Pressurized honey??????

[theriverhawk]

This morning, I grabbed my last case of honey from last year's batch and brought it upstairs. (Luckily, I'm taking this year's honey this coming weekend!!) I noticed that each jar had some bubbles in it. I opened the first jar and whooooffff...it sounded like a small can of tennis balls as the air gently came out. Hmmm...that's odd. I opened another. Same thing! Each jar in this case made this exact same pressurized noise. Does this mean that this case has started fermenting? It's a dark, tulip poplar honey so it hasn't turned to sugar yet. I've never experienced this before and never had honey ferment.

[greenbtree]

As a meadmaker I can tell you that it sure sounds like your honey is starting to ferment.  The yeast that cause fermentation give off carbon dioxide, the same stuff that puts the fizz in soda pop.  It is really odd though, because usually the sugar content in straight honey is too high for the yeast to live in it.  That's why you add water to make mead.  I would say your honey was absorbing water from the air, but obviously the seal is good, otherwise the pressure wouldn't build up.  Did the honey sit uncapped for awhile before you bottled it?  Any sign of anything going on on the underside of the lid or anything?  Bacteria can give off gases too, I would be a little leery.

JC

[melliphile]

Have you tasted it?  Do you use a refractometer to measure the moisture content? My guess is that it either has begun fermenting and the sound was co2 leaving the jar, or you bottled while the honey was still warm, the air contracted causing a vacuum and you  heard air entering upon opening.  The former is more likely tho. Sorry to hear it.

[Scadsobees]

Was the noise made from air going into or coming out of the jars?  I think that the jars are quicker to seal a vacuum (which holds the top on) rather than seal air pressure.  At least the canning jars I use are.

Even so, if you've had them in the cool basement and brought them upstairs into the summer heat, the trapped air could have expanded to give you that result.

Smell and tasted will tell you what you need to know, though....

[danno]

The air going in or out was my question also.  If you heated it at all before bottleing, then cooling in a place like a basement it would creat a vacuum.  I bottle in 1 1/4# applesause jars that have the red dot for freshness botton on the top.  I heat to about 90 and bottle and it sucks the top in

[theriverhawk]

It was straight, raw honey.  I do not heat my honey.  Only extracted, filtered and bottled.  When I opened the jars, the air came OUT from pressure, not in.  I did warm a few jars this morning to see if it cleared up anything.  Here are some pics.  Bizarre that 1-2 inches of foam built up on the top.  I warmed it at a very low temp, so overheating is out of the question.  The honey tastes fine really.  I'm baffled.

[AllenF]

Those are good looking heads.

[zopi]

Looks like a really good pint of bitters...

[OzBuzz]

I'm a microbiologist - you have a nice yeast culture going on there! let it sit and see what you end up with - most likely alcohol although i would prefer to have some degree of control of the yeast that is in there if i was going to drink it.

Seriously though - the air you heard coming out was most likely CO2 as a result of bacterial respiration - one way of checking would be to hold a burning match near the lid as you open it - if there's enough CO2 in a concentrated area it will put the flame out.

The foaming that you're seeing when you heated the honey was bacterial respiration: warmth + nutrients = growth + respiration

I have had bacteria grow in a 65o Brix sugar syrup - that's not 'theoretically' supposed to happen.

I'm a newbie to beekeeping but i would say that either you extracted when the honey wasnt ripe enough or you had some contamination on your extractor or other equipment - possibly from honey residue being left on there from your last extraction

[theriverhawk]

Ok...of all the years beekeeping with my father and nowadays on my own, we've never had this happen. 

So, can I feed this back to the bees? 

[AllenF]

Don't feed it back to the bees, but it is ok for you to eat.  It will just be hard honey, like hard apple cider.

[Paynesgrey]

My mom used to make & keep some fermented honey like that, chilled, cubed & frozen once sharp. Made dandy monster bread starter :)

[kedgel]

Did you extract un-capped honey with it?  That'll do it.  Also, capped frames of honey sitting around in high humidity will take in moisture.  I always set up my frames of honey in a stack supers and run my shop-vac exhaust blowing through them overnight to dry the honey to avoid what you're experiencing.  FL is REALLY humid!  8-)