Maria's Bees: Is your honey crystallized? Here is the crystallized honey fix

Honey crystals. This year's honey crystallized fairly quickly.

Raw, unfiltered honey will often crystallize. Certain honeys such as canola and dandelion will crystallize faster due to their higher glucose content as opposed to acacia, sage, tupelo, and black locust. Honey that is stored in cooler locations will crystallize faster than honey kept at room temperatures. Professor Elton J. Dyce discovered that honey crystallizes the fastest at 55F (12.7C). Unfiltered honey will crystallize faster than filtered honey, because filtration removes the "starter" crystals.

Personally, I prefer not to re-liquefy honey once it is crystallized. Crystallized honey, also known as creamed honey, is not as messy as liquid honey. It does not leave messy drips and trails when you use it in your tea, and it spreads nicely on your biscuits. It also retains all of its original awesome flavor. Do you like your honey crystallized or liquid? Leave me a note in the comments section.

Still, I often get asked how to re-liquefy the honey. Here are the basic steps (for the YouTube video click here):

The crystallized honey fix: place the honey in a pot of warm water

Heat a pot of water to 150F (65C).
Remove the pot from the heat in so that you don't accidentally scorch the honey in the process
Place the crystallized honey in the pot

It took us almost an hour to re-liquefy our jar of honey.

Finally, we color graded our honey. I want to mention the awesome post called "Honey colours" by Jeanette Jeffrey. In it, she provides a very easy to use grading scale. Here is our honey (Basswood) by the scale.