Once all was said and done we had all our extracted honey loaded in food grade buckets. We estimate we have 22 gallons or 264 pounds of honey. For sure we got more than last year. We'll know the final tally once we go to bottling. We're adding a step this year. Dehumidifying the honey. Honey is honey when it is between 15.5 and 18.6% moisture. If it is any wetter, you risk fermentation. We're not producing Meade. We want honey. So we are dehumidifying the honey, stirring twice a day and dumping out the water.
In order to properly determine the moisture level of our honey, we purchased a honey refractometer. It sounds all fancy, but was only $25.
Here's what it looks like out of the box. Quite an impressive looking piece of equipment.
In order to work it, you put a couple of dots of honey on the glass portion and close the plastic hinged cover. When you press the cover down, the honey should cover the glass portion completely with no bubbles. Allow 30 seconds and then hold up to a bright light and look through the eye piece.
I was able to take a photo through the eyepiece. The Water % scale on the right hand side is what you are looking for. On this particular day, the honey is about 19.5%.
We will continue the dehumidifying process until we get the moisture % within range.
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