Document Making your own creamed honey seed

[Neville 26]

I have 20kg of a particularly tasty honey which I suspect is a bled containing Macadamia.  It has a very dark and almost nutty flavour.  Everyone that tries it rave its the best honey they have ever tasted.  I no longer let anyone test it because they all want a jar and well ……..

The 20kg I have is crystallised in its extraction bucket. I want to cream some, but don't want to "contaminate" it with a seed from a different honey source.  How do I make a seed from this honey to then cream a larger portion?

[M4tt 4839]

1 hour ago, Neville said:

I have 20kg of a particularly tasty honey which I suspect is a blend containing Macadamia.  It has a very dark and almost nutty flavour.  Everyone that tries it rave its the best honey they have ever tasted.  I no longer let anyone test it because they all want a jar and well ……..

The 20kg I have is crystallised in its extraction bucket. I want to cream some, but don't want to "contaminate" it with a seed from a different honey source.  How do I make a seed from this honey to then cream a larger portion?

You can’t .

You need to find another creamed honey with a fine grain to use as your seed . Creaming will alter the flavour anyway , from what you are used to as runny honey 

Edited September 19 by M4tt

[tristan 3923]

the amount of creamed honey you add is very small and i doubt it will change the taste.

best one to use is pohutukawa.

[yesbut 5600]

I reckon once a honey is creamed it becomes like all other honeys. Creaming ruins the taste for me.

[Bighands 858]

13 minutes ago, yesbut said:

I reckon once a honey is creamed it becomes like all other honeys. Creaming ruins the taste for me.

Try warming it up then you will get the true flavour

[yesbut 5600]

Yes, I can see the potential for creamed melting out on hot toast....

[Neville 26]

Not the answer I was looking for ……. ☹️ Nev not happy <grump grump, stamping of floor with arms folded>

I did make up a small seed sample using 10% creamed clover honey and my honey, and all I tasted was the clover.

I guess I need to build a honey hot box and just keep it liquid in stead.

 

Why is pohutukawa best?

[yesbut 5600]

Cos it goes hard really quick

[Ted 324]

14 hours ago, M4tt said:

You can’t .

You need to find another creamed honey with a fine grain to use as your seed . Creaming will alter the flavour anyway , from what you are used to as runny honey 

You can actually.  It basically involves grinding the coarse grained honey into a fine grain in a mortar and pestle.  There’s a video on utube somewhere.  Then use the fine grain portion to cream the rest - bearing in mind you need 10% starter so if you only have 100gms in your mortar and pestle that would only be enough starter to cream 1kg.  Once that was fully creamed you’d have enough to do 10 kg etc etc.......

[BeeGirl 113]

Ted is indeed correct. I also remember seeing the clip on youtube a couple of years ago. The final result of the creamed honey looked really good. 

[tristan 3923]

9 hours ago, Neville said:

 

I did make up a small seed sample using 10% creamed clover honey and my honey, and all I tasted was the clover.

 

 

Why is pohutukawa best?

10% is huge.

not sure what ratio they work on but try 1%.

pohutukawa sets quick but i think its also fine grained.

[Hector Wong 224]

Here is one  

 

 

[Dennis Crowley 1031]

10 hours ago, Ted said:

You can actually.  It basically involves grinding the coarse grained honey into a fine grain in a mortar and pestle.  There’s a video on utube somewhere.  Then use the fine grain portion to cream the rest - bearing in mind you need 10% starter so if you only have 100gms in your mortar and pestle that would only be enough starter to cream 1kg.  Once that was fully creamed you’d have enough to do 10 kg etc etc.......

An older beek told me that his father had a set of gears that poured his honey through and it would crush it up so fine that he could cream just about any honey to the finest texture. but another beek borrowed the gears and they never saw them again.

[tristan 3923]

21 minutes ago, Dennis Crowley said:

An older beek told me that his father had a set of gears that poured his honey through and it would crush it up so fine that he could cream just about any honey to the finest texture. but another beek borrowed the gears and they never saw them again.

yes there is a creaming machine. i don't know the details on it. i assume its similar to a gear pump but runs backwoods and requires a pump to push honey through it.

[Trevor Gillbanks 6238]

1 hour ago, tristan said:

yes there is a creaming machine. i don't know the details on it. i assume its similar to a gear pump but runs backwoods and requires a pump to push honey through it.

Lyson put one out.  I have seen it but did not take much of a look once I saw the price.

[Bighands 858]

4 hours ago, tristan said:

10% is huge.

not sure what ratio they work on but try 1%.

pohutukawa sets quick but i think its also fine grained.

Correct,It does set fast and is fined grained just like S.Rata

[kevin moore 632]

14 hours ago, tristan said:

10% is huge.

not sure what ratio they work on but try 1%.

pohutukawa sets quick but i think its also fine grained.

we use about 4% seed i think it is

[PhilEvans 169]

16 hours ago, Hector Wong said:

Here is one  

{video posted by @HectarWong}

 

Just watched the video above posted by Hectar Wong, and he heats the honey up to 150F (77C) to 'kill all the yeast', which also kills all the enzymes and good stuff. (I think this is pasteurisation).
My understanding is that honey should not be warmed to over 40C to preserve all the good stuff.
Personally I think he is way over the top with how fine the crystal grains are, and that white colour.... sorry - nope, not for me... but each to their own.

[Neville 26]

Cheers all

I have ordered a stone mortar and pestle and will give it a go an a small trial batch.  Definitely want to retain the unique flavour that this honey has so if smashing it to pieces changes the flavour we wont be going any further.

I definitely wont be heating my honey up as shown in the video.

[kevin moore 632]

21 hours ago, Trevor Gillbanks said:

Lyson put one out.  I have seen it but did not take much of a look once I saw the price.

We have one of theres it dose a great job, pretty much just set and forget

[Trevor Gillbanks 6238]

1 minute ago, kevin moore said:

We have one of there's it does a great job, pretty much just set and forget

Nice to know.  I did not know anyone who had one.  

[kevin moore 632]

1 minute ago, Trevor Gillbanks said:

Nice to know.  I did not know anyone who had one.  

they hold some thing like a bout 50 kg  turn it on and it will run for 5 mins every hour and will keep going for 90 hours, you just stop when you think its ready, although  theres been the odd time time we've got busy so its just a reset and let it run till we are ready,

did hear of a person just kept theres going and had a fill your own type system going. 

[tristan 3923]

1 hour ago, kevin moore said:

We have one of theres it dose a great job, pretty much just set and forget

whats actually in it?

what i see in their manual is basically just a stirrer.

[Mummzie 498]

3 hours ago, Neville said:

Cheers all

I have ordered a stone mortar and pestle and will give it a go an a small trial batch.  Definitely want to retain the unique flavour that this honey has so if smashing it to pieces changes the flavour we wont be going any further.

I definitely wont be heating my honey up as shown in the video.

at the very least its a good arm workout. I've been trying to get the seed fine enough most of today and theres plenty of work to be done yet. 

Most of  my honey eaters prefer the honey liquid, so this is experimental only.

A couple of weeks ago I tasted a creamed honey that had such a fine texture it was like butter- I doubt that was achieved with a mortar & pestle.

 

 

[Kiwi Bee 559]

The Konigin creamer explained a bit better.