Natural flower honey is a wonderful product with a characteristic pleasant smell, unique taste and a lot of medicinal properties. Beekeepers, of course, know how to store honey. But how, where and in what conditions it is stored to us, so that this wonderful product does not lose its valuable qualities?
How to store honey correctly?
It is best to store honey in a ceramic, birch bark, glass or enameled sealed container. It is good to store this beekeeping product in wooden utensils made of beech, birch, linden, plane tree or cedar, utensils made from other types of wood impart unnecessary and uncharacteristic tastes and odors to honey. You can, of course, store honey in a container of stainless steel, food aluminum or white tin. Do not store it in galvanized or copper containers, as well as in containers of black iron or cast iron.
How to store honey in honeycombs?
In order to preserve the useful properties of honey in honeycombs for a fairly long time, you need to cut the honeycomb into small pieces and, placing them in clean containers, tightly close the lid. You can wrap them in cellophane (just not polyethylene!) And put it on the shelf of the refrigerator, where there is not too low a temperature, or store it on the shelf of the locker, standing in a cool and dark place.
How much can you store honey?
Good honey under the right conditions can be stored for a very long time. At the same time, honey does not lose its valuable properties, but it can crystallize and darken. Honey, aged more than a year, thanks to fermentation for its medicinal properties, far surpasses fresh varieties, although in some way inferior to them in appearance and smell.
Honey storage place: choose wisely
Honey should be stored in clean and dry rooms, and if it is in glassware, it is also dark, as light contributes to the deterioration of the quality of honey. Literally in a few days, honey, standing in the light, loses its healing properties. In the room where honey is stored, air humidity should not be high (not higher than 80%, or better - 60%). Do not store honey near food or, especially, other substances that have strong odors. For example, next to herring, sauerkraut, pickled cucumbers and so on. Also in the room there should not be (in any case!) No chemicals, especially active, odorous and volatile.
At what temperature is honey stored?
The optimal temperature for storing honey is from 0 to +10 ° C. At lower or, conversely, higher temperatures in honey, although slowly, many useful amino acids, vitamins and enzymes are destroyed, as a result, honey loses its characteristic pleasant smell, darkens, its healing properties are somewhat weakened. In principle, it is advisable to store honey in the refrigerator in small quantities at home. For a short time, this product can be stored even at subzero temperatures (down to -20 ° C). In general, if the storage conditions are met, natural floral honey stays for a long time without any appreciable loss of its valuable qualities.
On the changes in the appearance of honey
Mold in quality honey does not develop ever. It can only turn sour if it is pumped out in an unripe condition or stored in a room with high humidity and high temperature in a loosely-closed container.
It should be understood that the dietary and medicinal qualities of honey do not change at all during the crystallization that occurs with time in the sustained mead. Sometimes, during prolonged storage over a dense mass, a more liquid layer may form. This is the case if the honey is pumped early and has a slightly increased water content. This can also happen with a fairly long storage of fully mature honey, if the constant storage temperature is above +25 degrees. To crystallize the honey dissolved, it should be heated in a water bath, while the water temperature should not exceed 50 ° C.