My grandmother used to say that the honey had “gone to sugar” when it crystallized. I thought perhaps that I was leaving those days behind by moving to the tropics, but a big jar of honey we brought over from the mainland didn’t cooperate. To make matters worse, the honey was packaged in this plastic container with a small screw-on cap and an even smaller pouring spout:
That might have worked fine when they honey was a freshly (over-)processed clear liquid, but as soon as it started to crystallize (a perfectly normal and predictable process), there was no way to get the honey out of the bottle. Which meant that it sat more, and crystallized more, and it became impossible to use it. Reconstituting it in a warm water bath was only a temporary solution, since you can’t stir it through the tiny cap and getting it completely back to a flowing liquid not only wasn’t practical, it also wasn’t good for the quality of the honey.
So I cut the lid off the bottle far enough down to have a wide opening, then I put it in a pan of warm water that I kept warm by setting the induction cooktop to 120°F, and left it there with occasional stirring until it was as decrystalized. I didn’t keep going until it was a perfectly clear liquid. That’s overdoing it. Instead, I poured it into a wide-mouth mason jar. Easy-to-serve honey for ages.
After this is done, we’ll be able to switch to the local honey that our neighbors make.
—2p