Lughnasa Honey Moon
This old body. It takes longer to recuperate. Yesterday I wasn’t sure I’d feel fine ever again. Today, I’m back. Lifting, standing, bending all those things Warren said are good 
(the 19% pail)
Anyhow Kate and I had to wrestle with a water content problem in our last pail of honey. It had a too much, 19%. Checking various websites and forums discouraged even trying to dry it below 18.6% without professional drying rooms. With determination though we found a technique that involved lowering the water content of 10% of the whole to 15%, then mixing it back in. Kate hit on using the convection fan in our oven along with the 120 degree heat necessary. We used a shallow glass pan and after 12 plus hours lowered the water content in the pan to 14.8 or so.
After mixing it back into the larger quantity, we achieved a reading much more in line, 17.5%. We had another quantity filtered out of the cappings which also had a higher than desirable %, 19 like the other batch. So we poured it in to the rest and achieved an 18.2% reading. Perfect.
We had to order another 48 1 pound containers. We’ve got a lot honey. We’re going to sell it this year for $8.00 a pound. This is raw honey, no chemicals (hopguard is a food additive). Plus, it’s artisanal, produced in small batches. If you want some, send me an e-mail or comment on this article.
