>At 11:14 PM 21/10/96 -0600, you wrote:
>>How do you melt  and separate wax in a boiler?
>
>I prefer not to use a solar wax melter rather than a boiler.
>
>However if you must us a boil, try
>1 put the cappings in a stocking
>2 place this "sausage" in the boiler
<snip>
 
Hi Chris:
The problem with this method is that the scorched honey is lost.  I realize
that if you are just doing a very small amount of cappings that may not be a
problem, but I always figure that "waste not, want not".  It is surprising
how much scorched honey can be obtained from even well drained cappings
(although I have never used a cappings spinner).  I am able to sell scorched
honey to a bakery for 2/3 the price of unheated bulk honey, since the honey
is scorched anyway in the baking process.
 
I use a commercial cappings melter and it is a dandy rig, but for a small
quantity I would suggest simply melting the cappings at minimum heat in a
water bath, but do not dilute with water.  Then pour through a piece of
window screen (to remove the slum gum) into a bucket.  When cool just pick
of the wax cake and you have scorched honey underneath which can be fine
filtered if desired.
 
A proper wax melter is nothing fancy.  It just has a slanted plate over a
boiling water bath.  The nice thing about it is that as the cappings contact
the plate they melt and run out of the thing into a separating bucket
(through a filter plate), and so the honey is in contact with high heat for
a minimum length of time.  The separating bucket keeps the wax cake on the
top and has a spigot for the scorched honey to overflow into buckets.
 
Regards, Stan