I have been reading about the benefits of honey for a while, as a replacement for refined sugars and as a natural treatment for allergies (last year Matthew was diagnosed with severe allergies to pretty much everything). One of my goals this year is to significantly reduce our usage of sugar, and I thought honey would be the perfect fill in. I wanted honey that was as local as possible to us for the allergy benefits, and most importantly, honey that was raw. The honey that is sold in grocery stores is pasteurized by heating it to 160 degrees, and then rapidly cooling it. But when honey is heated to anything over 120 degrees, the beneficial enzymes (which are responsible for activating the vitamin and minerals in the body) are partially destroyed, significantly lessening its healing power. In fact, when pasteurized honey is fed back to bee's, the bee's die because of the enzyme depletion - the honey isnt a complete food for them anymore. Pasteurization of honey isn't done for safety, its done to extend the shelf life (prevent it from crystallizing - which doesn't affect the taste, only the appearance) and to make for a smoother appearance.
I started researching online, and found a raw honey supplier just one town over from us. It started innocently enough - I posted on facebook to see if anyone had heard of the apiary, or tasted their honey. My little post turned into something much bigger as more and more people expressed an interest in putting together a bulk order of honey. The one gallon jar I had planned on ordering for myself turned into an order of *25* gallons of honey split between 19 different people, many of who I don't even know!
After quite a few emails, and a lot of organizing I got everything planned out to pick up the honey, sort it into containers (the honey came in 5 gallon buckets) and get it back out to the people who ordered it. In the days leading up to the pickup date, people started dropping off their containers:
It worked out perfectly that the day I was supposed to pick up the honey, Matthew ended up taking off from work. So he was able to help me get it picked up and brought in the house (the buckets were shockingly heavy). My friend Aimee had volunteered to come and help Mike, Matthew and I sort the honey, and she was a huge help. I was really worried that it was going to take us at least a day to get it all poured, but we got a good rhythm going and we ended up getting it all sorted out in just about an hour! It helped that the 3 of the five gallon buckets were warm, so the honey poured out really easily. The last two buckets were a little more time consuming because they were cold, and cold honey just doesn't move as smoothly. It didn't take us long to figure out a few tricks though, and our assembly line was back up and running. These are just a few of the finished jars:
I took this picture of some of Aimee's jars because the difference in color between the blackberry honey (on the left) and the white clover honey (on the right) was so striking:
The clover had a much milder taste, while the blackberry was definitely stronger tasting. They were both delicious though, and all the jars looked so pretty all lined up on the counter. I said before we started that there was no way I would be doing this again anytime soon, but once we finished I realized that it hadn't actually been that bad. Maybe even a little bit fun, in a sticky sort of way!
I started researching online, and found a raw honey supplier just one town over from us. It started innocently enough - I posted on facebook to see if anyone had heard of the apiary, or tasted their honey. My little post turned into something much bigger as more and more people expressed an interest in putting together a bulk order of honey. The one gallon jar I had planned on ordering for myself turned into an order of *25* gallons of honey split between 19 different people, many of who I don't even know!
After quite a few emails, and a lot of organizing I got everything planned out to pick up the honey, sort it into containers (the honey came in 5 gallon buckets) and get it back out to the people who ordered it. In the days leading up to the pickup date, people started dropping off their containers:
It worked out perfectly that the day I was supposed to pick up the honey, Matthew ended up taking off from work. So he was able to help me get it picked up and brought in the house (the buckets were shockingly heavy). My friend Aimee had volunteered to come and help Mike, Matthew and I sort the honey, and she was a huge help. I was really worried that it was going to take us at least a day to get it all poured, but we got a good rhythm going and we ended up getting it all sorted out in just about an hour! It helped that the 3 of the five gallon buckets were warm, so the honey poured out really easily. The last two buckets were a little more time consuming because they were cold, and cold honey just doesn't move as smoothly. It didn't take us long to figure out a few tricks though, and our assembly line was back up and running. These are just a few of the finished jars:
I took this picture of some of Aimee's jars because the difference in color between the blackberry honey (on the left) and the white clover honey (on the right) was so striking:
The clover had a much milder taste, while the blackberry was definitely stronger tasting. They were both delicious though, and all the jars looked so pretty all lined up on the counter. I said before we started that there was no way I would be doing this again anytime soon, but once we finished I realized that it hadn't actually been that bad. Maybe even a little bit fun, in a sticky sort of way!