How to Soften Hard Honey

Have you ever laid in a supply of honey for your kitchen? Ever opened a jar from your stash, only to discover the golden liquid has turned into a hard mass? It’s terribly frustrating, isn’t it? The stiff, sticky stuff is not only difficult to dig out, but its hard to measure for baking and is practically impossible to spread on a slice of homemade bread!

When honey crystallizes, its very irksome indeed! But did you know, there’s a very easy way to revert the stiff stuff to liquid form? Let me show you how to soften hard honey!

 

Apply Gentle Heat

To return honey to liquid form, you need to apply gentle heat to it. This can be done on the stove top in a double boiler or, in your crock pot. Today, I’m going show you how to do it with the latter.

 

Setting Up the Crockpot

Plug in your crock pot and choose the ‘keep warm’ setting. Add several inches of water to the crock. I like to start with medium-warm water. It helps speed the process.

Note: if you store honey in glass, be sure the water is only medium-warm. Hot water can crack glass, and no one wants to lose their honey!

 

Dissolving the Honey Crystals

Before putting your honey container in the warm water, make sure the lid is secure. Gently settle the container in the crock pot.

The liquefying process will go much faster if you bring the water level outside your container to the same level as the honey inside the container. Make sense? If this isn’t possible, just bring it as close as you can.

Let it sit for several hours, until the crystals have dissolved and your honey is soft and flowing again.

 

Finishing Up

Once the honey is ready, lift it out of the water and dry off the container.

It can then be returned to it’s proper storage place! If it crystallizes again, before you use it up? Just repeat the process!

And now you know how to soften hard honey!