OVHA Chat

Any idears on how long honey will last in a sealed milk jug?

I had some beautiful orange blossum honey as a present a looong while back, before I forgot where my priorities laid, and never got around to making the mead. I'd hate to think I let it spoil.

I've always heard honey has a really long self life due to the extremely high sugar content giving it a very high osmotic pressure--making it very hard for bacteria, etc to grow. You could always pasteurize it, but I normally don't with my honey for mead. I only warm it up enough so it flows out of the jug.

Kool!
I guess if it still tastes good when I open it, it ought to be rockin.

I've often put mine to a slight boil just to help eliminate bacteria and I love the smell of hot honey water hitting fruit.

Anybody know where I might find some black rasberries?

Yes, but I'm not going to share!

Next year I hope to get enough netting to keep the robins out of mine, so I will have plenty. They don't leave me many, the greedy things. I don't have enough for us this year, let alone to give away.

Try Mayse Farm Market on St. Joe, a friend of mine occasionally sells them some. Expensive, though...

Honey will last pretty much forever unless it picks up nasty odors in storage. Best if used in a year to two, but if you boil it in the water (as you should, anyway, to get rid of bee parts, etc) it will be fine. Boil until it stops foaming up, skimming the foam off as it appears.

Peter

Had a successful event today with it. I found 7.5 lbs of black rasberries at Engelbrechs orchards. I bought them all and then put in 2.5 lbs of blackberries and 3 lbs of red rasberries to make up the difference. I agree about skimming the honey, that is how I have always done it as well. The honey has definately preserved well. I had some crystalization but it tasted sooooooo good and smelled wonderful. I just finished putting it all in the primary. Now the 2 year wait.

It'll be worth it.

Yeah buddy!