Home Tricks and Ideas

Has your honey hardened? The brilliant trick to make it liquid easily
Delicious for spreading, perfect for sweetening dishes, a great help for sore throats and colds, a magic ingredient in beauty masks for the face… Of a beautiful golden yellow color, used in cooking, in medicine and in cosmetics, its benefits are no longer to be tested As you will have understood, it is about honey, that miraculous natural ingredient to have absolutely at home. But when stored, it sometimes tends to crystallize and harden, making it less easy to use. Here is a great trick to restore its liquid texture.

Who has never had the unpleasant surprise of finding their jar of honey all hard at the bottom of the cupboard? And of course it is not about dipping the spoon in it… Don’t worry if your honey has solidified, it is just that it has crystallized. Here is how to make it liquid in minutes.

Why does honey harden?
Honey is a natural food produced by bees from the nectar of flowers. Let us not lose sight of the fact that if bees make honey it is not to please humans but to feed their larvae and to have food for the winter in the cells of the hive. It must therefore be able to be preserved for a long time, which is why it hardens. This phenomenon is called crystallization and is a completely natural process that does not damage the product at all. It is even a guarantee of authenticity!

In fact, honey will crystallize more or less quickly depending on the flowers that were used to make it. The more glucose there is in a honey, the faster it hardens, as is the case with heather or rapeseed honey. Conversely, the richer it is in fructose, the longer it remains in a liquid state like chestnut, fir or acacia honey. Crystallization is more or less slow but is inevitable for real honey. If a honey has not hardened after several months of storage, it is suspect.

Storage temperature can also play a role in hardening. The lower it is, the faster honey crystallizes. It is therefore advisable to store honey at room temperature and never put it in the refrigerator. You should know that temperature differences can alter the quality of the precious nectar.

honey in the hive
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Honey in the hive – Source: spm

A brilliant trick to make your honey flow
You will have understood, if a honey hardens it is rather a sign of quality so do not throw it away, it still has many good things to bring you . Here is how to make it liquid again without altering its taste and nutritional properties:

1- Heat water in a saucepan to make a bain-marie that does not exceed 35° to 40°C, if you do not have a thermometer, you must be able to put your hand in it without burning yourself. Attention, the worst enemy of honey is overheating!

2- Immerse your jar in it with the lid open, leave it for a few minutes until it becomes liquid. You can stir it to speed up the process, but gently because honey doesn’t like to be shaken…

3- Let it cool slowly off the heat, leaving the pot in the pan so as not to cause a thermal shock. Close the jar once the honey has cooled completely as being very hygroscopic it could absorb moisture and lose quality and flavour.

Another technique to find a pleasant syrup texture is to put your jar of honey in a cooling oven. On the other hand, you should avoid using the microwave because it would damage the famous product of the hive.

liquid honey
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Liquid honey – Source: spm

3 tips to properly store your honey
Above all, it is important to buy quality honey, preferably pure honey. To preserve its properties, good preservation is essential. Here are 3 simple and effective tips recommended by beekeepers:

Prefer airtight glass jars to plastic jars.
Store away from light in a dry place and always close the jar tightly because UV rays and humidity degrade the product.
Store at room temperature and do not exceed 25°C. Do not put in the refrigerator.
Stored in good conditions, honey will keep and can be kept for several months, even several years, without any problem. On the other hand, unlike some products, it does not improve with time…

honey in a jar
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Honey in a jar – Source: spm

Thanks to all these tips, you can now enjoy your honey, its virtues and its aromas with peace of mind and over time. And don’t forget when choosing your honey, that not all have the same properties or the same textures and that it is the floral nectars that make the difference.