CATDOLL : CATDOLL: How to identify the quality of honey

1. How to identify the quality of honey

Generally speaking, we can start from the aspects of color, aroma, taste and shape. That is, honey with light color, fragrant taste, good taste, high viscosity and less impurities is the best. You can use clean bamboo or wooden chopsticks to stir the honey evenly, and smell and taste it. There should be no peculiar smell or oily smell. From the surface of bottled or bulk honey, if there is a lot of foam, lees smell, and acidic taste, this is a low-quality fermented and deteriorated product. The color of honey can be deep or shallow, but it must be highly transparent, and there should be no debris in the liquid honey. You can also put the honey in a container and add 3 to 4 times of clean distilled water (cold boiled water is also OK), and then add an appropriate amount of 95% ethanol liquid (alcohol) and stir slowly. If there is white floc, it proves that maltose (maltose, sorghum malt, etc.) ingredients have been added. If there is no adulteration, the liquid is turbid, but there will be no white floc. You can also put an appropriate amount (1-2 spoons) of honey in a container and heat it with a low gas fire (honey contains about 17% water). After heating, the water evaporates. After cooling, the soft honey is pure honey, while the hard and brittle honey is an inferior product containing sucrose and maltose. In addition, honey that has been stored for a long time will form crystals from the bottom. When pure crystals are twisted by hand, they are soft and creamy without any gritty feeling. However, when twisted by hand, the sucrose-containing honey has a strong gritty feeling and its crystal blocks are large and rough.

2. How to identify the quality of honey?

Raise bees and eat their honey. Honey has been a natural health food for humans since ancient times, with nourishing and pharmacological functions for the human body. Bees collect stamens and pollen from plants in nature, and through repeated conversions by enzymes in their salivary glands and honey sacs (stomachs), they decompose the sucrose in the nectar into two chemical components, namely glucose and fructose, which are easy for the human body to directly digest and absorb. All the proteins, nucleic acids, sugars, vitamins and mineral elements needed by the human body can be found in honey.

Honey does not go moldy or change in quality when stored at room temperature for a long time. The main reason is that honey has a strong antibacterial effect on various bacteria. Honey contains antioxidants. It is also acidic and high in sugar, so it maintains a high permeability, and microorganisms cannot survive in this environment. According to experiments, honey has an antibacterial effect on more than 60 kinds of bacteria and 7 kinds of fungi.

my country's annual honey production has reached more than 200,000 tons, but the product quality is not satisfactory. Some products have pesticide and antibiotic residues, and it is difficult for relevant quality inspection departments to conduct comprehensive and regular inspections and guidance on their products.

So, how should consumers judge and identify honey? Generally, it can be judged from the aspects of color, fragrance, taste and shape. That is, honey with light color, fragrant taste, good taste, high viscosity and few impurities is the best. You can use clean bamboo or wooden chopsticks to stir the honey evenly, and smell and taste it. There should be no peculiar smell or oily smell. From the surface of bottled or bulk honey, if there is a lot of foam, lees smell, and acidic taste, this is a low-quality fermented and deteriorated product. The color of honey can be deep or shallow, but it must be highly transparent, and there should be no debris in the liquid honey. You can also put the honey in a container and add 3 to 4 times of clean distilled water (cold boiled water is also OK), and then add an appropriate amount of 95% ethanol liquid (alcohol) and stir slowly. If there is white floc, it proves that maltose (maltose, sorghum malt, etc.) ingredients have been added. If there is no adulteration, the liquid is turbid, but there will be no white floc. You can also put an appropriate amount (1-2 spoons) of honey in a container and heat it with a low gas fire (honey contains about 17% water). After heating, the water evaporates. After cooling, the soft honey is pure honey, while the hard and brittle honey is an inferior product containing sucrose and maltose. In addition, honey that has been stored for a long time will form crystals from the bottom. When pure crystals are twisted by hand, the crystals are soft and creamy without gravel, while those containing sucrose have a strong sense of gravel when twisted by hand, and the crystals are large and hard.

3. How to identify the quality of honey?

How to identify the quality of honey?

1: Smell: Single-flower honey has the unique floral fragrance of the plant, multi-flower honey has a natural floral aroma, and fake honey may have a sucrose flavor or a spice flavor.

2. Eye Observation

1. Check the concentration of honey. Take a chopstick and insert it into the honey and lift it vertically. Honey with high concentration will flow slowly and be sticky enough to be pulled into threads. It will shrink into honey balls after being broken. Fake honey or honey with low concentration is the opposite. Even if it can be pulled into long threads, the broken threads will not be elastic and will not shrink into honey beads.

2. You can drop a drop of honey on a newspaper. Pure honey with high concentration is hemispherical and not easy to penetrate the newspaper. Low concentration or fake honey can easily penetrate the newspaper.

3. Take a cup of water and add a little honey. Real honey will sink to the bottom of the cup quickly and will not melt easily. When you stir it slowly with chopsticks, there will be some strings. If it is fake honey, it will dissolve in the water quickly.

4. Look at the crystallization. The crystallization of honey is related to the type of plant and the temperature. Generally, pure natural honey is easy to crystallize at 13-14 degrees Celsius. Honey that can be fully crystallized generally has low water content, high concentration, and is not easy to deteriorate, so it is high-quality honey. Crystallized pure honey feels delicate and has no sandy feeling when rubbed by hand. Fake honey is not easy to crystallize, or part of it is precipitated, and the precipitate is hard and not easy to rub.

3. Taste: Pure and natural honey has a sweet and slightly sour taste, soft and delicate texture, refreshing and soft taste, slightly spicy throat feeling, and a long aftertaste. Adulterated honey tastes sweet, but is mixed with sugar or spice taste, has a weak throat feeling, and a light and short aftertaste.

4: Chemical test: Honey mixed with starch will turn blue when added with iodine solution. Honey mixed with maltose will produce white flocs when added with high concentration of ethanol. Honey mixed with other impurities will have sticky substances attached to the wire when a red-hot iron wire is inserted into the honey.

Refrigerated crystallization test: Honey will become solid after being stored for a period of time at 4 to 14 degrees Celsius. This is a physical phenomenon of honey. The crystals of real honey are very soft and can be pierced with a chopstick. Fake honey cannot be pierced. The crystals of real honey melt quickly when squeezed by hand, while fake honey feels rough and melts slowly or does not melt at all. The crystals of real honey make a small sound when bitten by teeth, while the crystals of fake honey are crisp and loud. Pour out the honey and wait for it to solidify slightly. If it is real honey, it will form a hexagonal structure like a honeycomb, but fake honey will not.

In short, when identifying the authenticity of honey, using only one method may result in certain errors. You can use multiple methods at the same time to identify a type of honey. Generally speaking, you can determine the authenticity of the honey.

Simple way to identify real honey

In summer, real honey will have a lot of bubbles in it after being shaken, making it easy for the honey to swell out of the honey bottle. But after being left alone for 1-2 days, the bubbles will disappear automatically, but gas will rush out when the honey bottle is opened! This is mainly because pure natural honey contains natural fungicides. It is easy to decompose oxygen at high temperatures! As a result, there is a layer of white bubbles on the surface of the honey!

I strongly recommend Taobao's {Shahu Farmhouse Honey}.