Even after deciding that a specific floral honey variation would be our preferred sort, many of us regularly find ourselves thinking, “How can I choose the same floral variety of honey amongst all the different brands of honey from all over the world, with a vast range of costs in the marketplace?”
As I navigate the maze of many varieties of honey in the shops, I keep an eye out for specifics to make sure the honey I buy is worth the money. Good grade honey, or honey of value, can be assessed using five key criteria, including:
Moisture Content
In essence, premium honey sticks have less water in it. Honey is prone to ferment if it contains more water than 19%. The reason is that every unpasteurized honey contains wild yeasts. Since of the high sugar concentration, these yeasts won’t pose a concern in low moisture honey because osmosis will remove enough water from the yeast to put it into dormancy. In honey that has a higher proportion of water than usual, the yeast may persist and begin to ferment.
Honey easily absorbs moisture from its environment due to its high hygroscopicity. Therefore, producing high-quality honey with a suitable low water content in environments with high humidity—which can be determined using a tool called a refractometer—might be difficult. Raw honey’s moisture content may be as low as 14% because it is often valued more and so costs more.
Honey with up to 20% water content shouldn’t be utilized to make mead. You may rapidly verify how much water is included in each jar of honey by using two identically sized, equally-temperature, tightly-sealed jars of honey from different suppliers. Turn the two jars on their sides to observe the bubbles rising. The honey will bubble more quickly as there is more water in it.
Hydroxymethylfurfural, or HMF (Hydroxymethylfurfural)
Fructose, one of the main sugars in honey, breaks down into HMF both gradually during storage and quickly when heating. In order to estimate how long honey should be stored for and how much heating should have taken place, the amount of HMF it contains is utilized as a storage recommendation. The amount and buildup of HMF in honey varies depending on the type of honey. High HMF concentrations could be an indication that the extraction process overheated.
Bulk honey normally has to be below 10 or 15 mg/kg to allow for further processing and to provide some shelf life before a level of 40 mg/kg is reached. Honey is regularly sold in hot locations with HMF values far above 100 mg/kg. The main reason for this is that throughout the distribution process, honey is exposed to ambient temperatures (over 35°C). Some countries have HMF limitations on imported honey. As honey darkens when cooked and kept, the color of the honey is another item you might want to pay attention to as it occasionally serves as a sign of its quality.
Sugars with a reversed chain
HMF levels that are high (more than 100 mg/kg) may indicate that inverted sugars were added during adulteration. When a food acid and cane sugar (sucrose) are cooked together, HMF is created. The amount of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) can reach 1,000 mg/kg in a number of foods, including carbonated soft beverages.
Pollutants
Most buyers believe that premium honey will be visually perfect to check by honey sticks—clear and clean. Honey looks murky due to its exceptionally high pollen content and is unattractive to buy and consume due to the numerous pollutants it contains, including wax flakes, bee stings, wood splinters, and dust, giving the impression that it is of extremely poor value.
No matter how much food value or health benefits some of these particles, like pollen, can provide, this form of honey is unfortunately difficult to associate with high grade honey and is rejected by the majority of buyers at the supermarket. And this explains why it’s so hard to find raw, unfiltered honey in supermarkets. Their foggy appearance makes them unattractive to businesses.
Shade
Honey is divided into light, amber, and dark categories based on its hue, which has no real bearing on the product’s caliber. Some of the most distinctive and strongly tasted honey varieties, such basswood, are rather light in comparison to very mild and pleasant honeys like tulip poplar. The Pfund Scale measures the honey color in millimeters. Though this isn’t always the case and there are certain exceptions, the deeper the color of the honey, the higher its mineral content, pH readings, and levels of flavor and perfume. Darker honeys have been found to have much higher concentrations of minerals such salt, potassium, chlorine, and sulfur.
