Decrystallizing honey

It is very rare that Honey actually goes bad.  The most common affliction facing honey is crystallization. 

Picture it .. There is your honey,  minding it's own business.  Nestled snugly in its little plastic bear shaped bottle.  All golden and see through.  Then one day ... *BAM* .. your honey gets all cloudy and grainy.  It stops taking your calls.  It won't come out of the cabinet.  And the big dance is coming up next weekend.  *sigh*

Don't throw that Honey out just yet.  It can be saved.

Step 1: Salvation in one easy step

Grab your double boiler.  Don't panic if you don't have a double boiler ( I don't)  you can make one out of two pots. 
Put about an inch of water in the bottom of the double boiler and turn on the heat.
Put your crystallized honey into the top of the double boiler.
Warm the honey until the crystals dissolve.

Comments

[sylvain01]

I transfer to a dish that goes in the microwave and its going very well in the microwave

[Bean and Cheese Stout]

Mmmmmm.. looks even more delicious after the fact. Hey, i have an excellent recipe with lots of honey and specialness
http://www.instructables.com/id/Hottie-Totties/

[Lorddrake]

thanks for the link .. looking forward to trying it

[Keigh]

Wow, this just happened to me and i've just been using the crystals and all in my tea. I tried setting the bottle in hot water but i just ended up with water in the honey that leaked through the lid. Now i know how to save it! Yay!

[suevv]

Great tip. I need to get that double boiler out more often. Also - FYI - leave it in the double boiler a little longer than you think you need to. And, clean the bottle completely before you put the honey back in. If you leave any honey crystals at all, you are "seeding" the honey and it will re-crystalize sooner rather than later.

[Lorddrake]

A very good point about the crystals.

As a matter of fact that is how they make creamed honey ( aka spun honey, whipped honey, churned honey, etc)

Don't let the name mislead you, it is actually finely crystallized honey.

It is made by adding a small amount of the creamed honey to a container of uncrystallized honey so that the small crystals propagate through the host honey.

[wazzup105]

How about dropping the container in the microwave for a wee bit ?

[Lucky7x7]

Yes, the microwave will revive the honey.but i do remove from bottle first as the plastic bottle was probably not intended to be heated.

[Lorddrake]

according to the internet ....

"Do not heat honey in the microwave as this alters its taste by increasing its hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) content."

and if it is on the internet it has got to be true :)

I haven't tried to microwave honey yet .. because the bottle was to big to fit in the microwave.

I don't know if the taste gets affected radically by microwaving, but I know it is fine if you warm it up on the stove the way I did, or by immersing the container in hot water.

[wazzup105]

I did that with a glass honey jar the other day and didn't notice any taste-difference. But it had been a while since I last used some honey I could very easily not notice it at all.

[jessyratfink]

I've never thought to use a double boiler! I always just try running the bottle it's in under hot water, which doesn't do much. I'll definitely try this next time. :)

[Lorddrake]

a really nice thing about using a double boiler setup is that it is much more forgiving when it comes to temperatures.
While it is possible to burn what you are heating in a double boiler (especially if you let the water run out in the bottom pot) it is much less likely to happen than heating in a single pot.
I tried the running it under hot water method previously too .. took forever to get very little results. :)
I also tried submerging the bottle into boiling water. It worked for the honey that was below the water line but anything above the water took forever to slowly slide down and decrystallize.