Granulation is a good thing!
Over time your jar of Actual Honey, or any honey from your local beekeeper, may begin to granulate. This is a completely natural process and is actually a really good sign that the honey you have is genuine and unadulterated.
There are 3 factors that contribute to the rate at which honey can granulate:
- The ratio of glucose / fructose in the honey – this depends on the flowers the bees have been visiting, more glucose will produce honey with a higher tendency to granulate
- The temperature at which the honey is stored – lower temperature will cause the process to occur much faster, so don’t leave your honey in the fridge!
- The amount of pollen in the honey – this depends on how processed the honey is. The simple two stage filtering to remove bits of wax or bee that most or all local beekeepers will use will leave some pollen in the honey which will cause the honey to granulate faster
How to spot granulation
The first thing you will notice are small sugar crystals forming which are suspended in the jar, usually towards the bottom. As time goes on these crystals will become larger and more numerous as the sugar around the crystals begins to precipitate. Eventually your whole jar will have granulated, changing colour from the time you originally bought it.
What to do
There are two avenues to go down once your honey has granulated, the first and easiest way is to adjust the way you enjoy your honey. If you are someone who likes to enjoy their honey in a coffee or on a warm piece of toast then granulated honey isn’t really going to affect you too much, as the warm toast and coffee will instantly dissolve the sugar crystals back into solution. The same goes for some delicious warm porridge. If you don’t do these, give it a try!
If you do prefer your honey in a liquid state then it’s fortunately quite simple to fix!
- Loosen or remove the lid
- Place the jar of honey in a saucepan and fill with water, but not all the way up to the lid… you don’t want any water getting into the honey!
- Warm the water gently up to around 37°C (body temperature) – if you have a thermometer, even better
- Leave the honey in the warm water for around 5 minutes or so, and stir, repeat this and you will notice the honey begins to return to its liquid state
- Once the whole jar is back as a liquid you can turn off the hob, remove the honey, and replace/tighten the lid. Remember to store it in a cupboard and not in the fridge!
Alternatively if you’re in a rush you can try the quick and easy hack which is to put the jar (with the lid removed) in the microwave. I’m a bit skeptical about this (and can’t personally say i’ve tried it) but I can’t imagine nuking a jar of wonderful honey in the microwave will do much to preserve all the goodness the bees have put in it!
