Honey Processing Plant

Honey, a natural biological product evolved from nectar and of great benefit to human beings both as medicine and food, is consumed in every country of the world in some form. Honey contains glucose, fructose, and water, in addition to small quantities of proteins, minerals, organic acids, and vitamins.  It is liked for its characteristic flavor, sweetness, and texture.

Honey being a biological product tends to get spoiled due to fermentation. Processing of honey is, thus an essential step for apiarists, involving indirect heating of honey at controlled temperatures to facilitate Straining, prevent fermentation by killing yeast cells and retard granulation.

 Filtration and Heating

The straining operation to remove suspended solids (including large wax particles) is carried out either manually or by mechanical means. The method and the equipment used for straining to depend on the size of the operation. In small-scale operations, straining is done using cloth or nylon bags, which are frequently cleaned to remove the suspended particles. In large-scale operations, the straining operation is combined with the preheating (up to 40°C) operation in a jacketed tank fitted with a stirrer.

The strained honey is further processed using pressure filters. Typically polypropylene microfilter of 80 microns is used as a filter medium. The honey temperature is maintained between 50–55°C, which prevents the melting of the beeswax. Large-scale processors subject honey to coarse filtration, centrifugal clarification, fine filtration, and blending before filling.

Moisture Reduction

Moisture is one of the most important parameters of honey quality. The amount of water present in honey determines its stability against fermentation and granulation. Honey having high water content ferments easily with time. Treatment in a closed system minimizes losses of volatile aroma during heating. Processing temperature had a significant effect on the moisture content. Honey processed at 60°C had higher moisture (17.98%) as compared to 17.06 and 16.40% at 70 and 80 °C respectively while the processing time had a non-significant effect on the moisture content of honey packaged in glass jars, plastic jars, and poly pack pouches.

Different systems have been developed at the farmer as well as commercial level across the globe for reducing the moisture content of honey. Methods including thermal or microwave heating. The systems use rotating discs, cones, passing through holes or wire mesh for increasing the surface area of honey to facilitate faster and uniform moisture reduction. Also nowadays vacuum based moisture reduction system is widely used to reduce moisture content at low temperature.

 

Thermal Processing

The conventional process involves preheating to 40°C, straining, filtering/clarification, and indirect heating of filtered honey at 60–65°C for 25–30 minutes in a tubular heat exchanger followed by rapid cooling to protect its natural color, flavor, enzyme content, and other biological substances., Typically heating at 80°C for 60 seconds in the transient stage and 30 seconds in the isothermal stage, destroyed all microorganisms responsible for quality damage without spoiling honey.  HMF as an indicator of the damage done to honey by heating

Honey Crystallization

The honey crystallization is a natural process, depending on the sugar content, the temperature of storage.

The higher the glucose content, the faster the crystallization. Honey with more than 28% glucose crystallizes fast, while those with less than 28 % remain generally liquid.

The optimal temperature for honey crystallization lies between 10 and 18°C constant temperature of 14°C is regarded as optimal.

Very fast crystallizing honey crystallizes in a fine-crystalline texture. At higher temperatures (more than 25° C) the crystallization is slowed down.

Goma Process, Mumbai can offer a complete Honey processing plant, from reception of honey, Straining, pre-heating, Filtration, moisture reduction, Batch/Continuous pasteuriser to filling.  We have long & well practices in the manufacturing, design, and installation of the energy-efficient and sanitary honey processing plant.

We are providing a solution for manufacturing range of Honey Processing plant from semi-industrial/smaller to larger.