I kept bees about 30 years ago and harvested several hundred pounds during my short career. The question I have today concerns a gift of honey that I received. It is a pint mason jar with a nice chunk of comb and then filled close to the top with honey. My wife noticed that the cap was bulging today and when I opened the jar it off gassed as if the honey was carbonated. Enough 1/4" bubbles formed that the honey actually overflowed the jar top. It appears that the honey has crystallized in the bottom 1/2 of the jar. I have eaten several hundred pounds of honey since I stopped keeping bees and in all my days I never have seen anything like this. I will return to the health store where it was purchased but I am still curious as to why this happened. Has it been tampered with? Any feed back will be appreciated. Thanks, Steve B
Sounds like it was harvested with too high of a moisture content and has started to ferment.
when honey crystallizes if there is remaining uncrystalized honey it most likely will be of a higher moister content and thus more susceptible to fermenting
Sounds to me like you have a jar of Mead!!!!
It has gotta be fermentation starting.
Is it safe to eat? Can botulism ever be a problem such as honey being bad for infants?
Botulism in honey only occurs because infants don't have as much stomach acid and bile, and that causes a neutral Ph in their intestines which is what botulism needs to grow, as well as a system without oxygen. The slowly growing bacteria causes a very slow poisoning of the infant. Our adult acid kills the bug.
Botulism in adults happens because the bacteria is in the jars of food which have a neutral Ph and no oxygen and they reproduce and make toxin, its the concentrated toxin that is bad, not the bacteria.
Short answer: no, botulism isn't a problem in the honey for adults. The fermentation is from the yeast, and as far as I know the fermentation kind of yeasts aren't poison. Sometimes a wild variety will cause bad smells, though...
Honey's low pH should suppress botulism, even if it starts to ferment. I had a sudden, semi-related thought. With all of the people who are taking Prilosec, or Nexium, or whatever anti-acid-reflux medicine du jour, is there any risk of these people getting botulism, just like an infant?
Quote from: JayC on April 07, 2009, 09:29:37 AM
Honey's low pH should suppress botulism, even if it starts to ferment. I had a sudden, semi-related thought. With all of the people who are taking Prilosec, or Nexium, or whatever anti-acid-reflux medicine du jour, is there any risk of these people getting botulism, just like an infant?
I been taking prilosec for years and I haven't had any problems.
Quote from: JayC on April 07, 2009, 09:29:37 AM
Honey's low pH should suppress botulism, even if it starts to ferment. I had a sudden, semi-related thought. With all of the people who are taking Prilosec, or Nexium, or whatever anti-acid-reflux medicine du jour, is there any risk of these people getting botulism, just like an infant?
No, those suppress
excessive production, not stop it all togather. And adults eat a lot of different types of food which encourages lots of kinds of gut flora, while infants only eat milk.