When archaeologists excavated King Tut’s tomb in 1922, they found (and allegedly tasted) a jar ofhoney有幸存下来。合壳体过去几千年基础t. I think of this every time I come across a jar of honey in my kitchen that I helped harvest a full four years ago from bee hives my Brooklyn community garden keeps on the roof of my apartment building.
Although it’s a romantic idea to preserve the smells and tastes of Prospect Park’s flora from summer 2019 for posterity, I’m not keeping it around for sentimental reasons. I just can’t, for the life of me, get the jar open. And since this is the only container in my entire pantry without an expiration date printed on it, I’ve decided to procrastinate figuring it out…indefinitely.
While the King Tut story is oft-repeated to demonstrate that honey lasts forever, I’ve always wondered how this could be true when I’ve watched so many half-eaten jars over the years crystallize and solidify to a point of unusability. I reached out to Bruce Shriver, the beekeeper at Gowanus Apiary; Amy Newsome, a gardener, beekeeper, and author ofHoney;and the folks behind Brooklyn-based Mike’s Hot Honey to get some practical advice on how to keep this natural sweetener at its free-flowing, floral best.
Does honey go bad?
At its core honey is essentially a very concentrated sugar solution, and because it has such a low water content (about 18%), it’s very resistant to fermentation or spoilage. It’s also full of organic acids from the nectar it’s made from, which give the honey anaverage pH of 3.4 to 6.1. This acidic quality makes it very difficult for microbes to survive in that jar or squeeze bottle.
“Honey lasts forever as long as it’s stored in an airtight container, such as a jar with a cap,” explains Shriver. The problems arise when the honey is exposed to air and humidity. “Honey will absorb moisture from the air if left open, which can cause it to ferment.”
When the moisture level changes, and the fermentation process begins, those sugars can be converted to alcohol.Meadis made by diluting honey with lots of water, and mixing it with yeast to kickstart that fermentation process. But if your jar is sealed and sheltered from extra humidity, it will last indefinitely. And, according to the USDA,even if you notice it getting cloudyor taking on a crystallized texture, the honey is still safe to eat.
Why does honey crystallize and turn solid sometimes?
“When bees make honey, they are creating a ‘supersaturated solution,’ which in this case means the natural sugars (mainly glucose and fructose—from the harvested flower nectar) are dissolved in a tiny amount of water, and the honey stays liquid but very temperamentally so,” explains Newsome. “The sugars start to crystallize over time.”