There is a huge difference in price between honey refractors. The digital kind go for $130 and more. The optical kind go for $23 and up.
Which kind did you get, and what would be best for a hobbyist?
Optical prism works and has been the standard for decades. No battery required, only requirement is some sunlight through the window. Best to not use it under artificial lighting (bulbs)
Never have had a honey refractometer. Did have one for winemaking. It was non-digital (this was before digital refractometers afaik existed). Did have something called automatic temperature adjustment. Anyway, non-digital always worked fine.
mine is an optical one, it cost me $24 on amazon.
Quote from: Bob Wilson on August 09, 2020, 11:57:15 PM
Which kind did you get, and what would be best for a hobbyist?
As a fellow hobbyist with just two hives, I got nothing. I rely on visually checking the honey is 100% capped and I am in no rush to harvest. In three years I never had any honey go bad.
However I'm told they are still useful if you want to sell honey to make sure the moisture content is what it should be, and won't ferment.
Going by eye works just fine too. 1/3rd to 1/2 capped both sides of frames, on 2/3rd of the frames in the box. Example 10 frame box. If 6+ of the frames in the box have 1/2 their cells capped, pull the whole box with no worries, unless of course it has been raining alot and/or the ambient relative humidity has been high for awhile.
Pro Tip: check MC before you pull it. Once it is on the truck or in the bucket, there is not much you can do about it, easily.
I have both types. I started with the standard unit and then a few years ago my wife bought a digital one. I have not used the old unit since.
I?m using the Palm Abbe Digital Refractometer. Very nice unit.
Jim Altmiller
Jim
Do you find a big difference in the accuracy between the two types or is it just easier to use the digital?
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Yes the digital is much easier to use. It works in any light condition and is very accurate. I have not used the manual one since I received the digital.
Jim Altmiller
Mr. Bob, I used optical one day. I read the same honey from the same jar and obtained different readings. I have not used since. The unit I was using was borrowed and appeared to be a high end unit. I can?t say with any degree of knowledge that optical is inaccurate due to the fact I have only used one unit in 5K lighting, not sunlight. The Optical unit I used was not impressive. I don?t sell honey so I judge thickness the old fashion way, taste and pour or the bubble rise method.
If you sell honey, moisture content printed on the jar would catch my eye. In fact, when presented two different jars of honey for sale and one jar has moisture printed on the label, that is the jar I would purchase all else being equal. My 2 cents worth. I actually purchased some acacia online that was 16.5 moisture content, very thick beautiful honey. The moisture content was the deal maker. Just my personal opinion, I rather have honey that is thick.
I am considering a refractor, because when I give honey to family/friends, I want to make sure it doesn't ferment. Thanks for the various advice. I will consider it all.
Now that they got cheap I keep meaning to buy one. I've never owned a refractometer. After 46 years of not having one, I just can't seem to get motivated to buy one...