How to check natural honey with iodine. How to check honey for naturalness at home

Greetings to all honey lovers.
Everyone who buys Bee Honey at the market or honey fair at the beekeeper's, he wants to be sold natural honey, real. In this article, we will look at how to check the quality of honey at home for naturalness. different ways: matches, using water and iodine, vinegar, milk and chemical pencil.

Some signs of low-quality honey.

How to identify a fake when buying, what to look for and what you need to remember in order to buy real natural honey. How to choose real and not fake honey?

• Honey has an amber luster and crystal transparency (it was heated, and it has already lost its beneficial properties).
• When poured into a container, honey foams (most likely, it is not ripe).
• The aroma is not felt and the honey is unnaturally white (most likely, honey with an admixture of sugar).
• If the container from which the honey is collected is plastic, copper or galvanized (in this case, the honey will not be stored for a long time and there are toxic impurities in it).
• Liquid on top, and thick below (the so-called bundle). And also if the honey is liquid in late autumn, winter, spring (not candied). An exception is May honey.
• When sampled, honey has a bitter, sour or caramel taste, undissolved grains will remain in the mouth (it should tear the throat slightly).
• Rub between your fingers, if grains remain between them, and the skin is sticky - fake honey (in real honey, the crystals will dissolve and the honey will be completely absorbed into the skin).
• Scoop it up with a spoon and pour it back, the fake will drip from the spoon, forming splashes (should go down in a continuous thread and “stack” in layers, and Last straw pulls back to the spoon).
• When weighed, a liter of honey weighs less than 1.4 kg (most likely, it is immature or fake).

How honey is faked.

In order to gain profit, dishonest producers use such methods to hide the authenticity of honey:

• The bees are fed sugar syrup. In honey obtained in this way, there is little useful substances.
• Bred honey sugar syrup and molasses, with the addition of citric acid.
• Evaporate the juices of watermelon, melon, grapes. It turns out a viscous mass.
• For density, flour, starch, chalk, sand and even sawdust are added.

How to check honey for naturalness.

How to check honey at home if you were given it as a gift, or if you bought it in a hurry, and then began to doubt its authenticity?

First of all, we pay attention to the smell and taste. Natural honey conveys the aroma of the plant from which the nectar is collected.

After tasting it, honey literally melts in your mouth and has a pleasant taste. rich taste, no solid particles should be felt. When swallowed, it feels like honey is slightly bitter. This is confirmation that the product is natural.

If this is not enough for you, then let's take a closer look at how to check if honey is real and if there is sugar in honey.

How to check honey with iodine and water for the presence of starch and flour?

Make a solution of honey with water, if the honey is natural, the solution will turn out without sediment. Drop 2-3 drops of iodine into it, it should not turn blue. If there is an admixture in the form of starch or flour in honey, iodine will react with it and the solution will turn blue. pure honey does not react to iodine, it will not change color. like this in an easy way you can test honey with iodine.

How to check honey with vinegar for the presence of chalk?

Dilute honey with water, drip 2-3 drops vinegar essence. If the solution foams, you have a fake. An admixture in the form of chalk was added to the "honey". The vinegar reacts with the chalk and the solution boils.

Checking honey with a piece of paper or napkin.

Apply honey to paper or napkin. If wet spots form around the honey, it is diluted.

Checking honey with a piece of stale bread.

Dip a piece in honey stale bread. After 8-10 minutes, it should remain the same hard, and not soften.

How to test honey with matches or fire?

Bringing a lit match to the honey, the fire will make quality honey first melt, and only then hiss.
You can also smear some honey on a piece of paper and set it on fire, nothing will happen to natural honey, it will become liquid, will not burn and will not change color. If there is a smell when burning burnt sugar, so it's fake, not real honey.

Test with heated stainless steel wire.

Heat a stainless steel wire and dip it in honey. good honey stays on the metal and does not flow back.

You can test honey for sugar with milk.

Using hot milk, you can check the naturalness of honey for clotting or whether sugar has been added to honey.
Natural honey dissolves in milk, but does not curdle, if it curdles, then honey is a fake, which means it was made using burnt sugar.

This video describes in detail and shows with examples how to check natural honey or not at home and how to cook artificial honey.

Ripe and unripe honey.

The fact is that the concept of natural honey is not always unambiguous. Honey must be necessarily ripe, which means that the water content in it is not more than 20%.

The beekeeper determines this simply. Ripened honey is in sealed cells of honeycombs, and there it must stand for a certain time, that is, to ripen.

If beekeepers pump out frames with incompletely sealed combs, they get unripe honey.
And it seems that honey is natural, but not of high quality, which affects its shelf life and worsens its properties. He might just wander off.

What is honey?

The types of honey depend not so much on which inflorescences of plants or fruit trees the bees collected nectar from, but on the admixture of pollen from these plants in honey.
It is the amount of pollen in honey that directly affects the quality of honey.
The more pollen in honey, the faster honey will crystallize, but this does not mean that the honey is not natural.
Therefore, when buying honey, we must first of all pay attention to the consistency, color, viscosity, aroma.

We determine honey by appearance and color.

The shade of honey depends entirely on which plant the nectar is collected from.

The dark varieties of honey include mountain honey from yellow to light brown and buckwheat honey(dark).

The rest of the varieties are lighter in color. For example, clover honey is the lightest or most transparent, and forbs have a golden yellow to yellow-brown hue.

Flower honey is usually light yellow in color, there is little pollen in such honey, it is fragrant, fluid, like any honey it has a calming and antiseptic effect. These include sweet clover, white locust, esparcet, akkuray honey.

Honey thick consistency, high viscosity, fragrant with elevated content pollen. These types of honey are linden honey(light yellow), sunflower honey (light amber).

Beekeepers feed their bees with sugar syrup in the spring to increase the strength of the family, and this is normal, but if you abuse the feeding, then honey mostly consists of sugar syrup, and subsequently has White color.

Such honey has a low viscosity, liquid, has sweet taste, no fragrance. You can use it for food. The sugar content in such honey will not bring harm, but it does not have those useful properties that natural honey.

Candied honey, what does it mean?

If you bought liquid honey and after a month or two it thickened, then this is not unusual. The thickened honey began to crystallize from the abundance of pollen in it. Crystallized (shrunken) honey becomes natural liquid honey as early as 2–3 months after it has been pumped out. The type of honey depends on the size of the sugar crystals. Crystals can be seen in honey with the naked eye. Crystallized honey does not lose its properties. It is just hard to get it out of the dishes where it is stored.

Turbid honey.

When honey is pumped out, bee pollen gets into it and the honey becomes a little cloudy. Perga is a protein. Bee pollen in the hive is used to feed the larvae. Therefore, perga only improves nutritional properties honey.

Fall honey.

The variety of honey is honeydew honey. If the apiary is far from honey plants, then the bees will be forced to collect honeydew honey.

His bees collect:

• from the leaves or stems of plants (sweet, sticky liquid) such as cherries, apricots, pears;
• with the release of insects (aphids, mealybugs, psyllids);
• bees gather from honeydew sweet juice, which is released on the leaves of plants;
• from the leaves of needles, fir, roses from secretions that appear under the influence of a sharp change in temperature.

By what features can honeydew honey be distinguished from ordinary flower honey?

Honeydew honey from flower honey can be distinguished by taste, smell or visually. Honeydew honey has a moderate sweetness, the taste is bitter. From the point of view of experts, bitterness is the main difference between honeydew honey and flower honey. Honey collected from coniferous plants has the aroma of these plants and is pleasant to the taste. Honeydew honey has a peculiar color from dark brown to black.
Of the properties, it can be noted that honeydew honey crystallizes more slowly than flower honey, or does not crystallize at all, quickly turns sour, liquid fraction sedimentation is possible.

Unripe honey.

Too much liquid honey- this is evidence that the honey is unripe or falsified.
If water is released from the honey, there is a smell, a precipitate in the form of flakes or powder, signs of fermentation are noticeable, such honey is not natural.

How to check honey with a chemical pencil?

This video shows how to test honey with an indelible pencil that reacts to moisture and writes in blue.

If we buy honey based on long-term storage, then you need to buy flower varieties of honey, collected by bees spring and early summer.

We hope you could find the answer to the question of how to check whether honey is natural or not at home and how to choose real, not fake honey.
All the best!

How to check honey for naturalness by appearance at fairs? What methods can be used to determine the quality of honey at home? Take advice from experienced beekeepers and honey nectar lovers.

No one even doubts the benefits of honey. On the contrary, for the winter everyone is trying to stock up on a sweet natural product in order to winter evenings indulge yourself with a spoon or even a spoonful of fragrant amber honey, but with a tea.

From childhood we know about it healing properties- who did not have a grandmother or mother warm milk with honey for a cold or for a good restful sleep?

And everyone knows that honey is produced by bees, and the bees will not carry anything into their hive, and their honey is an exceptionally clean product from chemistry. But our cunning chemical industry has learned how to make honey that is indistinguishable from the real one. Or cunning sellers in the market try to cash in on inexperienced buyers by selling low-quality or diluted honey. Therefore, the ability to check the product for quality is a useful quality.

Turns out, different types honey have different usefulness. Healing qualities determined by the honey plant. Everyone has heard about the benefits of lime or buckwheat, but there are many plants whose honey-bearing properties are no less useful in certain cases.

Honey is classified according to the plant from which it was collected, or according to the place of collection, for example, meadow, forest, mountain. Its diversity is very large, consider the most basic types and varieties.

1. Lime. Pale yellow. Minerals in its composition they have the same concentration as in human blood, therefore, it normalizes metabolism and hormonal activity. Useful for colds and illnesses digestive tract. Good antipyretic.
2. Buckwheat. The color is very dark. Contains a lot of iron and protein. It has anti-inflammatory properties, is indicated for anemia, beriberi, heart problems, potency.
3. Clover. Almost white, creamy. Acts as a mild sedative. Used to treat women's diseases.
4. Sunflower and herbs. Saturated yellow. One of the most common types. An excellent antipyretic and anti-cold remedy. Crystallizes quickly.
5. acacia. Transparent, pale. It is high in fructose and low in glucose. Stays liquid for a long time. Suitable for diabetics and baby food. Useful for hypertension, visual impairment, nervous disorders.
6. Heather. Dark brown, crystallizes quickly, contains a lot of salts and protein. Diuretic, treats rheumatism and kidney stones, is used as a hemostatic and antiseptic agent.
7. May. Light color. Basically remains at the disposal of the bees to recuperate. It is pumped out only in the southern regions. That is why it is considered an exclusive variety. Has pronounced antibacterial properties useful in viral diseases.
8. Forest. Warm brown. Thickens quickly. Bees collect a mixture of honeydew from trees, flowering shrubs, raspberries, blackberries. Useful minerals and there are more enzymes in it than in flower varieties. Recommended for colds.
9. Donnikovy. Light color, smells of vanilla. Indicated for atherosclerosis, diseases of the liver, kidneys, heart.

Checking the product by external signs

Often sold in markets and shops synthetic product, which is passed off as natural bee. The bees collect the nectar and work on it less than a week- remove water, break down complex sugars, enrich with enzymes, close the honeycombs with wax caps. For some time, it should ripen in the combs.

Unscrupulous beekeepers sometimes pump out unripe nectar early, and to get more weight and viscosity, chalk, starch or sugar syrup can be added to bee honey.

How to check the quality of honey for an ordinary consumer who does not have special knowledge and experience? Feel free to smell, taste, evaluate for viscosity and consistency.

Taste

The taste of honey is tart and sweet, you should not feel any sour taste or bitterness. Real product a little itchy in the throat.

When sugar is added, the taste resembles sugary sweet water. A caramel flavor indicates that the product has been heated.

Color and shade

The color of honey depends on the variety. It can be white, yellow, brown and even almost black. But always retains transparency and purity. Honey with additives will be cloudy, have a sediment. White grains are added and not dissolved chalk or starch. Very light shades may indicate added sugar.

The exception is acacia honey, it has some turbidity, since it crystallizes for a very long time, and clover honey has an almost white color.

Consistency

Natural honey has a delicate, creamy texture. homogeneous consistency. It is easily absorbed into the skin when rubbed, while the fake one forms lumps and grains.

In the warm season, honey is liquid, and in winter it has already managed to be sugared. If you buy honey in the winter, and it is of a liquid consistency, then most likely it was previously melted to give it a marketable appearance.

Good ripened honey, when wound on a spoon, will be superimposed on it with a thick viscous spiral. Very liquid nectar has not had time to ripen and can quickly deteriorate.

Viscosity

Real honey flows from a spoon in an elastic stream, and on the surface it forms a hill that slowly spreads. When the stream breaks, a spring effect appears, the nectar returns to the spoon, collects in a drop, and again tends to go down. Sugar honey will drip and splatter.

Aroma

Real honey is very odorous and fragrant, but it is not a sharp aroma. Fake has almost no smell. When additives are added to honey, the odor is distorted.

It should be borne in mind that some varieties of honey have a slight smell, so before buying a certain variety, you need to learn as much as possible about it.

How to check honey for naturalness at home

You can check the naturalness of honey at home using several simple methods.

With the help of iodine

Dissolve a spoonful of honey in one hundred grams of warm water, mix well until a homogeneous solution is obtained and drop iodine into it. If starch or flour is added to the product, the contents of the cup will turn blue.

With the help of bread

Put a piece of bread in a saucer with honey. Natural honey will be absorbed into the pores of the crumb in half an hour, but the piece will remain intact and even harden a little. If the nectar is diluted with water, then the bread will soften and crumble into gruel.

With chemical pencil

Smear a drop of honey on paper and swipe it with an indelible pencil, if, of course, you can find such a rarity. If there are impurities of starch or chalk, then blue stains will appear.

Soviet scientist Chudakov V. G. conducted research in 1972 and tested folk ways on thirty-six varieties of honey, among which half was with additives. His experiments showed that this method is not reliable.

Vinegar

Put in warm water(half a cup) a spoonful of honey, stir well and add a spoonful of vinegar. If there is chalk, then the vinegar will react with it and hiss.

With the help of water

Put a spoonful of honey in hot water. If he quickly melted, then there is no doubt about his quality, and if he continues to lie in a slide, then this is a fake.

other methods

It happens that beekeepers feed bees with sugar syrup. Bees produce honey nectar anyway, but there is no benefit from it. How to check the quality of honey for sugar?

1. Put a drop of honey on a sheet of newspaper, blotting paper or napkin. If after half an hour a wet spot has formed around it, then this is a poor-quality product. Scientist Chudakov confirmed that this method one hundred percent determines counterfeit, however, some varieties of natural honey are included in their list.
2. Natural honey does not burn, but with the addition of sugar it forms black soot along the edges of the spoon. You can also check with a stainless steel wire: heat it and lower it into a jar. If there are additives, then the wire will be covered with a dark sticky mass. pure product will not leave marks on the wire.
3. Make a solution of honey and dip a lapis pencil into it (you can buy it at any pharmacy), sugar product forms white flakes.
4. Dissolve one part of nectar in two parts of water and drip ammonia. If the solution turns brown after mixing, then it contains starch syrup.
5. Add a little honey to warm, weak tea, the real tea will darken and become cloudy, there will be no sediment left at the bottom.

By the way, if you add to hot milk poor quality honey, then it will collapse.

1. Honey can be stored for a long time, after a maximum of six months it candied, crystallizes. If this does not happen, then the product is not natural. Store honey in a dark place in a glass or enamelware. You can not keep it in metal containers, otherwise it will oxidize and you can even get poisoned by it.
2. If you bought fresh honey, only from the apiary, and found foam on it, then this is a sign of immaturity - there is a high probability that it will ferment. Nectar must stand in the combs for some time, then it is saturated with natural antibiotics and the fermentation process is suppressed.
3. Do not purchase honey from apiaries located along the route, it will contain harmful substances, for example, lead, which gets on flowering plants with exhaust gases.
4. If after some time the contents of the jar exfoliated - sugared from below, and a liquid substance remained on top, then this is a sign of unripe honey. Mix well until smooth and eat soon, as unripe honey is stored for only a few months, and then begins to ferment.
5. When buying honey, don't listen to the talkative sellers, each sandpiper praises his swamp. Trust only your eyes, taste and smell.
6. A sweet product is measured in kilograms, not liters. liter jar will weigh about one and a half kilograms, if the weight is significantly less, then this is diluted honey.
7. If you like tea or milk with honey, then remember that at temperatures above 60 degrees, it loses its beneficial properties.
8. To solve men's health problems, men are recommended to buy dark varieties honey.

Conclusion

In order to be sure of the quality and naturalness of the sweet bee product, it should be purchased from a well-known trusted beekeeper. Honey from hands in markets and fairs or bought in a store is a product of dubious quality.

But it is not always possible to find a conscientious beekeeper, so you have to proceed by trial and error. Buy a small jar of 100-200 grams and at home take a more detailed determination of the naturalness of honey. If everything is in order and the product suits you, feel free to take a large volume and take care to take the seller's contacts.

Mother of two children. I'm leading household for more than 7 years - this is my main job. I like to experiment, I constantly try various means, methods, techniques that can make our life easier, more modern, richer. I love my family.

The sunny summer is over, the season of colds and SARS has begun. And what could be better for ailments than a cup of hot tea with honey? But not all honey is the same. Today we will talk about what varieties of this delicacy are and how to check the quality of honey at home.

Varieties of honey

Exists great amount varieties of honey. Some of them are rare, so we will look at the three most common types that are easy to find in any market.

meadow honey

Sometimes it is called forbs or prefabricated honey. A great helper for headaches, insomnia and indigestion. This variety, as the name implies, is extracted from meadow flowers such as clover, sage, dandelion, etc. This honey has a pleasant mild taste and pronounced aroma. But its shade can be very different - from light yellow to dark brown.

sweet clover honey

It is the second most common variety. It contains a wide variety beneficial trace elements and also has a slight relaxing effect. This honey is collected from the fragrant flowers of sweet clover, a well-known plant in medicine. Distinguish sweet clover honey by color. It can be from light amber to greenish. It is important not to make a mistake, because green can mean poor quality. Next, you will learn how to test honey with iodine to choose a good one.

Linden honey

This excellent remedy from a cold. It also helps with sore throat, bronchitis, has an antiseptic effect and is even used to treat burns and purulent wounds. This variety has a recognizable sweet aroma, but in color it can be either white or completely transparent. Important feature lime honey - fast crystallization (about 1 month).

Real honey or "linden"?

When we figured out a little about the varieties, it's time to learn how to distinguish real honey from fake unscrupulous beekeepers and sellers. You can do this before buying. It is enough to pay attention to color, texture and other characteristics. And if you know how to test honey with iodine, then after buying it, you can test it again.

Color

It is important that the color in the jar is uniform. Cloudy contents may indicate impurities of starch and sugar. There are practically no useful substances in such honey, because it is immature. Too pronounced white or yellow tint also indicates that honey is a fake. If you have doubts, checking the quality of honey with iodine will help dispel them. But more on that later.

Taste and aroma

It is unlikely that you will be able to try and smell the honey that is sold in the store. But in the markets of beekeepers, this is a normal phenomenon. The taste of real honey is much sweeter and more sugary than sugar, it has a flavor that cannot be faked. Each variety has its own smell, but it is quite characteristic and unique.

Consistency and crystallization

Fresh honey should not be too thick or runny. Ideally, it should be wound on a spoon and slowly drain from it in an elastic stream without lumps, forming a small slide, not a splash. By sugaring honey, you can determine how fresh it is. real honey begins to crystallize approximately 1.5-2 months after distillation. sugar crust should be pronounced, velvety, but not too hard.

Methods for testing honey

There are many ways to check the quality of honey. The simplest and most common of them is to test honey with iodine and water. Of course, it is performed after the purchase, so you should not immediately take big jar. Take a little to sample, and if the quality and taste suit you, you can always return and stock up for the whole winter. But more to the point.

How to test honey with iodine?

One of better ways detect a fake - use iodine. Enough to pour on a saucer Not a large number of purchased fresh honey(0.5 teaspoon) and drop 1 drop of regular iodine into it. In a minute, and sometimes faster, you can evaluate the result and draw conclusions:

• If iodine has acquired a blue tint, it means that there is starch or flour in honey, and therefore it is not ripe and will not bring benefits.
• If, as a result of the check, the drop completely dissolved or turned pinkish, you were slipped a fake.
• If a drop of iodine simply spread over the honey and dyed it bright yellow or brownish, then such honey is natural and the most real. Feel free to run for a large jar, because now you know exactly how to test honey with iodine and choose the best one.

Checking honey with water

Another simple, but no less effective than checking honey with iodine, method is with water. It is done in an elementary way: take 1 teaspoon of honey and dissolve it in half a glass of water at room temperature.

• If a precipitate remains after dissolution, and the water remains clear, you bought a fake.
• If the honey dissolves without residue in 8-10 minutes, and the water becomes cloudy and yellowish, the product is of high quality and real.

Checking honey with paper

To make sure the quality of the purchased honey, you can use plain paper well absorbing moisture. For example, a thick napkin or paper towel fit perfectly. Take a small amount of honey on a spoon or stick and just drop it on paper.

• If the honey spreads quickly and wet spots form, it is a fake that contains water and sugar.
• If the honey slowly spreads and hardens, then it is natural.

Such a check is not always objective, therefore, for reliability, it is better to check honey with iodine. This method gives a 100% guarantee of detection poor quality product. Choose only the best for yourself and your loved ones, because there is nothing more important than health!

Honey is a thick, clear liquid with a golden hue. unique product natural origin. It is used to prepare delicious treats, such as cakes, chak-chak, praise, and also treat colds.

But in order to purchase a really high-quality dessert, you need to know how to check it for naturalness. This article will tell you how to determine the quality of sweets when buying and at home.

Definition of natural honey

The meaning of the word "fake"

In order to earn more money, beekeepers often deceive customers by diluting bee products. This fake is called counterfeit. In order to get a fake, the delicacy is mixed:

• With beetroot molasses.
• With starch syrup.
• With flour.
• With chalk.
• With sugar syrup and other impurities.

Dilute for the following goals:

1. In order to hide the signs of a damaged product.
2. In order to increase the weight of the finished product and earn more money.
3. In order to give an attractive and natural appearance.

How to check the quality when buying?

The first thing to look for when buying a sticky dessert is consistency. Most varieties of honey are candied 2 months after harvest. To slow down this process finished product stored under a sealed lid.

Other varieties crystallize closer to winter. Therefore, if there is already a candied dessert on the shelves, then most likely it is fake or last year.

Crystallization depends on the ratio of glucose and fructose in the product. Each variety has a different ratio. Glucose crystallizes first, because it dissolves 5 times worse than fructose.

Therefore, the product of beekeeping, where there is more glucose, will be sugared faster. Varieties that contain more fructose, in rare cases, may remain in liquid state up to half a year. Crystallization is natural process , so for all varieties it is inevitable.

If in winter time honey has liquid consistency, then this is also a fake. To achieve this state, it is heated, as a result of which all medicinal properties disappear. The fact that the delicacy was previously warmed up gives out its caramel shade.

If the delicacy after six months is divided into a liquid and thick layer, then the product was immature. Such a beekeeping product does not threaten health, but its minus is that it quickly deteriorates.

At the time of purchase, you can also pay attention to such a phenomenon as bubbles. If you observe a bee product with bubbles, then this indicates the beginning of fermentation, and it is better to avoid such a delicacy.

Types and varieties of honey

Different varieties of honey have their own color and characteristics. Therefore, when buying a treat, you should know what varieties are and how they differ:

Checking honey "by eye"

How to determine the quality of honey at home

Checking treats with improvised means

How to check the quality of honey at home and find out if the seller is honest? To do this, you can check the product improvised means and even find out what honey was mixed with.

Checking the product for the presence of sugar

In order to find out if there admixture of sugar in the product, there are several ways:

Simple ways to identify a low-quality product

Sometimes people determine the quality of a treat by the presence of natural elements in it, such as bee wings, pollen, wax. But this method cannot fully prove naturalness product. Therefore, it is better to resort to additional methods for determining the naturalness of honey and bring the seller to clean water.

Only the beekeepers themselves know how natural and environmentally friendly honey from their apiary is, but any consumer can make a certain analysis. Before buying a large quantity of this valuable product, it is advisable to purchase a small jar from the same batch, and conduct the simplest research.

At home, so as not to run into a fake?

What kind of honey is counterfeit?

The history of fake honey began a long time ago, the first mention of its falsification dates back to 1855. Since then, the techniques of fraudsters have improved so much that sometimes it is possible to reliably determine its quality only in laboratories.

What honey is adulterated:

• immature;
• heated (melted);
• honey with additives and impurities.

Most often in natural product mix in sugar honey and artificially inverted sugar, less often starch and beet molasses.

How to determine the quality of honey at home

Let's check maturity first. Some beekeepers, unknowingly or out of selfish motives, seek to start pumping honey as early as possible in order to sell it for the greatest profit.

What is bad raw honey? It will hold more than 20% of moisture, it quickly loses its medicinal properties, is stored worse, and often begins to ferment. In the process of fermentation, such a product is formed and becomes unusable.

How to determine the quality of honey? Maturity is defined in many ways. The first one is the viscosity test.

At a temperature of 20 0 C, you need to take a spoon with honey, place it horizontally, and start rotating. Mature honey does not have time to drain, but is wound on a spoon. If you drop the end cutlery down, honey flows down from it very slowly, and leaves a tubercle on the surface. Unripe honey begins to drain during rotation, and the surface is quickly leveled. At lower temperatures, the viscosity decreases, at high temperatures it increases.

When testing, it is necessary to take into account the variety, since different types of honey have different viscosities:

1. Very (acacia, orange, clover).
2. Liquid lime).
3. Gelatinous (heather).
4. Dense (sunflower, rapeseed, buckwheat).

The second way is to check the ratio of volume and weight. Weight (net) of one liter of mature honey must be at least 1.4 kg.

Third: bubbles. If the honey has a sour smell, an alcohol taste, or bubbles slowly form on the surface, the honey has fermented.

Fourth test: paper. A drop of honey is applied to a newspaper sheet. If the honey is mature, it will remain on the surface. If damp, it will spread, leaving a wet mark.

The fifth method is suitable when the honey has already been candied. If it breaks up into two layers of different density, it contains a large percentage of water.

Let's bring impurities to clean water!

To increase volume and give the product of dubious quality types of natural mature honey can be added to it various additives. How to determine the quality of honey? At home, it is quite possible to determine its purity.

1. The presence of impurities is easily detected: a small amount of honey is diluted in distilled water. Quality product dissolve completely. If there are foreign inclusions, they will either precipitate or settle to the bottom.

2. Chalk can be detected by adding acetic acid V water solution honey. If the mixture starts to sizzle and foam, there is chalk in the honey.

3. To increase the viscosity, starch and flour can be added to honey. In this case, there is nothing easier than to determine the quality of honey with iodine. Honey must be dissolved in water, and then drop iodine there. If the solution turns blue, it means that starch has been added to the delicacy.

4. Gelatin is detected by adding a 5% solution of tannin to a mixture of honey and water. If present, white flakes will appear.

5. Molasses in honey will show ammonia. A few drops of alcohol added to an aqueous solution of counterfeit will turn it brown.

Definition of baked honey

Often sellers try to sell crystallized old honey under the guise of a new crop.

How to determine the quality of honey at home if it has been candied and melted? Signs of a fake:

• Heated honey is transparent and homogeneous, while the natural product is slightly cloudy due to the presence of protein compounds.
• The product has a slight aroma, caramel flavor, and it noticeably
• When the temperature drops to +5 0 C, vitreous threads form in it. Natural honey behaves this way only in severe frost.

sugar honey

Such honey has a white color and a very weak aroma (it should be noted that some types of honey, say, sunflower, also almost do not smell).

The taste does not have the characteristic astringency and light perspiration. If you smear a drop on paper and set it on fire, the smell of burnt sugar will appear. In hot milk, such "honey" is curtailed.

Finally

When buying, trust your feelings. Honey should be sweet, slightly tart and fragrant. From him a little and he is very pleasant to the taste. The aroma should be natural, floral. Crystallization is a normal process for a 3-4 month old product and older. Frozen honey in winter should inspire more confidence than liquid and transparent.