The natural sugars in honey will eventually bind together and form little crystals, which will make the honey harder. The pollen in honey contributes to this binding process. Small pollen particles provide a platform for the crystals to form. Bee pollen is packed with vitamins, minerals and healthy amino acids. We don’t extend shelf life by adding in things or filtering natural things out to slow down the crystallization process. We keep it raw.
We have 5 gallon buckets full of honey that have crystallized. The honey is so thick that the only way to get it out of the bucket right now is to scoop it out…and that would take quite a while and make a big mess. We needed an inexpensive and relatively quick way to decrystallize the entire bucket at once in order to pour the honey into smaller jars for sale.
What we did was get a large cooler (no drain hole), and place the bucket of honey inside. Next, get a Sous Vide machine and clamp it to the side of the cooler. Then fill the cooler up with water up to the maximum fill line on the Sous Vide. Set the machine to 110 Fahrenheit for about 24 hours. Stir the honey a few times as it is decrystallizing to get the honey at the top of the bucket incorporated into the warmer honey. This setup works great for us.
