Making Creamed Honey,This will be about the "Dyce

Process" for making creamed honey,but, more importantly, a practicalmethod for using those basicprincipals for making small batches.

What is creamed honey?Creamed or crystallized honey ishoney made to crystallize smoothlyby seeding with 10% finelycrystallized honey and storing atabout 57° F.

We make a 60-pound batchat one time, which isn't a huge batch,but it win yield about 80+ 12-oz.containers. You can make a batchany size you want But for thepurposes of this article we'll do our60-pound batch. We think it is bestto use your lightest mildest flavoredhoney.

Moisture must be below18.6%, so it won't ferment Honeycrystallizes best if it is below 18% inmoisture content; it does best in the18%- 17.5% range. If you use honeyin a lower moisture range yourproduct will be very firm and not asspreadable. However, if you areusing powdered freeze-dried fruitsfor flavoring your honey themoisture should be about 18%. Thefreeze-dried fruit sucks up themoisture from your honey andmakes it too firm if your moisture islower than 18%. To bring yourmoisture level up to 18% you mayhave to add water. If your honey is17% and you want to bring it up to18% you need to calculate using thefollowing formula. To bring yourhoney up 1% add 1 Ib. of water to100 Ibs. of honey. That would be 'AIbs. of water for 50-lbs. etc.

Our first step involvesheating the honey to 140° to removeany crystals that may have formedalready. You want your crystals to beas small as possible and to be madefrom the starter you will add. At thispoint we pour half of the honey intoanother bucket so that each buckethas about 30 pounds of honey in itWe use two buckets, each with a

Flavored and Natural byjolihoney gate, for botding the creamedhoney mixture. If using thepowdered freeze-dried fruit it is bestto add it when the honey is stillwarm*(see mixing in the powderedfreeze-dried fruit at the end). Thenlet the honey cool to less than 80°F.You can let this honey sit for 24hours (even a few hours is beneficial)so any foam & or air bubbles can riseto the top. (If you are on a timeschedule, this step can be eliminated.)Then, using your spatula or by usingsaran wrap laid down on the top ofthe foam and pressing it down youcan gently remove any foam and airbubbles.

The next step is the mostcrucial. Start with a good starter. Wealways purchase starter at the grocerystore by buying a commerciallyprepared product from either SueBee or Golden Heritage Foods.Make sure you start with a tinycrystal that feels smooth on yourtongue. Also choose a starter that isfirm and not runny. The bestpercentage is to use 5%-10% ratio ofstarter to honey. The more starteryou use the faster it will set up. Weuse 6 pounds of starter for each 60-pound batch. The starter and thehoney need to be at roomtemperature so it will mix better. Weput the starter into a smaller bowland mash it around so it will beeasier to mix into the bulk honey.We then divide the starter in V? andput that into each bucket. Nowcomes the fan parti How do youblend the starter with honey? Wehave been using a Vi" drill with astainless steel dry wall paddle on itThis works faidy well When one ofour friends helped us the Hrill wasn'tat home and she had a big wire whiskthat you can get at a restaurantsupply store. Actually this workedquite well. Mix the starter in verywell. Your honey will take on amarbled appearance and you will beable to actually see the starter as itmixes in. You can eiuier bottle at

Winer & Cecil Sweeneythis point or let it sit for 24 hours tolet any foam and air rise to the topand then remove the foam using theabove methods. Remember you areincorporating a lot of air into themixture. We have been doing thisstep and consider it important Ifyou are putting your creamed honeyin glass or clear plastic containersyou'll definitely want to do this step.Otherwise, you get a fine layer offoam on the top that you can see iton the creamed honey, but it doesn'taffect the taste at alL One book alsosaid that if you can let it set at 40°Ffor several hours this will stop thebubbles and foam from rising to thetop.

Now we are ready to bottleit We are using a plastic opaque tub,nothing fancy. You could use anydecorative jar or container.

After this is done we lug itout to our extra refrigerator.Optimal temperature for makinghoney crystallize is 57°F. Ourrefrigerator has a wine coolerthermostat or temperature controlunit on it This thermostat will keepthe temperature at 57°F. It takes oursabout 6-10 days to become firm.

If your product becomestoo firm you may have to do what iscalled 'conditioning.' To do this,place your honey in a room with thetemperature between about 80-90°F. This will sufficiently softenup your creamed honey and make itmore spreadable.

It is best to store creamedhoney at about 70°. Much warmercan make it too soft and once itreliquefies or starts to reliquefy youhave to start the process all over,beginning with emptying your jarsand heating your honey. When wego to outdoor craft fairs andmarkets we keep our creamed honeyin a cooler and just have 'dummy' orempty labeled containers for displayon the table.

Tips for Using Freeze-dried Powdered Fruit, Nuts

Another one of our friendsuses flavoring extracts. She makes amaple pecan using real pecans andmaple flavoring. Remember thatthe flavoring adds moisture to youhoney. She uses the taste method —if it tastes ok that's how much youshould use. She tried using maplesyrup and did not like the way thatturned out. She has also been doinga coconut, maple pecan and usingpecans and maple and coconutextract

We have made severalbatches of pecan creamed honey. Weuse two cups of pecans per gallon ofhoney. I tried to grind the pecans upin the blender but •was afraid I'd havepecan butter if I kept going so thepieces were bigger than they shouldhave been. We have since found thatpecan meal or really finely groundpecan mixes in beautifully. Some ofthe pecans rise to the top but somestay suspended. It really makes abeautiful product The last batch wemade we used 5 cups of the pecanmeal for a 5-gallon batch plus 10cups of the pecan pieces.

For cinnamon creamedhoney we use real cinnamon. I buygood cinnamon in bulk at Penzeys(we like the Vietnamese). We use 1cup, about 4 oz. for a 5-gallon batch.I have tried using the cinnamonfrom the grocery store and didn't likeit So make sure and get the goodstuff.

Using the powdered driedfruits is a little tricky. The amount offreeze-dried powdered fruits that youuse is approximate. For a 5 gallonbatch we are using 1 Ib. of fruitYou may like it to have a strongerflavor so add more.

We take one gallon of verywarm honey and put that in a bowlthen we slowly whisk in the freezedried powdered fruit After the fruitis mixed in it can be added to the restof the honey for the batch, after it allcools, add your starter and proceed

as above. Remember, whenadding other foods to your honeyyou'll have to make sure and add thatto your label. If you use any driedfruit with preservatives in them-likesulfites, you must also list that onyour label

Anything that you add toyour creamed honey or liquid honeyadds another medium for your honeyto crystallize on and can make yourcreamed honey have a larger crystalthan you 'want

Properly processed honeywill retain its firm, creamyconsistency at normal roomtemperature, but will break down athigh temperatures. Recooling willnot make it firm again.

Key Points:1. Check the moisture content of

your honey.2. Heat your honey to remove any

crystals that have alreadyformed.

3. Use good firm, finely granulatedstarter.

4. 57°F5. Don't try to rush itAdditional Recipes:

Pecan Creamed Honeyfor 5 gallons10 cups of small pecan pieces5 cups of pecan meal

Jalapeno Creamed Honey5 gallon batch1 Ib. of Air Dried Jalapeno powder

I got two different recipes frompeople doing Jalapeno &Raspberry Creamed Honey

One for 5 gallons:1 Ib. Air Dried Jalapeno'A Ib. Freeze- Dried RaspberryPowder

One for 1 gallon:V* cup Jalapeno powder3/4 cup Raspberry powder

This is probably a good example ofusing the taste test method & keepgood records.

Apple Cinnamon or PeachCinnamon—can also be calledApple Cobbler or Peach CobblerFor 5 gallons use1 Ib. of the powdered fruit1 cup or 4 oz. of Cinnamon

Chocolate Creamed Honey1 gallon batch:Nestles Bakers pre-meltedunsweetened chocolate flavor in 1oz. packets

Use 4 packets per gallon (Use 20 1oz. packets for 5 gallons)

Note: Have also had friends thathave used powdered cocoa so justexperiment

Cinnamon5 gallonsUse 1 cup or about 4 oz.

Infused HoneyjJoan Vibert's article and

then her talk at the Fundayencouraged me to try to makesome infused honey. I made avanilla and a ginger with orangeand lemon (in honor of RobertBurns' delicious mead). So Itook 12 Mexican vanilla beansfrom Penzeys spices, cut them inhalf and added them to onegallon of honey. I put the galloninto the hot box at 120°F for 48hours. It is absolutely incredibletasting! Strong enough that I amgoing to try to use the vanillabeans over well—I might just cuta piece to put a little in each jar.I figured that my cost on thevanilla will be about $.84 per 8oz. jar.

For the ginger, orange &lemon infused honey I used a 4oz. bag of •whole root chinaginger, dried, plus 2 tablespoons

of orange peel and 2 tablespoonsof lemon peel. I put this in onegallon of honey and put it intothe hot box at 120°F for 48hours. Not everyone likesginger so it wasn't as big a hit asthe vanilla but I'll see how it sellsand let you know.

A hot box is a non-working refrigerator or insulatedbox that has been converted to ahot box with the addition of aheat limit control and a lightbulb. The light bulb comes onand supplies the heat todecrystallize honey or in this caseheat my honey for the infusedhoney.

Infused Honey Recipes

Vanilla Infused1 gallon honey12 vanilla beans (I liked theMexican)Cut the vanilla beans up insmaller pieces and add to honey.Put in hot box on about 115-120° or warm sunny area for atleast 48 hours - 1 weekStrain through a sieve to keep thevanilla pieces out of the jars—Iused the vanilla beans over 3times and the taste was still verygood!

Ginger Lemon & Orange4 oz. bag of whole root chinaginger, dried,2 tablespoons of orange peel2 tablespoons of lemon peel.

Put in hot box on about 115-120° or warm sunny area for atleast 48 hours - 1 weekStrain through a sieve to keep theginger and orange and lemonpeel out of the jarsNote: I drink we can use freshginger and cut it up in smaller

pieces —the dried ginger is reallyhard to cut up and impossible tobreak up.

Lavender Infused honeyNote: Lavender isn't our favoriteflavoring but customers askedfor it so we started with1 /2 oz. of French Lavender inone gallon that I got fromPenzey's spices. After a weekthe honey was "floral" tastingbut you really couldn't taste thelavender. The next batch I used1 oz. We went to the farm of aLavender grower and he said touse 1-2 cups per 1-1/2 gallons.Suggested we use ProvenceLavender. We are stillexperimenting widi this one!

Cinnamon InfusedUse 3 sticks of Cinnamon per jaror bear—put in a warm place &sell it!The longer this sits the better itis.

Garlic InfusedI used 1 garlic bulb per jar

References:Honey Bee Biology andBeekeeping by Dr. Dewey Caron,page 17.256, and 343.

ABC and XYZ of Bee Culturepublished by the A.I. Root CO., 143-146 pages.

Supplies:Heartland Honey andBeekeeping Supplies 913-856-8356Freeze-dried powdered fruit,Thermostat to convert a refrigerator

Penezeys Spices800-547-1392Penzeys.com

Miller Honey CompanyCreamed Honey StarterSalt Lake City UT801-486-8479