Honey or raw honey?

Did you know that words like genuine, additive-free, 100% natural product, GMO-free, and raw honey cannot be written on the honey jar label?

According to the EU honey regulation, consumers must not be given the impression that honey has special characteristics that are not actually special. Practically, this means somewhat paradoxically that because honey already possesses all the aforementioned qualities, those characteristics cannot be separately mentioned on the jar.

Unfortunately, although this is a honey regulation that covers the entire EU area, it seems to only interest us Finnish honey producers. Therefore, especially the phrase raw honey can be seen on jars containing foreign honey, but domestic quality honey is rarely sold as raw honey.

The origin of raw honey

The term raw honey originally made its way to Finland from the United States, where pasteurization of honey is very common. Since there was still a demand for unheated honey, a specific name was wanted for this more natural alternative. Unheated honey began to be called raw honey, raakahunaja.

Raw honey generally follows roughly the same criteria as raw food, or "living food". There is no official definition for raw honey, as the criteria vary depending on whom you ask and in which country you are. Generally, raw honey refers to honey that has not been heat-treated at high temperatures or heavily filtered at any stage.

Buy Finnish

In Finland, honey is generally not heated. Larger honey packers may temporarily heat honey to pack it from storage tanks into jars, but even in this process, the goal is to preserve the natural properties of the honey.

Note: The honey shelves in stores also contain heated and mechanically filtered honey, but this must be mentioned on the packaging. When honey is heated, filtered, or when other ingredients are added to it, it becomes a honey product.

So how can you tell how the honey has been processed before bottling? The safest way is to ask the packer directly; when buying Finnish honey, you can find the contact information directly on the side of the jar.

So how does Metsätuvan hunaja end up from the hives to the jar and how is it made permanently powerfully soft?

The journey of Voimainen honey

In the fall, when we have retrieved the last honey boxes from the hives and started the winter feeding of the bees, it is time to start spinning. This year's most labor-intensive operation requires careful preparation, as the goal is to bottle the highest quality honey possible!

The spinning area, spinner, strainers, containers, and all other necessary tools have been washed in good time and carefully dried. It is important that no moisture from the environment gets into the honey, as the drier the honey is when it ends up in the jar, the better it will preserve. The moisture content of the honey is checked with a meter designed for that purpose both before the spinning phase and before bottling.

When everything is ready, the spinning can begin.

From the spinner to the jars

Before placing the honeycombs in the spinner, the wax caps of the honeycombs are cut open to allow the honey to flow out of the cells. When there is one honeycomb in each of the six baskets of the spinner, it is started. Honey begins to flow slowly from the tap at the bottom of the spinner towards the metal strainer above the bucket.

The honey is allowed to flow freely at its own pace through the strainer into a bucket, with the largest wax crumbs and any possible small debris remaining in the strainer's mesh. When the bucket starts to fill up, a new bucket is placed in its place, and the full one is poured into a large lidded honey container.

Once all the honeycombs in the box stacks have finally been spun and the last of the honey has been drained into containers, it's time for clarification. The containers filled with honey now sit for a couple of days at room temperature, allowing air bubbles and small wax crumbs that passed through the strainer to rise to the surface.

Surface honey with wax crumbs is collected in a separate container by placing baking paper against the surface of the honey. When the paper is lifted from the container, most of the wax crumbs rise with it. This is repeated a few times to ensure that as few wax crumbs as possible remain in the honey in the container. The honey collected from the surface is usually always used by the beekeeper.

From unpredictable to soft

The natural properties of honey include crystallization. However, it is generally impossible to predict the rate of crystallization and the final result's softness, coarseness, or hardness. It all depends on the plants from which the honey is collected, and this is influenced not only by the flowering in the local area but also by the summer temperatures and rainfall.

Because our bees live surrounded by a diverse flora, the honey they collect is so-called polyfloral honey. If such honey is allowed to crystallize on its own, it usually ends up being coarse with large crystals. Since our customers prefer honey that remains soft and is easy to spoon, we give it a crystallization pattern using the graft..

Graft = honey + honey

Honey crystallization into a soft form can be achieved in three different ways. The crystalline form of honey can be mechanically broken by kneading, it can be allowed to form its own crystalline structure while the honey is mixed gently, or it can be given a crystalline form using last year's soft honey.

Options two and three are generally the ones used by small-scale beekeepers. We use method number three, which means we give the freshly extracted honey a crystalline form using honey jarred the previous autumn. This is called grafting, and it is a sure way to produce soft, fine-crystalline honey.

The mixture is made by draining a couple of jars of freshly extracted honey into a separate vessel. A jar of velvety soft honey saved from the previous harvest is added to the same vessel. The honeys are carefully mixed together with a honey stirrer, after which the vessel is covered with cling film and placed in the refrigerator to mature. The mixture is stirred for a couple of days, after which it is ready for use.

Pearlescent sheen in sight

Now that the flowing honey has begun to take on the crystalline form of soft honey, it is time to divide the mixture into containers. First, about a kilogram of flowing honey is taken from each container into its own vessel, and the mixture is evenly distributed among them. The flowing honeys with their mixtures are then mixed and finally poured back into their respective containers.

The containers are lifted into a cooled room, and the contents of each container are carefully mixed using a honey paddle. The mixing is done calmly by hand, and each container is paddled a couple of times a day for a few days.

When a pearlescent sheen begins to appear while mixing the honey, it is ready to be jarred. The containers are brought to room temperature during the jarring process, mainly for comfort reasons. However, the jarred honeys are taken back to the cool environment on the same day. A cool temperature is important for the final result, as the faster and more crystals can form, the smaller they remain. 

The jars can be kept cool for a few days to a week, during which time the honey crystallizes into its final form, wonderfully soft. At the same time, beautiful patterns formed by honey crust develop on the inner surface of the jars.