the raw unfiltered it's totally solid and yellow, but raw and filtered is runny honey

[raweater]

I don't understand about the honey... I buy from a local bee keeper and he told me his honey is raw, not heated - and it is runny. Looks like the honey in the honey bear that you buy at the store.

But if I buy raw honey at the hfs or online - it's the solid milky honey. I don't know enough about it to know what's what. *Ü*

If I understand right I think the solid milky one is referred to as creamed honey. It is honey that is crystallized in a controlled way to make it creamy.

[raweater]

Store bought honey is often cut with corn syrup...just so ya know....and is almost definitely heated unless it is labeled otherwise.

Local honey from a reputable beekeeper is the best way to go :)

Can it be cut with corn syrup even if it says 100% pure honey or lists only "honey" in the ingredients?

Can it also be not raw if it says "unpasteurized"?

[DebB]

I understand about the honey crystallizing - that was a very nice explanation skier2! But the raw honey I've got from online isn't crystallized.

I think it's what stellajewels said - it's not filtered. My husband said there's honeycomb in there which is why it's milky colored and solid. When I see people making recipes on YT using 'raw honey' - it's usually the solid milky kind.

That's what made me wonder if what I bought from our local bee keeper - clear & runny was really raw. But, I believe him when he told me it's not heated... *Ü*

[streetsurfer]

I looked up the wikipedia page on honey. It mentions the various ways of treating and which kill yeasts, which are considered raw or not, and one I had never heard of, ultrasonic. There is some discussion on crystillization and says it mostly depends on the glucose and moisture content of each batch (and time). I was used to hearing it had to do with moisture and was going to post that but wanted to check first. Just a guess now but I would say the glucose content might depend of the vitality of the nectar and pollen sources, and possibly the bee's health.

[joyce09]

One beekeeper told me that whether raw honey crystalizes or not depends on the kinds of flowers bees feast on. He said among the kinds of honey he offered the ones not crystalized are more nutritious.

Also some honey that is labeled "raw" has been subject to heating 160 degree. There are really no laws governing the labal of "raw."

[Vrindavan]

>> honey crystalizes or not depends on the kinds of flowers bees feast on.

i guess so as well.

most common type is wild flowers honey, always runny

if they fed them sugar will make the honey more liquid like ?

>> the ones not crystalized are more nutritious.

i doubt this ?
so wild flower honey, the cheapest, the best ?

raw or not , i am not sure,
but i like darker color honey

[RawKnitster]

I understand about the honey crystallizing - that was a very nice explanation skier2! But the raw honey I've got from online isn't crystallized.

I think it's what stellajewels said - it's not filtered. My husband said there's honeycomb in there which is why it's milky colored and solid. When I see people making recipes on YT using 'raw honey' - it's usually the solid milky kind.

That's what made me wonder if what I bought from our local bee keeper - clear & runny was really raw. But, I believe him when he told me it's not heated... *Ü*

I've wondered the same thing. My favorite honey is called "Really Raw". It claims to be unheated and unfiltered. It is thick and creamy, but definitely different from whipped, creamed or crystalized honey. It has the strong flavor of pollen and is capped with pollen and bits of wax from the honeycomb.

On the 20th of this month I am attending a meeting titled "The Secret Life of Bees". The guest speakers are beekeepers that keep hives less than a mile from the Bastyr University Medicinal Herb Garden. I very excited about trying their honey. I will be sure and take my jar of "Really Raw" honey to ask them why it is different. And I will be sure to ask exactly what they do to their honey.

[DebB]

Hi RawKnitster ~ Again, I stand in awe of what's available to all of you on the west side! Fantastic!

I, too buy Really Raw ~ I order it from Azure Standard and I love it. I love the bits at the top. Like chewing on gum. Well, sortakinda. :D

The meeting you're attending sounds really interesting. *Ü*

[Mary Kay]

I was a beekeeper for years, so here are my thoughts:

Different kinds of honey from different plant sources will crystallize quicker. It depends on the flowers.

It CAN be called raw and they generally heat it to just below 160. The reason they go 160 is to still keep the wax solid, which melts at 160, so they can filter out those tidbits of was.

If a beekeeper tells me they heat it just enough to be able to pour it easier (which is true), I still don't want it and get totally unheated honey anyway.

Honey is the only food that will last forever if the moisture content is just right. There is honey from the Egyptian tombs that is still good. The bees fan it with their wings until the moisture content goes down to 18%, then they cap it. As a beekeeper, you do not want to extract honey unless it is over 80% capped, because the moisture content will be too high and it could go bad.

Some cool facts. HTH,

Mary Kay

[Vrindavan]

>> they generally heat it to just below 160.

so RAW means not temp under 160 or 100

RAW means 100% unheated


do you accept below situation as raw ?
or still prefer truly no heat at all ?

This honey isn't heated, it is warmed slightly when the weather is colder to get it into the jars, but never more than 38C (100.4 degree Fahrenheit).
http://www.pyreneeshoney.com/

[DebB]

>> they generally heat it to just below 160.

so RAW means not temp under 160 or 100

RAW means 100% unheated


do you accept below situation as raw ?
or still prefer truly no heat at all ?

This honey isn't heated, it is warmed slightly when the weather is colder to get it into the jars, but never more than 38C (100.4 degree Fahrenheit).
http://www.pyreneeshoney.com/

Well - if the same 'rule' applies to honey that applies to other living food as far as heating it less than 105-118 (depending who you talk to), then yes I would consider it raw & living. *Ü*

[skier2]

We could just circumvent this whole conundrum and just use date or fig paste instead.

[Mary Kay]

LOL, Skier, you're right! but frankly, you just can't trust that dried fruits are raw either. It's the same rule though. Oasis medjool dates are heated by steam to soften them for 40 min at 120 degrees. The "almighty" David Wolfe though, has "sanctioned" them as being raw though - and I would tend to agree. But I wonder about raisins, apricots and dried cherries and........You literally have to call the co from which you get them unless you do them yourself..

And yes, it is raw if they heat it and it's kept under 100 , but I just don't trust the beekeeper to take the temp. They need to extract it while it's warm anyway. I find it is cheaper in the longrun to buy it in bulk. This way, the beekeeper makes a 5 gal bucket just for me. This will keep our family going for a couple yrs.

Interestingly enough, the bees do not allow the temp in the hive to go above 93 or 94. Again, they literally fan the air with their wings. I think this is more for their young brood though, nevertheless because of this, I still have trouble using honey in the D. I will use maple syrup though---this is "meant" to be heated, whereas IMO honey is not.

Well, my two cents.....

Mary Kay

[skier2]

Even so, raw fruits contain minerals and fiber, which help to counteract the insulin response.

[Tirza]

A couple of comments about heating and the unfiltered claim from the perspective of a very small operation. My husband kept bees with another friend about 30 years ago. They used a wand like a wire that was heated so it would cut smoothly through the tops of the combs. It sliced through the top only, and it went very fast, so the honey was not heated itself. They would then be put into a hand spun centrifuge to spin out the honey.
When I first saw what came out into the bucket I couldn't eat honey for awhile. First of all, the honey looked amber-the shade of course depends on the flowers they took from-alfalfa is light, buckwheat is dark. The honey was very liquid. There were pieces of wax (ok) and other debris including pieces of bees (not ok). If it didn't go through at least a basic filtering that is what you would see. Now everyone may be getting theirs from large commercial operations and I don't know how they do it. They may have really state of the art equipment that prevents that and it may come out clean as a whistle without filtering. I don't know.
We used to keep it all year in 5 gallon buckets and it wasn't many months before it was crystallizing and had to be melted a bit (sitting the container in a larger container of hot water) to use. The crystallizing happened without any heating. Just sitting in a bucket in a cool-ish pantry. Once I heated it to melt it again, it would crystallize almost immediately again, so I only did it as needed.

[skier2]

A couple of comments about heating and the unfiltered claim from the perspective of a very small operation. My husband kept bees with another friend about 30 years ago. They used a wand like a wire that was heated so it would cut smoothly through the tops of the combs. It sliced through the top only, and it went very fast, so the honey was not heated itself. They would then be put into a hand spun centrifuge to spin out the honey.
When I first saw what came out into the bucket I couldn't eat honey for awhile. First of all, the honey looked amber-the shade of course depends on the flowers they took from-alfalfa is light, buckwheat is dark. The honey was very liquid. There were pieces of wax (ok) and other debris including pieces of bees (not ok). If it didn't go through at least a basic filtering that is what you would see. Now everyone may be getting theirs from large commercial operations and I don't know how they do it. They may have really state of the art equipment that prevents that and it may come out clean as a whistle without filtering. I don't know.
We used to keep it all year in 5 gallon buckets and it wasn't many months before it was crystallizing and had to be melted a bit (sitting the container in a larger container of hot water) to use. The crystallizing happened without any heating. Just sitting in a bucket in a cool-ish pantry. Once I heated it to melt it again, it would crystallize almost immediately again, so I only did it as needed.

What she said. Just a thought too--if babies can't eat honey because it has traces of pollen and other things in it, it can't be too heavily processed, to be frank, or else these things would be destroyed.

[lunachica]

I get my honey from a local beekeepper who use to supply for the "really raw" honey co. They are a large co. and their honey is supplied from a variety of different beekeepers.
Really Raw was my favorite honey until i tried his and after I learned about his process vs. really raw - i only now buy his. It is amazing and very addicting. I liked it so much i now sell it in my store and on etsy. Don't mean to sound like a commercial or sales pitch - but it really is amazing honey. I also get bee pollen from him as well.
As MK said, the honey will vary in texture and taste depending on the season and flowers.

[Vrindavan]

you mean "Really Raw" has many honey suppliers ?
Then their products would varied a lot then.