Stirring Honey (Creaming)
Lexikon
Stirring honey, or creaming, is a craft technique with which beekeepers deliberately control natural crystallization so that the honey ends up spreadable and finely creamy instead of coarse-grained and hard.
Stirring honey, or creaming, is a craft technique with which beekeepers deliberately control natural crystallization so that the honey ends up spreadable and finely creamy instead of coarse-grained and hard. Left untreated, many honeys form large, sandy crystals as they crystallize, which feel unpleasantly gritty on the tongue, while finely stirred honey acquires an even, soft consistency that spreads easily on bread.
Several methods have become established among beekeepers in practice. In repeated stirring, the freshly extracted honey is immediately mixed with a portion of already finely creamed seed honey and stirred several times a day at a cool room temperature over the following days until it is firm. In single stirring, the honey is first left to set on its own and then stirred vigorously with a stirring device before it reaches the desired firm, finely stiff consistency after a few days. It is important to always keep the stirrer below the surface of the honey so that as little air as possible is worked in.
A common mistake is to stir the honey at too high a room temperature, because above about 20 degrees the crystals grow faster and coarser, so that the desired finely creamy effect is lost. The right order is equally important, because without prior seeding with fine crystals, stirring alone often does not lead to an even, fine structure, but only to an irregular mixture of coarse and fine crystals.