How to check honey for naturalness at home. Know how to check purchased honey and a fake will not go unnoticed! Check candied honey for naturalness

Some sellers of bee products, in an attempt to make more money, come up with various ways to increase sales by passing off a fake as natural honey. For these purposes, they use sugar, flour, water, starch and even chalk. Such a product may not harm human health, but the healing properties will be minimal or completely absent.

The purpose of this article is to reveal the secrets of the "miracle alchemists", to help determine the quality and make the right choice of honey that will benefit your health.

First of all, if you want to check honey for naturalness, for example, in the market, and you don’t have the tools you need for this, you can use the simplest visual check for consistency, smell, taste, color.

Appearance

Apply a little concentrate on the skin of the hand, rub this place. Natural honey, which has a pleasant, delicate texture, should be completely absorbed. Carefully consider the structure of the nectar. It always contains particles of pollen, wax and other impurities.

Absolutely pure honey is a sign of an artificial product. If it is cloudy, then this indicates the presence of impurities. Bubbles, foam, fermentation indicate the possible presence of water.

Please note: natural honey, or rather most of its types, crystallize by winter.

Honey always remains liquid from:

fireweed;
lindens;
acacias;
buckwheat.

Such honey is easier to fake. Counterfeit is usually liquid, which means that it is warm and has dark spots. When heated above 40 degrees, the bee product not only loses its beneficial properties, but can also be harmful.

If you see candied honey in the summer, it means that it is from last year.

Taste and smell

You can determine the quality of honey by sampling. It harmoniously combines sweetness with a slight sourness, burns and tingles a little. Some varieties of honey have a slight bitterness, when heated, caramel shades, a pleasant aftertaste. Non-natural honey does not possess such qualities, besides, if it is sugary-sweet, it means that sugar was added there.

Natural dessert has a pleasant fragrant aroma, artificial has no smell. Some sellers add flavorings to confuse the buyer, but you can still distinguish the fake by smell.

Color and viscosity

Honey has a huge palette of colors and depends on the variety. The color can vary from white to brown, including a variety of yellows and browns. Knowing the characteristics of color and varieties will help you make the right choice.

Colors of honey depending on the variety:

lime - light yellow;
May - yellow;
chestnut - dark brown;
from sunflower - bright yellow;
from acacia - transparent, when it begins to crystallize - white;
burdock - olive;
crimson - light shades;
from hawthorn - brown;
floral - golden yellow;
buckwheat - amber brown;
sweet clover - almost colorless;
from clover - shades of amber;
mustard - cream with a yellowish tint;
motherwort - golden.

The fresh product is transparent, uniform in color and has no sediment.

You can check the quality of honey by viscosity. Usually sellers have sample sticks. Dip the stick into the dessert and slowly pull it out. A thin thread should be pulled. If it flows or drips, then it is fake.

The surrogate is coarse in texture, does not absorb into the skin, but rolls and forms lumps. If there are no sticks, then twist the jar. Diluted honey or warmed up will overflow. The correct consistency should be quite viscous. At home, you can rotate the spoon, as if winding honey around it, it will not spill.

Weight check

In order for the goods to weigh more, dishonest sellers often use water and various impurities. A standard liter jar weighs about one and a half kilograms. If you see that the weight is much greater, then the honey is diluted.

If in doubt about the purchase, you can determine the quality of honey at home in more detail.

Determining the presence of sugar

If the dessert is suspiciously white in color, has no pronounced, sugary-sweet taste, lacks the usual astringency, impurities can be detected by the following products:

Milk. Add some nectar to hot milk, if it curdles, then it is fake.
Tea. Dip a teaspoon of honey dessert into loosely brewed tea. If sediment appears at the bottom, then there can be no question of quality.
Bread. Dip soft bread into the mixture for about ten minutes. If the bread is not hardened, but softened, then the composition contains sweetened water.
You can check the naturalness of honey for sugar using paper. Use paper that absorbs moisture well. For these purposes, a newspaper, paper towel or napkin is suitable. Put some honey stuff in there. If it smudges, absorbs, or leaves moisture, then it contains water or sugar syrup.

Test for the presence of chalk and starch

To mask the poor quality of the product, increase the weight, viscosity, unscrupulous sellers add chalk chips and starch. So how do you test honey for chalk content?

To do this, you need table vinegar or essence. Make a water-honey solution. If, when vinegar is added there, hissing, foaming, bubbles appear, it means that chalk is present in the product. It reacts with acetic acid, which is accompanied by the release of carbon dioxide. When the composition settles, a layer of sediment from chalk forms at the bottom. The low content of chalk is detected only by acetic essence.
Ammonia is used to test for starch. The starch content will give off a strong molasses smell. Under the action of ammonia, a brown precipitate precipitates, while the honey mixture itself will acquire the same shade. Sulfuric acid, formed during the processing of molasses, reacts with ammonia. For this test, dissolve the concentrate in water (1: 2), drop ammonia there, 2-3 drops are enough.
Iodine can also be a great help in detecting falsification. Dilute honey in ordinary water, drop a few drops of iodine there. The composition turned blue, this is an indicator of the presence of starch or flour. The darker the composition, the more impurities were mixed there.

Chemistry Pencil Test

Another common means of identifying a surrogate is a check with a chemical pencil. Always take it with you to the store, to the honey fair. The essence of this method is to change the color of a low-quality product. To do this, you can put a little substance on a piece of paper and draw a pencil over it. The color has changed - in front of you is a fake.

Checking with improvised means

There are many different ways to expose a fake.

Copper wire will help determine the quality of honey at home:
1. heat the wire red hot;
2. lower it into the investigated container;
3. hold for 15 seconds: the wire is clean - the product is real, if there is a sticky mass - there are additives or water.
Testing with lapis (silver nitrate). Stir honey in water 1:10, lower the lapis there. The appearance of a whitish precipitate indicates the presence of sugar.
Matches. Light a match and bring it closer to the product, it should melt, after a while hiss. You can put a little experimental composition on paper, then set it on fire. A good product will not burn, color change will not occur. The surrogate will turn brown.
With stale bread. Dip a little roll in the test container for a while, it should remain stale.
Can be tested by heating. If the product is not genuine, it will ignite or begin to char.
If you put some dessert in a plate, add water and shake it horizontally, you can see a pattern that looks like a honeycomb, which indicates that you have not been deceived.

Any choice must be treated very carefully. If desired, you can conduct a consumer examination to determine the safety and quality of honey by organoleptic analysis:

microbiological;
for toxicity;
for compliance with chemical and physical standards.

Good day to all! Almost everyone loves honey. When the season for its sale comes, the markets are overcrowded. However, you can buy a fake, unnatural, which may contain impurities. If you have a familiar beekeeper, then you will take good honey from him. How to determine the quality of honey when buying it on the market?

In this article, we will analyze some of the features associated with determining the quality of this delicious product.

Unnatural honey has some special features. For example, if it has an amber luster and is very transparent, then it has been heated. And heating, as you know, leads to the loss of many useful substances.

Pouring into a jar, we notice that it begins to foam. This means that the honey is not yet ripe.

If it is white (pale) in color and has no flavor, then sugar has been added to it. This, by the way, is often found in some beekeepers.

When buying honey on the market, you can determine whether it is good or not by a trickle flowing from a spoon. If drops are formed, then this is not a natural product. Real honey not only flows continuously, but also builds up in layers. The last drop of it will not fall, but will be attracted to the spoon.

Good honey or fake honey can be recognized using homemade products. These are iodine, water and vinegar.

How to check honey is natural or not at home with iodine

If you know how to taste honey to taste, then you can easily check its quality directly in the market. But, if you still can’t do it, then train at home.

The first thing to check is iodine. It is used to detect the presence of starch. Remember, if you drop iodine on a piece of bread, a blue spot will appear.

Put a teaspoon of honey into a glass of warm water. Then we drip four drops of iodine. If the water turns blue, then starch has been added. Ask why is this being done? To weigh a little more. If the solution does not turn blue, then the honey is natural.

Checking the quality of honey with water

The presence of impurities in honey can be determined using water. You will need more ammonia. As in the previous case, we make a honey solution: for two tablespoons of water - a spoonful of honey. Then, drip a couple of drops of ammonia and shake. If the solution has acquired a brown tint, a precipitate has appeared, then there is molasses in the product.

You can do without ammonia. Leave the honey dissolved in warm water for an hour. If after this time a precipitate falls out in the glass or flakes appear, then the quality leaves much to be desired.

Another way, very original. We take a saucer, put honey and pour three tablespoons of cold water. After that, rotate the saucer with honey in quick circular motions. If, as a result, we see lines that look like honeycombs, then honey is natural.

Using Vinegar to Test Natural Honey

Vinegar is useful for testing honey. They determine whether it contains chalk. Dissolve honey in water and add a few drops of vinegar to it. If the water hissed and foam appeared, there is definitely chalk.

Natural honey does not burn - let's try to set it on fire

We do this check step by step. First, we put a drop on paper. If a wet spot has formed around the honey, then it has been diluted. Next, we set fire to the paper. Real honey will not burn or change its color, it will only melt. A poor-quality product will simply start to burn, in addition, the smell of burnt sugar will appear.

You can simply pour a small amount of honey into a spoon and heat it over a fire. Natural will only char, and unnatural will start to burn.

How to test candied honey at home

As for sugar. Most often it is added for long-term storage. The presence of sugar in honey is checked in several ways.

Boil milk, put honey in it. If it contains sugar, it will curdle. Tea is also suitable instead of milk. Natural honey will give the tea a dark color.

You can use bread. If a piece placed in honey does not soften, but, on the contrary, hardens a little, then the quality is good.

And finally, you can lower the red-hot wire into the honey. If it remains clean - natural. If there is a sticky substance on the wire, then this is a fake.

Often, after seeing thickened and candied honey in a jar, many people think that this is a bad product.

However, there is nothing wrong with that. That's the way it should be. Crystallization occurs due to the fact that it contains pollen.

Video on how to check the quality of honey at home

There are quite a few ways in which honey is tested for quality. The video below explains how to identify natural honey or not.

All the methods mentioned above are designed to determine the quality of honey at home. However, I would still like to determine the quality immediately upon purchase. Use a chemical pencil. Having lowered the pencil into honey and seeing that it has not changed its color, we find out in this way. that honey is natural

Honey is recognized by consumers and science as a useful, healing and most demanded product from the entire range of beekeeping, but only if it is natural. Lucky are those who have familiar beekeepers who have the opportunity to buy proven products. And what should an ordinary market buyer do, how to protect himself from a fake and be sure of its quality?

Varieties of honey

Often, sellers present a cheap product for which there is no demand, as more popular and expensive. For this reason, you should have an idea of how to distinguish between varieties of honey.

The color, aroma and taste of each variety depends primarily on the plant pollinated by bees immediately before production. But there is no pure honey, because insects have a habit of flying from place to place, often even changing the area. However, in each variety, you can determine which range of colors prevails.

Types and color of honey

Each of the species has its own external features and healing properties.

Lime. Recognized as the most useful in the fight against colds. Generally light amber in color, may be yellowish and translucent.
Buckwheat. It has a rich taste with a slight bitterness. Dark brown or dark yellow color with a reddish tint prevails.
Forest. The color range ranges from light yellow to light brown.
Lugovoi. Has light shades.
Acacia. Honey from this plant is almost transparent. An exception is the candied state, when the color becomes almost white.
Clover. Amber color with shades from light to rich and a special aroma.
Crimson. Only shades of honey were taken not by berries, but by flowers, so the product itself is of light colors.

When buying honey, it is not possible to conduct any research, and the seller will not allow the use of additional substances to test their products, but I want to buy a natural and high-quality product. It remains only to learn how to determine whether honey is real, according to external signs.

If there is foam with bubbles on the surface of the sweet product, this is a sign of fermentation, therefore, water has been added to it. The content of natural honey contains wax, pollen and other inclusions of natural origin. Transparency and too clean appearance indicate that the product is artificial.
When rubbed with fingers, natural honey should be absorbed into the skin.
Tasting, you should feel its astringency, slight burning, tingling in the mouth and sweetness in moderation. When you feel cloying and taste of caramel, it is likely that the honey was "warmed". This technique is sometimes used to add presentability to the product, but the useful properties are lost, and in some cases (depending on the heating temperature), the product can even be harmful.
Natural honey has a unique fragrant aroma, while its artificial counterpart is odorless.
Do not be alarmed when the bee product is candied. This is an indicator of naturalness, as it is subject to crystallization, unlike a fake. Knowledgeable buyers do not always seek to purchase honey in liquid form, and its crystallization speaks of excellent quality, which is the most reliable test.

Checking a bee product at home for the presence of additives

Viscosity maturity index. A quality and mature product is considered to be a product that has undergone a certain processing by bees, has reached a minimum degree of moisture and is sealed by them. Some unscrupulous beekeepers, in pursuit of profit, begin pumping out honey without waiting for the process to complete and reach maturity. As a result, the product is not intended for long-term storage, fermentation begins in it, and the taste and healing qualities are lost.

At home, a maturity test can be performed using a regular spoon, which should scoop up a little honey and raise it to form a wide, elastic stream. It should flow continuously and settle in a slide without spreading.

Again, with a spoon we collect the result of bee labor, lift and scroll, holding it horizontally, around the axis. Honey should not drip. It speaks of his maturity. Otherwise, it will look like a liquid mass and begin to spread over the surface.

The candied product began to divide into liquid and crystallized parts - an indicator of immaturity.

Weight check. Honey is heavier than water. The average weight of 1 liter of honey is 1.4 kg, excluding dishes. If this indicator is less, then a significant part of the water is present.

Simple ways to check the naturalness of honey

Dissolve one teaspoon of honey in warm water and leave to stand for an hour. An adulterated bee product will leave sediment at the bottom of the glass or flakes floating on the surface.
Drop some honey on a piece of paper and set it on fire. A quality product will remain unchanged on burnt paper. The fake will turn brown, like burnt sugar, and leave a matching smell.
An effective way to check the naturalness of honey and convenient even when buying on the market is a chemical pencil. In contact with moisture, it changes color, so by dipping it into a bee product, you can easily determine whether the product is being sold to you or diluted with water with the addition of granulated sugar.

Sugar is quite often a component of a counterfeit product. Beekeepers recommend checking at home for its presence in several ways.

Dip some honey in hot milk - if it's fake with burnt sugar added, it will curdle.
Tea with natural honey will color it dark, the fake will not change.
Put a piece of bread crumb into the sweetness and leave for 10-15 minutes. Hardened bread is a sign of quality, if it softens, then you have honey with the addition of sugar syrup. Doubtful quality gives out and white color, close to sugar.
Put some honey on absorbent paper and try to smudge it. If it worked out, and wet traces remained, you can be sure that the surrogate contains water or syrup.
A simple way to check for naturalness at home is the procedure with a hot stainless steel wire. Dip it in honey and take it out. The material at hand must be clean, if traces of the adhesive mass remain - this is not a clean product.
Authenticity is easy to determine by heating honey poured into a spoon over a fire. The counterfeit will ignite, and the natural product will be slightly charred.

Definition of other additives

Often, a damaged product must be sold by any means, and so that an uninformed buyer does not notice signs of poor quality, sellers use various tricks. The quality suffers from the presence of additives that are not inherent in honey, but it acquires a marketable appearance.

One of the determinants is iodine. It is enough to put a few drops of it on a sweet product, and you can determine the presence of starch added for density. As a result of a chemical reaction, the color will change to cyan or blue. The more intense the color, the more foreign agent. In real honey, the shade does not change.

With the help of vinegar essence, the added chalk is revealed. To do this, dilute a spoonful of the product in 0.5 cups of water and drip vinegar. If there is a hiss of water, then there is chalk.

Conduct a test for the presence of molasses. Mix 2 tablespoons of water and 1 tablespoon of honey and add a few drops of ammonia, shake. A change in the color of the solution to brown and the formation of the same precipitate indicate that the additive is still present.

And it can also be useful as general information to know when honey is candied. The process basically starts one or two months after harvest. The exception is mustard honey, which can thicken after 5 days if left in an open container. A white acacia product, on the contrary, remains in its original state for more than six months, and if the jar is tightly closed, longer.

Unnatural honey can, at best, not bring any benefit to your health, and at worst, have a detrimental effect on it. So do not neglect the check, at least minimal.

Video: how to determine the quality of honey at home

Buying honey always requires special vigilance. When choosing a bee product, you need to use all your senses as much as possible: smell, taste, study color and texture. Although, let's be honest, these methods do not give the buyer complete confidence in the quality of the purchased goods. Modern falsifications look very natural, therefore, it is possible to expose an unscrupulous seller without involving experts only with the help of ordinary iodine. How to do it correctly, as well as what the results of the experiment can be - we will tell later in the article.

Unpleasant surprises in honey

Today, many seek to improve their health with natural products. Consequently, the demand for honey is growing, in the unique composition of which the entire periodic table is collected. A pot of this fragrant delicacy, for sure, can be found in every kitchen.

Did you know? In ancient Greece, the immortality of the gods was explained by their addiction to ambrosia. This drink consisted of honey, milk and bee nectar. Pythagoras, Hippocrates and Aristotle spoke about the fact that sweetness produced by bees prolongs life.

Based on this, unscrupulous sellers breed high-quality bee products with various improvised impurities, thus increasing its quantity. In the market, you can be assured of the authenticity of the product, its high quality and omnipotent healing power from all diseases. You should not believe such fairy tales, it is better to see for yourself that you are dealing with real honey.

Indeed, when checking, particles may turn out to be counterfeit:

starch;
flour;
semolina:
gelatin;
boiled or raw water;
sugar syrup;
powdered sugar;
molasses;
saccharin;
dandelion syrup;
dried gum (tragacanth);
wax;
ash;
soda;
paste;
clay;
chalk;
famous fluff;
food thickeners and baking powder;
plaster.

As you can see, not all supplements in the surrogate are safe for health. According to experienced beekeepers, a mixture of a small amount of natural honey, water and clay is often found in the markets today. Please note that when producing such "masterpieces", counterfeiters try to preserve the natural honey taste and aroma.

Each of the added third-party ingredients has its own mission in reducing the cost of the bee product, which will be sold at the price of natural. The fact is that these impurities do not have pronounced taste qualities and are easily transformed into a consistency convenient for the merchant. In addition, these are cheap and affordable carbohydrates. Experts call the most harmless way of honey fakes "regrading".

Important! The easiest way to fake light varieties of honey.

This is when cheap varieties of honey are passed off as expensive ones. Often in this role, under the guise of sainfoin, you can be sold a less healing product. Worse, when they begin to dilute it with food and non-food additives. Especially popular among them are starch and flour, which contain amylose polysaccharides. Upon contact with iodine, they form blue clathrates. That is why this medicinal product is preferred as a test indicator.

How to test honey with iodine

If you do not have your own apiary and you go to the market or to the store for honey, then you definitely need to arm yourself with the following knowledge:

Important! High-quality natural honey must comply with the national standard DSTU 4497:2005, which includes only fine particles of dead bees, their larvae, honeycombs, pollen, plant fibers, ash and dust from third-party impurities. In the presence of other impurities, the product is rejected..

Video: how to check honey with iodine

What you need

To conduct this elementary experiment, you need to prepare:

honey, the authenticity of which we will check;
glass cup;
distilled water;
vinegar.

Checking honey

When this set is assembled, you can proceed to direct verification.

It is carried out as follows:

Warm up the water to 25-30°C.
Fill a glass with it.
Add a tablespoon of bee product and stir until completely dissolved. It is important that there are no lumps or clots in the container.
Drop 2-3 drops of iodine into the vessel. Watch what's happening. The outcome of this experiment may be the appearance of a slightly blue color in the honey liquid or specific stains. These are clear signs of previously added starch or flour, which were used to increase the weight of the product or mask its spoilage.
Finally, put a few drops of table vinegar into the glass. The hissing and foaming of the liquid will confirm the guesswork about chemical impurities. In this case, we are talking about the presence of chalk, soda, gypsum, lime.

Important! When buying honey, never be tempted by its cheapness. Keep in mind that the process of making this delicacy involves a long cycle and certain costs. Therefore, a priori, such a product cannot be cheap.

Take into account that polysaccharides have a complex molecular structure. Often its terms can be separated from each other. Therefore, the reaction with iodine does not always occur. Often this happens when honey diluted with starch or flour is subjected to pasteurization.
Heat treatment for some time gives the surrogate naturalness and uniform consistency, and also prolongs its shelf life. After its expiration, this fake is most likely to ferment. It should be understood that there will be no benefit from such honey, since even that small amount of useful substances obtained from a natural product is destroyed in its composition when heated.

How to check honey without iodine: evaluate the appearance

Once in the mall, it is unlikely that you will begin to conduct experiments on the authenticity of the goods with the participation of iodine. Therefore, it will be a good habit to check the product certificate. From these documents you can find out about the quality, variety, timing of collection and the geography of origin of the delicacy. Also scrupulously examine it by external signs and do not refuse the sample.

Did you know? According to legend, the aged Democritus decided to arbitrarily die, denying himself food. To postpone his death for the holidays, he ordered to put a bowl filled with honey in front of him. Inhaling this aroma, the ancient Greek sage was able to live up to 107 years without water and food.

Video: how to check the quality of honey at home

Here are the main characteristics of a bee product that you should check before buying:

Smell

Natural honey has a pronounced fragrant aroma. It can be weak or strong, but always pleasant, gentle and without third-party impurities.

Color

Before going to the market or to the store, you should find out what varieties of real honey are and their color shades. For example, buckwheat is brown, flower is golden yellow, lime is amber, and mustard is creamy yellow. The unnatural whiteness of the product should alert, which indicates sugar syrup in the bee diet. You should not expect a healing effect from such a product. Moreover, it is dangerous for people with high blood sugar levels.
According to the requirements of DSTU 4497:2005, natural honey can be colorless, light yellow, yellow or dark yellow and dark with different shades. You can test it for the content of sugar syrup and an increased level of humidity outside the house using a special chemical pencil. For the experiment, you need to drop a sticky substance on your hand and draw a line on the drop. When a blue-violet color appears, the purchase should be abandoned. Please note that sellers who are aware of this verification method do not allow such tests.

Did you know? In Ukraine, honey production annually reaches 70 thousand tons, which allowed the country to top the list of European producers and take 3rd place in the world. China is the world leader.

Transparency

The genuine product is characterized by transparency until crystallization. If in the summer you are offered to buy crystallized honey, look for a viscous liquid substance, since in this case you are faced with last year's product. Please note that a real bee product forms crystals already at a temperature of 30 ° C, which is not enough for a surrogate.
Be sure to try to rub a drop of goodies with your fingers when buying. In the case of a fake, this can not be done without specific pellets. Such lumps indicate an increased level of moisture. It can also be detected by dropping onto a piece of paper. Then the honey drop will be surrounded by a wet ring.

Consistency

The naturalness of honey is measured by its viscosity. It can be liquid, medium or very dense, depending on the maturity of the product. In any case, when you scoop up a fresh bee product with a spoon, it should not spread to the sides like water. A sign of quality is the formation of a “church” on the surface, which gradually levels off. Each variety has its own texture.

Experts in this regard distinguish 5 groups:

very liquid - clover and acacia honey;
liquid - linden, rapeseed, buckwheat;
thick - sainfoin, dandelion;
sticky - honeydew;
gelatinous - heather.

Important! The slower the honey flows in the jar, the less water it contains. This is a sign that he will not ferment. Also make sure that there is no white foam on the surface of the product, and light streaks in the depth.

To verify the authenticity of the purchased product right on the spot, take a plastic bottle of drinking water with you and add the honey variety you like inside. If after stirring you get a homogeneous liquid without sediment and lumps, honey is worth buying.
In the event that the seller tells you about an unusual fashionable variety that is guaranteed to save your family from all ailments, do not rush to buy. First, find out if it is possible in a given area to take bribes from such plants and whether they exist in nature at all. Experts advise buying honey directly from familiar beekeepers. Therefore, if you do not have such acquaintances yet, it is worth acquiring them. Happy shopping and stay healthy!

Those who want to lose weight come to the rescue. Well, those who are not worried about the problems of excess weight can treat themselves to a piece of honey cake. It should be noted that only natural honey has the most valuable properties. Unfortunately, at present, some beekeepers are not chasing the quality of the product, but the volume. As a result of dishonesty, it has become quite easy to come across a fake and, under the guise of honey, acquire something that does not even smell like honey. Today you will learn how to determine the quality of honey at home.

The ideal option would be to determine the quality of honey at the time of purchase, then you can protect yourself not only from wasting money, but also from a purchase that will not bring you any benefit. It is known that some simply feed the bees with sugar to increase the volume of honey. In terms of taste, such honey practically does not differ from flower honey, however, in terms of useful properties, it clearly lags behind. There are several recommendations for choosing honey, we have already introduced you to them, but it will not be superfluous to repeat them. So, you can determine the quality of a beekeeping product by the following criteria:

Color

The color of honey depends on its variety and can vary from light yellow to brown. Flower varieties are usually light, linden honey has an amber color, while buckwheat honey gives off a brown color. At the same time, honey should be transparent, without sediment, if the product is cloudy, then this indicates that it contains additives. Often in honey there are bee products - bees, pieces of honeycombs, this should not alarm you, since this is a sure sign of the high quality of honey.

Aroma

Natural honey has a distinct smell that cannot be confused with any other. If honey is characterized by a slightly perceptible aroma, then most likely you have a product with added sugar.

Viscosity

You can also determine the quality of honey by its viscosity. Scoop honey with a spoon and lift it above the plane, natural honey will stretch with a continuous thread and form a slowly spreading hill on the surface of the honey.

Consistency

Anyone who has tasted natural honey at least once will confirm that the product had a delicate texture. Take a drop of honey and try to rub it between your fingers. If the product is absorbed, then this is a sure sign of its high quality; fake honey will roll into lumps during such manipulation.

Taste

And of course, the naturalness of the product can be established by tasting honey. Real honey has a tart-sweet taste. Taste a little honey, if you were treated to a natural product, then you will definitely have a tickle in your throat.

If you do not trust your senses, but are accustomed to relying only on research results, then you can also determine the quality of honey at home empirically.

How to check the naturalness of honey with water

Place a teaspoon of honey in warm water. If the bee nectar melted in a short time, and does not lie in a lump at the bottom of the glass, then you can be sure of the quality of the product.

Tea with honey is not only a delicious drink, but also an excellent method for determining the quality of honey.
If you dip a spoonful of honey into tea, the natural product will immediately turn dark.

Milk with honey will help with coughing and will identify a poor-quality product

It is known that you can get rid of a cough if you undergo a course of treatment with milk and honey. However, this will help not only cure the disease, but also determine the quality of honey. So, if you add unnatural honey to milk, it will curdle.

How to check the naturalness of honey with a blotter

Take a piece of a blotting paper or napkin and put some honey on it. After a couple of minutes, look at the back of the paper. If a watery speck was found, then the poor quality of honey will have to be stated.

Iodine and vinegar - indicators of the quality of honey

Fill a glass with warm water and dissolve a teaspoon of honey in it. After that, add a couple of drops of iodine to the liquid. If after a few minutes the water in the glass turns blue, this indicates that the honey contains starch.

Instead of iodine, vinegar can be added to water with honey. This will determine if the product contains chalk. As a rule, in the presence of foreign impurities, the water in the glass begins to hiss and boil.

How to check the quality of honey with bread

Can determine the quality of honey and a piece of stale bread. Dip the bread in a container with honey. If the bread becomes soft after a few minutes, then you have to admit that the honey is not natural.
The quality of honey can be judged by spreading it on a piece of bread. As a rule, a natural product lays down in an even layer, does not drip from the edges and quickly turns soft bread into hard bread.

Heating is an effective method for determining the quality of honey

Fill a tablespoon with honey and heat it over the fire. The natural product will char, honey containing impurities will ignite.

Chemical pencil will help to identify low-quality honey

Smear a drop of honey on a piece of not very thick paper and draw a chemical pencil over it. The appearance of blue stains indicates that the honey contains flour or starch.

Time will put everything in its place

If you don't want to experiment, you can just leave the medok alone for a few months. Time will do everything for you! So, if after a couple of months the honey began to thicken and crystallize, then this indicates that the product is natural. If honey remains liquid even after six months, it means that it contains a large amount of fructose. If the honey does not thicken, but separates into two layers - liquid and thick, then be sure that you have purchased an unripened product. Of course, it does not pose a health hazard, but it is characterized by a short shelf life.

We are sure that after all that has been said, it will not be difficult for you to determine the quality of honey, and if necessary, you can easily bring the seller-beekeeper to clean water.