Subject: Re: Granulated Honey & Microwave
From: [log in to unmask] (Seppo Korpela)
Date: 2000/01/18
Newsgroups: sci.agriculture.beekeeping

>Come on!
>Don't forget that old broken chest freezer
>Strip out the works and add a 40/60 watt heater or bulb with a thermostat
>Great insulation
>Gentle heat
>Little loss of hmf

As concerns HMF, the advantage of gentle heating with heat cabinet
compared with microwave heating seems more to be connected with small
loss of enzymes.  On the other hand there is only  a small *increase*
in HMF content of honey.  I have written on this in BEE-L:
"There was an article in Deutsches Bienen-Journal 3: 78-82 by Werner
von der Ohe/Katharina von der Ohe in 1992 entitled "Honigqualitat: der
Einfluss der Temperatur [Honey quality: the effect of temperature]."
The authors report on their experiments on heating honey either in a
water bath at 40, 50 or 60 deg. C  or with microwaves.

The changes in HMF content and in contents of the enzymes invertase,
amylase and glucose oxidase were recorded.  The heating at 40 deg. C
for 24 h caused neither decrease of enzyme content nor an inrease of
HMF content. Treatment with microwawes caused a slight increase in the
HMF content but almost a total loss of the enzymes."