Honey is a very healthy and tasty product, it is used not only in cooking, but also for treatment. That is why it is very important to be able to determine the quality of honey, because, unfortunately, the markets often offer a bad product or non-natural.
Pick your recipe
You will need
- - chemical pencil;
- - tannin 5%;
- - alcohol 96%.
Instruction manual
1
Pay attention to the smell of honey. It can range from a delicate aroma to a thick spicy, but in any case, honey should smell strongly. A fake product made from sugar syrup has a faint odor. Sour honey smells like a braga.
2
The quality of the product also depends on color. Honey is from white to a very dark shade, almost brown. It depends on the plants from which nectar is collected. But in any case, real fresh honey is transparent. Take a closer look, if there is sediment, then most likely you have a fake product. Do not confuse with the natural turbidity that appears at the beginning of crystallization.
3
By consistency, good ripe honey should be thick. If you are considering a fresh, not yet crystallized product, then collect honey in a spoon and try to slowly pour it. If the honey is ripe, then it will drain in a thick stream, which can even be “wound” on a spoon.
4
Crystallization is a natural process and depends on the type of honey. This does not affect the quality of the product. But you need to be able to distinguish honeydew honey. This is a low-quality product that bees make on the basis of not nectar, but sweet secretions on the leaves of trees. Under the microscope, honeydew honey has rounded crystals.
5
Try rubbing a couple drops of honey with your fingers. The real one will just soak into the skin, and the fake will leave lumps.
6
Check the quality of honey with a chemical pencil, if the blue mark remains, then this product is of poor quality, because it has a high water content. And this is not necessarily a fact that water has been added to honey, most likely it was taken away from hives early. Such honey is unripe and may ferment or sour during storage.
7
Add a drop of iodine to a small amount of honey. The presence of starch is detected by turning the product blue. But the presence of gelatin will reveal an aqueous solution of tannin. Mix honey with water in a ratio of 1: 2 and pour 5 drops of 5% tannin. If white flakes appear, then the honey is fake.
8
It is important to be able to distinguish honeydew honey, because it is a low-quality beekeeping product. To do this, mix honey with water in equal amounts. Then pour 5 parts of 96% alcohol on each part of this mixture and shake. If the liquid becomes cloudy, then this indicates the presence of a paddy. And if a precipitate appears, then the honey is very bad, in it the fall is 25% or more.
note
Some unscrupulous beekeepers receive sugar syrup honey, giving it to bees in dry or rainy weather. Accordingly, the bees process the syrup; in the hives, such honey is saturated with smells. But this product has no value, because it has a very small percentage of vitamin and mineral substances. It has a faint smell, unexpressed taste, very light. It is difficult to distinguish a sugar fake, so buy honey only from trusted sellers, and best of all, right in the apiary, from a friend beekeeper.
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