Making Creamed Honey
This post is about how I made a batch of creamed honey.
Creamed honey is crystallized honey where the crystallization process has been strictly controlled to create very tiny crystals ensuring very smooth, almost butter like honey.
I chose to use a quart jar of my fall honey from 2012 because of it's dark color and great flavor. When I held the jar up to the light I could see some natural crystals had formed in the jar. Creamed honey requires only ultra fine crystals created in a controlled manner.
The way to remove natural crystals from honey is to gently heat the honey to 140*F in a double boiler, which causes the crystals to melt back into liquid honey.
After it reached 140*F I removed it from the heat and cooled it back down to 80*F in an ice water bath.
Once it was cooled back down I added 1/2 cup of creamed honey that I bought from Trader Joe's. Thanks to Trader Joe's because they're the only store in St. Louis I could find creamed honey (including the farmer's markets that I looked at).
Adding existing creamed honey encourages the rest of the honey to crystallize using the same tiny crystals that are in the existing creamed honey. (This is a similar concept to making yogurt, where you need a small amount of yogurt in a new batch as your starter).
I don't have a fancy drill attachment or stick blender to mix the honey and starter, so I just used a whisk. Because I was only making a quart size batch, it was easily mixed within 2 minutes by gently stirring and I didn't induce very much air.
I covered the honey with plastic wrap, and let it set over night in the cooler.
The honey mixture needs to sit overnight on the first day, and then for two weeks once in jars, at a constant temperature between 55*F - 59*F. I happen to have one of those small college dorm sized refrigerators in our basement and discovered if I turned it's temperature setting down as low as it would go it would hold at 57*F perfectly.
The next day I pulled the mix of honey and starter from the fridge and poured it into jars. If you thought bottling liquid honey at room temperature was messy, try pouring creamed honey mix!
It poured from the bowl like molasses. I wasn't very patient so I tipped the bowl up more, and a huge glob came out. I immediately set the bowl back down level, but the glob of creamed honey kept creeping over the edge of bowl and quickly overfilled one of my jars and left a puddle on the stove top.
After that I learned to be more patient and to work slowly with the mix.
Once I was done, a 1 quart jar of honey converted to eleven 4oz jars of creamed honey. I put these jars back into the refrigerator downstairs and in two weeks time, they'll be complete.
Making creamed honey is as my friend and mentor John said it would be: "dead easy."
I give credit to Yvonne Von Der Ahe in the EMBA club for putting together her tutorial to help guide me through my first batch.
I also watched Beekeeper Linda's tutorial on making creamed honey as a primer before making my own batch.
Creamed honey is crystallized honey where the crystallization process has been strictly controlled to create very tiny crystals ensuring very smooth, almost butter like honey.
I chose to use a quart jar of my fall honey from 2012 because of it's dark color and great flavor. When I held the jar up to the light I could see some natural crystals had formed in the jar. Creamed honey requires only ultra fine crystals created in a controlled manner.
The way to remove natural crystals from honey is to gently heat the honey to 140*F in a double boiler, which causes the crystals to melt back into liquid honey.
After it reached 140*F I removed it from the heat and cooled it back down to 80*F in an ice water bath.
Once it was cooled back down I added 1/2 cup of creamed honey that I bought from Trader Joe's. Thanks to Trader Joe's because they're the only store in St. Louis I could find creamed honey (including the farmer's markets that I looked at).
Adding existing creamed honey encourages the rest of the honey to crystallize using the same tiny crystals that are in the existing creamed honey. (This is a similar concept to making yogurt, where you need a small amount of yogurt in a new batch as your starter).
I don't have a fancy drill attachment or stick blender to mix the honey and starter, so I just used a whisk. Because I was only making a quart size batch, it was easily mixed within 2 minutes by gently stirring and I didn't induce very much air.
I covered the honey with plastic wrap, and let it set over night in the cooler.
The honey mixture needs to sit overnight on the first day, and then for two weeks once in jars, at a constant temperature between 55*F - 59*F. I happen to have one of those small college dorm sized refrigerators in our basement and discovered if I turned it's temperature setting down as low as it would go it would hold at 57*F perfectly.
The next day I pulled the mix of honey and starter from the fridge and poured it into jars. If you thought bottling liquid honey at room temperature was messy, try pouring creamed honey mix!
It poured from the bowl like molasses. I wasn't very patient so I tipped the bowl up more, and a huge glob came out. I immediately set the bowl back down level, but the glob of creamed honey kept creeping over the edge of bowl and quickly overfilled one of my jars and left a puddle on the stove top.
After that I learned to be more patient and to work slowly with the mix.
Once I was done, a 1 quart jar of honey converted to eleven 4oz jars of creamed honey. I put these jars back into the refrigerator downstairs and in two weeks time, they'll be complete.
Making creamed honey is as my friend and mentor John said it would be: "dead easy."
I give credit to Yvonne Von Der Ahe in the EMBA club for putting together her tutorial to help guide me through my first batch.
I also watched Beekeeper Linda's tutorial on making creamed honey as a primer before making my own batch.
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