Why Honey Crystallises, and Why It Is a Good Sign

Honey crystallises in cold weather, and it is a good sign rather than a fault.

If your honey has turned thick, pale and grainy over the winter, nothing has gone wrong. It has crystallised, and honey that crystallises is generally honey that has not been heavily heated.

Why honey crystallises: what is happening

Honey is a supersaturated sugar solution — more glucose and fructose are dissolved in it than water can normally hold. That state is unstable. Over time the glucose comes out of solution as crystals, starting around any speck of pollen or wax still in the jar.

Cool weather accelerates it. Most crystallisation in Pakistan happens between November and February.

Why some jars set faster than others

It depends on the ratio of glucose to fructose, which depends on the flower.

• Sets quickly: wildflower, mustard-heavy honey
• Sets slowly: Sidr, Acacia (Palosa), Robinia

Why filtered honey does not set

Heating dissolves the existing crystals and fine filtering removes the pollen and wax that new ones would form around. The result stays liquid on a shelf for a year. It is also honey with less of its original character left in it. A jar that never sets is telling you something about how it was processed.

Making it pourable again

Stand the sealed jar in warm — not boiling — water for ten to fifteen minutes and stir. Repeat if needed.

Do not microwave it and do not put it in boiling water. Both overheat the honey unevenly and drive off the aromatics you paid for. There is no need to reverse crystallisation at all if you are spreading rather than pouring; set honey is easier to spread.

How to tell crystallisation from spoilage

Crystallised honey is uniformly grainy, smells the same as it always did, and tastes the same once melted. Honey that has genuinely fermented — which takes moisture getting in — smells sour or yeasty and may show bubbles. Keeping the jar sealed and using a dry spoon prevents it.

More on what varies between harvests in our variety comparison.

Crystallisation in a Pakistani winter

Crystallisation is fastest between roughly 10 and 15°C. That means a jar kept in an unheated kitchen in Lahore, Islamabad or Quetta in January will set faster than the same jar in Karachi. It is not a fault in the honey and it does not mean the jar was stored badly.

Storing honey in the fridge is the one thing that reliably makes this worse. Below about 10°C crystallisation slows again, but the fridge holds honey right in the range where it sets hardest on the way down.

Preventing it, if you want to

• Keep the jar somewhere warm and stable — a kitchen cupboard, not a windowsill or a fridge.
• Buy a variety that resists it: Acacia, Palosa or Robinia rather than wildflower.
• Buy a size you will finish in a few months rather than a large jar that sits.

Creamed honey is crystallisation used deliberately

Some honey is set on purpose under controlled conditions to give a fine, even, spreadable texture rather than coarse grains. It is the same process, managed rather than left to happen. If you like the texture of set honey, that is what you are enjoying.

Related reading

Which varieties set slowest is covered in our variety comparison, and why raw honey behaves differently from supermarket honey in the price guide. Browse the honey collection.

Common questions

Has it gone off? No. Crystallisation is a change of texture, not of quality, and the honey is unchanged once it is warmed back.

Can I put it in the microwave? Better not to. Gentle warmth in a sealed jar is enough, and high heat is exactly what raw honey is sold to avoid.

See the honey collection, or read about how we source.