Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum
BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER => GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. => Topic started by: RHBee on April 11, 2013, 12:06:00 am
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All that I have read indicates that to reduce the moisture content in honey you need to increase temperature and expose the honey to a low humidity environment. Has anyone ever tried to make a dehumidifier from an old chest freezer or some other type of closed container?
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Inside the house in the ac in a 5 gallon bucket allows for drying.
Slow though
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I had a gentleman tell me he used an old clothes dryer with the belt on the drum removed and a shoe rack to reduce the moisture in his honey. He said by using a low heat setting it worked great and did not take but about two hour to reduce the moisture content by about 2.5 to 3 percent. Not sure how well it worked but he swore that it worked great.
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just put a dehumidifier in a fairly small room. say 10 by 10. Put it on high and empty the water twice a day. You will be fine. If you make it too small you may overheat and melt your wax.
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Hello Ray,
I don't understand. Why do you reduce moisture content? Is it because you extract before it's capped, or extract during high humidity? Can you reduce it too much?
Lone
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I had good results stacking supers over grate and blowing fan through them while running two small dehumidifiers. It may take a couple days. Our cabbage palm honey is wet even when capped, I pulled some last year before it was capped and it dried faster than the capped honey.
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Another way is to take your 5 gallon bucket with a gate valve opened a little bit and let it drip into another bucket, in a room with the AC running full blast.
Lone,
When your humidity level runs above 90% during the day and 100% every night, the honey often comes out at 19% and we need to lower it.
Jim
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Has anyone ever tried to make a dehumidifier from an old chest freezer or some other type of closed container?
That's exactly what I've got as a warmer. Never used it as a dehumidifier but I know it will work. The drip catchers I have under the spigots invariably end up with a little honey in them. Within a day or two it ends up cold honey stiff and tacky though it's between 100-105 degrees in there.