Subject: Does honey "spoil" ???

From: [email-masked] (Walter McCannon)
Date: Tue, 02 Jul 1996 22:40:14 GMT

I recently sat down to breakfast with a jar of honey I had purchased last
year in the North Georgia mountain area.  It has a piece of comb in it and
I have enjoyed the taste of the honey on previous occasions.

The taste this time was very odd - it didn't seem sweet at all.  It was not
at all crystallized and about half of the comb was out of the liquid honey.

Is there a chance that the honey spoiled when the pantry got quite warm one
of the days my air conditioning was broken?

Thanks for your expert response,  Walter
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Walter P. McCannon                          e-mail: [email-masked]
Marietta, GA            CI$: 74633,403      [email-masked]
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From: David & Margaret Gladstone <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 3 Jul 1996 09:22:09 +0100

In article <[email-masked]>, Walter McCannon
<[email-masked]> writes
>Thanks for your expert response,  Walter

This response is not given as an expert but more for general advice.
Yes honey can change and it can spoil.

At higher concentrations of sugar you can get crystal formation and this
can give a different mouth-feel

at low concentrations , less than about 65% w/w if I remember but check
for yoruself if the exact figure is importanmt, the honey is very thin
and small beekeepers feed it back to them.

Thin or weak honey is prone to microbiological spoilage and this will
affect the taste.

Traditional jars of jam and preserves have a small sheet of waxed paper
to prevent any water droplets from condensation initiating local
spoilage as that local sugar concentration is reduces.  

If the humididty is high, as I recall this it is at this time, them that
could cause spoilage.

-- 
David & Margaret Gladstone

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From: A. J. deLange <[email-masked]>
Date: 3 Jul 1996 00:39:22 GMT

In article <[email-masked]> Walter McCannon,
[email-masked] writes:
>The taste this time was very odd - it didn't seem sweet at all. 

It is probable that the honey fermented. The world is full of wild
yeast and a fair number of these find their way into honey. If the
honey has been concentrated enough by the bees (to the point where 
it has less than about 18% water) osmotic pressure causes the water
within the yeast cells to pass to the honey causing the yeast to
go dormant. If the honey is not sufficiently dry, the yeast will 
begin to ferment the sugars in the honey converting them to
alcohol and carbon dioxide. A producer who suspects that his honey
is too high in water content will heat it thus killing the 
yeast cells and delaying the onset of fermentation. This is
only a temporary fix as the honey becomes reinocculated when the
consumer opens the jar. Most states require that honey sold in
their jurisdiction have less than a specified amount of water.
But honey is quite hygroscopic which means that it will absorb water
>from  the air if it is humid enough.

I can't tell exactly what happened to your jar of honey but the
absence of sweetness strongly suggests fermentation.

Cheers, AJ