Honey is not only a favorite delicacy of many, but also a surprisingly healthy product, which is produced by small toilers of the bee. It can be added to tea instead of sugar, honey is used to treat colds. This unique product is used in baking, as well as in the manufacture of cosmetics. You can also name many different areas where honey has found application. But it is important that it be exclusively real. It’s no secret that many “craftsmen” are now selling ordinary fakes under the guise of not very cheap sweets. And, taking into account that almost everyone buys it, for the average consumer information will not be superfluous on how to check honey for naturalness.
What are the types of honey
When we come to the honey fair, it’s quite difficult to make a decision right away. Honeys are arranged in rows on multi-tiered shelves, and each seller will readily tell you about each of them, its useful qualities and why some are more expensive and others are cheaper.
- The most useful is, of course, May honey. One of its most common species is acacia. Beekeepers who value their reputation, during the flowering of acacia, take out platforms on which beehives are located in acacia groves and, while there are fragrant clusters of trees with white sweet flowers, the bees collect their nectar. Some bee breeding specialists specially plant plots of honey with fatselia grass, from which they also pump early honey. A distinctive feature of such a product is a dull color and the fact that it does not sugar for a long time.
- A lot of sunflower honey is produced . It is enough to put bee houses in the fields with blooming sunflowers, and small workers will fill their honeycombs with nectar. Such honey is pumped several times during the summer. It is brighter and sweeter than May, and is sugared quite quickly.
- Perhaps one of the most delicious and most beloved honey is buckwheat. It is incredibly fragrant, has a dark color and a very special taste.
Fans of this unique product are happy to buy linden, meadow honey, with various additives. Of course, buying this useful and nutritious product, I want to be sure that you will not be deceived. Let's get acquainted with a few simple rules on how to check the naturalness of honey at home.
Verification by comparing honey and water
This method at home is perhaps one of the easiest. To do this, you need a pot or other container with a capacity of a little more than a liter. Before the experiment, it must be weighed. Then we perform step-by-step actions.
- Pour one liter of water into the dishes. In place of the upper boundary of the contact of the liquid with the wall of the pan, make a mark.
- Weigh the filled pan as well.
- Drain and dry the container.
- Now pour so much honey there that it reaches the mark you set.
- Weigh the pot filled with honey.
- From both received masses subtract the weight of the container.
- Mass of honey divided by the mass of liquid.
- The result should be equal to about 1.41 with possible slight deviations.
- If the result is significantly different from the control number (especially if it is much less), then they sold you a fake.
Here is a simple technique you can apply if you want to learn how to check honey for naturalness.
Checking honey with a water bath
There is another simple way to determine a quality product using improvised tools. To do this, you need honey in a small amount, about 50 grams.
- Take a small dish with a tight-fitting lid and place honey there.
- The closed container should be kept for about ten minutes in a water bath heated to a temperature of about 45 degrees.
- Take the dishes out of the water, remove the lid and smell it. The smell of honey should be bright, natural, rich. If you didn’t feel it, they sold you a fake.
Remember these simple rules, and with their help, the task of how to check the naturalness of honey at home will be solved quite quickly.
Checking honey with vinegar and copper wire
Many sweet sellers sin by adding regular sugar to it. But it so happens that to make the product heavier and to obtain dishonest profits, unscrupulous manufacturers use substances that can be harmful to health. How to check honey for naturalness using ordinary vinegar or a piece of copper wire?
- Vinegar will help us find common chalk in the product. To do this, dissolve a little honey in a glass of water and pour a small amount of acid. If first bubbles appeared on the surface of the resulting solution, and then foam - this is a clear sign of the presence of a weighting agent in the form of chalk in honey.
- Copper wire will also help us determine if there are any impurities in the honey. Heat a small piece of metal over a fire and dip into a beekeeping product. They saw an extraneous plaque on copper - they sold you a composition in which there are extraneous impurities. If honey easily drains along it, and the copper wire remains clean at the same time, nothing was added to this product.
How to check honey for natural iodine
The use of iodine is one of the most reliable ways to help us identify a fake product. Iodine is a good indicator that can show if starch is present in honey. Everything is very simple, because with the reaction of iodine with starch it becomes blue. Such a check will take very little time.
- Pour a couple of tablespoons of water into a small plate or saucer and stir half a teaspoon of honey in it until completely dissolved.
- Pipette a little iodine into a pipette and drop 2-3 drops into the resulting liquid.
If the solution turns blue, this means that the honey has become thicker due to the fact that it was diluted with starch or flour. Perhaps such a product will not bring much harm, but its healing properties are definitely absent. So you can expose the fraud, if you know how to check the naturalness of honey with iodine.
Testing with water and a chemical pencil
These two simple methods will help us understand if there are any impurities in honey and whether it is diluted with sugar syrup.
- How to check honey for naturalness with water? In a glass of warm water you need to dissolve one tablespoon of honey and wait a bit. The appearance of sediment at the bottom indicates the presence of impurities in the sweet product.
- Still how to check honey for naturalness? Chemical pencil. Everyone knows that a pencil changes color when in contact with moisture. Dip it in honey and follow the reaction. The color change indicates that sugar syrup is present in the bee dessert.
How to check honey for naturalness in other ways at home
There are many ways to find out if they sold you a good quality beekeeping product or added something to it in order to generate more income.
- In order to determine the excessive humidity of the treat, take a piece of bread, spread it with honey and leave for a while. If the bread became soft, it means that it absorbed excess moisture, but if it became hard - you bought quality honey.
- A very simple way to determine the real goodies can be a regular paper towel. Drop a little honey on it. A good product will remain on the napkin in the form of a whole drop. Well, if it is completely absorbed into a napkin - in front of you is a surrogate that has nothing to do with real honey.
- How to check candied honey for naturalness? Rub a small amount into the skin. If the product is natural, it is completely absorbed. Well, if you feel small grains, such honey is of poor quality.
- Liquid honey is easy to check for viscosity. Dial it with a spoon or ladle, lift and follow the stream. It should fall continuously and form a hill. At low viscosity, a funnel will be produced instead of a slide.
Linden honey. How to understand whether it is real or not
Linden honey is one of the most healing. Therefore, before you buy it, you should know how to check linden honey for naturalness. Beekeepers will share their secrets with you.
- First of all, pay attention to the color. It should be light yellow, transparent, have an amber hue.
- Such honey should have a characteristic linden aroma and rich taste.
- Linden honey begins to crystallize six months after pumping.
- After sugaring, the honey structure becomes coarse-grained, and the color becomes white, sometimes bright yellow.
- You will also recognize it by its persistent linden smell and mint aroma.
By what signs to determine low-quality honey in the market
We have given several ways to check honey for naturalness if you have already brought it home. But even better if you check its quality immediately before purchase. There are several points that should alert the buyer.
- The bee delicacy is completely lacking in aroma.
- When you tried it, it did not cause a slight sore throat and did not leave a long aftertaste.
- The product color seemed strange to you.
- In autumn and winter, you are offered liquid honey.
Of course, now there are such craftsmen in whom a fake product is difficult to distinguish from the present. Therefore, if you have the opportunity, buy honey from trusted beekeepers.