I just made my cherry melomel, using about a pound of honey out of a five pound plastic jug. My husband comes behind me, needing another pound for his honey brown ale. Except that it is all crystallized. I some how got all the fluid honey off and left a solid glob!
I used a pan of water and put the jug in it, tipped sort of sideways, and kept rotating it. It kind of worked. Once we got out what he needed, I kept at it a little bit longer, but then got tired (it is 8pm on a Sunday).
What is the best way to deal with crystallized honey, and do you bother to de-crystallize all of it?
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gently heat it in some water: put a towel in a sauce pan or whatever sized pan it fits in. heat to say 100* (too hot and you drive off the good stuff) and let sit until it liquefies again. i only do it when my honey gets really bad... since it usually goes on/in something hot and is not an issue.
I just sit the whole container of honey into a sink of the hottest tap water, it will go back to liquid, you might have to re-fill the sink a couple of times with hot water- but I have found in my cooking/bread making that it is much easier to measure out the few tablespoons per recipe that I need when it is all crystalline like that. It is also yummy spread on warm biscuits or toast when it gets all hard and crystalline.
Just don't put the plastic jug in a sauce pan of water on the stove-- it is just too easy to melt the plastic if the water comes to a boil.
If I buy a plastic container of honey I try to put it into a nice very clean mason jar right away, then if it does get too crystallized for me, I can use the low heat sauce pan to fix it.
Funny story-- at Gordon foods a clerk there thought that the stuff that was crystallized on the bottom of some of the jugs was wax! It was quite funny-- I let him know that it was just too cool in the building, or that the honey was getting kinda old, that would cause that to happen--see Old dogs can teach new tricks!
I have a large 4-cup Pyrex measuring cup - I spoon in the crystalized honey and use the defrost mode on the microwave. A brewbelt around the plastic honey container also works.
I think it can also have to do with too much water in the honey (put there either by the bees, processors, or a wet spoon.)
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If the container will fit, I just nuke it in the microwave for about 30 seconds at a time till it's liquid enough to pour out of the container. Regards, GF.
Crystalized Honey
It was quite funny-- I let him know that it was just too cool in the building, or that the honey was getting kinda old, that would cause that to happen--see Old dogs can teach new tricks!
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