Planning on buying honey in bulk...

[bolepa]

Hi everyone! At this moment I kind of fed up with Costco or Sam's club honey (while it cheap - it's not real honey. It doesn't say that this honey raw and unfiltered. On the label it stated "grade A") sooo.... I am planning on buying 60 pounds of honey from reputable source but I have a dilemma: where to buy it from? At this moment I have two sellers in my mind: Crystal's Honey and Hawaiian Honey AT&S. Both sell 60# of honey for around $220-230 and both have free shipping. I would appreciate your input on this.... Thank you!

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[Maylar]

60 lbs. is a metric crap-ton of honey. Those bulk pails are likely to be local wildflower, which is fine for some meads but really limits your ability to create a wide range of mead styles. So unless you only make melomels where the honey isn't the main player, I would suggest a different route. 12 lb. gallon jugs of a variety of honey types would give you a much greater range of possibilities. Yes, the price of pure varietals will be more but you'll appreciate having the options to create any type of mead you want.

Sources that I've used with great satisfaction:

• Sleeping Bear Farms - Star Thistle and Tupelo
• Walker Honey Farm - Mesquite, Orange Blossom and Clover

You can also find wildflower at most any of them, but again I'd limit qty to 12 lbs.

 

[bolepa]

Thank you for your input, Maylar! I understand what you are talking about and completely agree with you but.... those two sites you mentioned in your post a bit expensive for me, especially if buying in smaller quantities... Oh, well.... Thank you again!

 

[Maylar]

Again, I will caution you about buying a 60 lb. pail, unless you're certain that it's the best honey you've ever tasted. I wouldn't want to hear you say, "This honey sucks, but I have a lot of it soo...". What would you do with 40 lbs. of honey that's crystalized because you haven't used it soon enough? A 12 lb. jug will tell you if it will suit your purposes.

One of our members here had posted a pic of his honey collection, I wish I could find it.

 

[Beekeeper]

Yes, buy in bulk if you believe that you will eventually use it up. Avoid moisture pickup. So long as you keep it concentrated, it will last forever.

 

[Dan O]

I've used Crystal's for years now without issue. Always top notch honey, always reliable, never disappointed.
For more specialized honeys, (more varieties than I've ever seen), check out Shawn Darryl Harris on Facebook.

 

[bolepa]

I've used Crystal's for years now without issue. Always top notch honey, always reliable, never disappointed.
For more specialized honeys, (more varieties than I've ever seen), check out Shawn Darryl Harris on Facebook.

Thank you, Dan! I think I should try them....

 

[rich1walkden]

Hi everyone! At this moment I kind of fed up with Costco or Sam's club honey (while it cheap - it's not real honey. It doesn't say that this honey raw and unfiltered. On the label it stated "grade A") sooo.... I am planning on buying 60 pounds of honey from reputable source but I have a dilemma: where to buy it from? At this moment I have two sellers in my mind: Crystal's Honey and Hawaiian Honey AT&S. Both sell 60# of honey for around $220-230 and both have free shipping. I would appreciate your input on this.... Thank you!

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As a local bee keeper I would happily provide honey at a reasonable price to a brewer. I would suggest you contact your local bee keeper association or the BBKA asking for names of local bee keepers. At this time of year most have quantities drawn off this year

 

[bolepa]

As a local bee keeper I would happily provide honey at a reasonable price to a brewer. I would suggest you contact your local bee keeper association or the BBKA asking for names of local bee keepers. At this time of year most have quantities drawn off this year

Thank you, Rich. Never heard of BBKA but will google it.

 

[Plasticmetal]

I've been buying 60lb pails of honey from Webstaurant Store for a few years now, going with Monarch's Choice Orange Blossom or Wildflower.

Not sure if you'd win awards using it, but it works well if you want to jam out some hydromel for casual drinking or if you need a template for ingredient trials.

I see you're in the Bay Area. By coincidence I just started a trial batch of canola honey mead yesterday that I sourced from Mike and Nickey's Honey company. To be clear: the jury's still out as to how this is going to go, but they had a solid selection and were willing to engage to when I queried them about it. They also have blends from the local area which I want to play around with in the future. Not sure they can do 5 gallons, though, you might have to stack a few 1-gal jugs.

Lastly: USDA Grade A means it is actual honey. To be clear: I'm not arguing against raising an eyebrow at Sam's Club, and I understand that labels aren't the be all and end all of what's actually in the bottle, but filtered, not raw honey is still, objectively, "real" honey. Assuming it's not counterfeit, the only thing they've done is filter out pollen and bee parts.