Honey is a very healthy and tasty product; it is used not only in cooking, but also for treatment. That is why it is very important to be able to determine the quality of honey, because, unfortunately, the markets often offer a bad product or an unnatural one.
It is necessary
- - chemical pencil;
- - tannin 5%;
- - alcohol 96%.
Instructions
Step 1
Pay attention to the smell of honey. It can range from subtle aroma to thick spicy, but honey should smell strong anyway. A fake product made from sugar syrup has a faint smell. Sour honey smells like mash.
Step 2
The quality of the product also depends on the color. Honey is white to very dark, almost brown. It depends on the plants from which the nectar is collected. But in any case, real fresh honey is transparent. Take a closer look, if there is sediment, then, most likely, in front of you is a fake product. Do not confuse with natural haze that appears at the beginning of crystallization.
Step 3
Good ripe honey should be thick in consistency. If you are looking at a fresh, not yet crystallized product, spoon the honey and try to pour it out slowly. If the honey is ripe, then it will drain in a thick stream, which can even be "wound" on a spoon.
Step 4
Crystallization is a natural process and depends on the type of honey. This does not affect the quality of the product. But you need to be able to distinguish honeydew honey. This is a low-quality product that bees make on the basis not of nectar, but of sweet secretions on the leaves of trees. Under the microscope, honeydew honey has round crystals.
Step 5
Try rubbing a few drops of honey with your fingers. The real one will simply be absorbed into the skin, and the fake will leave lumps.
Step 6
Check the quality of honey with a chemical pencil, if a blue mark remains, then this product is of poor quality, because it has an increased water content. And it is not necessarily a fact that water is added to the honey, most likely it was taken early from the hives. Such honey is immature and can ferment or turn sour during storage.
Step 7
Add a drop of iodine to a small amount of honey. The presence of starch will show up when the product turns blue. But the presence of gelatin will reveal an aqueous solution of tannin. Mix honey with water in a 1: 2 ratio and pour in 5 drops of 5% tannin. If white flakes appear, then the honey is fake.
Step 8
It is important to be able to distinguish honeydew honey, because it is a low-quality beekeeping product. To do this, mix equal amounts of honey and water. Then pour 5 parts of 96% alcohol on each part of this mixture and shake. If the liquid becomes cloudy, then this indicates the presence of honeydew. And if a sediment appears, then honey is very bad, in it the honeydew is 25% or more.
