Need to warm my customers honey

David Francis

Hello All

I am in the process of working for a honey producer. In the process they heat 55 gallon drums of honey which is in a crystallized state. When heated it runs out of the drums and in to a bulk tank. Working with their existing equipment (Unit heaters. Steam) I have the room up to a 140 degrees Fahrenheit and they want more heat.

So I think the question is. How many BTUs are required to raise the temperature of a pound of honey?

Many Thanks in Advance
David

Alan(CaliforniaRadiant)Forbes

Whatever you do

don't overheat it. Heat will destroy the flavor and aroma of honey, so be careful.

Bees are the most studied animal next to humans. There should be a lot of information out there. Try:

American Bee Journal
51 S 2nd Street
Hamilton, IL 62341-1398
(217)847-3324
http://www.dadant.com

or

Bee Culture
Subscription Dept., Dept. W
623 W. Liberty Street
Medina, OH 44256
(800)289-7668 x3255 (subscriptions)

Best wishes,

Alan

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hr

What about

a system to heat the barrels directly? Could you wrap them with copper tube. Maybe use some air hose quick connectors to allow dumping or moving.

I recall seeing some barrels warmers that look like heavy duty electric blankets also. May be easier than warming the entire room.

hot rod

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Unknown

The Root Company has some good info, maybe they will know.

http://www.beesource.com/pov/lusby/root1891c.htm

http://www.beesource.com/links/index.htm

http://www.beesource.com/pov/bc/bcjan60.htm

http://www.beeculture.com/beeculture/

pfitter_8

The solution

Is not letting your drums crystallize, but that’s easer said than done. I have visited large producers that use the electric barrel heater as described above and have also seen the hot room. Being a very small produce we handle it differently. We have two steam kettles, removed from a commercial kitchen years ago. The steam jacket is piped to the hot water system heating my dad’s house and can be heated with either wood or gas. We manually scoop the crystallized honey out of the barrels and put in these kettles to warm. DO NOT, I repeat DO NOT over heat the honey. We do not let ours get over 120.

p

hr

What about

a system to heat the barrels directly? Could you wrap them with copper tube. Maybe use some air hose quick connectors to allow dumping or moving.

I recall seeing some barrels warmers that look like heavy duty electric blankets also. May be easier than warming the entire room.

hot rod

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pfitter_8

I

HAve often thought of using the heatway rubber hose to wrap a barrel with and hook it to a boiler or water heater. Never tried it.

p

scrook

heating honey

probably it is similar to the heat required to heat a lb of water, perhaps a little less.

David Francis

Thank you For all who replied

I made another trip back down to check the progress of the honey. The room reached 160’s in temp.
While there I had a long chat with the customer, He now realizes that 3000 lbs. of 20 degree cold will take a while to warm up.

We also talked about storage of the raw product before it is ready to be heated.

The idea was to build a new room for storage and install radiant heat.

On the way back to the shop I tossed around some of the ideas from the list.

Pre heat is a plus.
Electric is out. We get slaughtered on electric in this area.
We also must keep the ability to move the product with as little work as possible

Here is an idea, I do not know if it will work, But is worth tossing around

Build a steel frame box that is strong enough to hold several drums of honey.
Make it so it can be moved with a pallet truck
Then add radiant heat to the inside of the box and insulate as needed
Figure out a way to control the surface temp
Add quick connects so the unit could be plugged in at a station and then disconnected and moved as needed

Plug it in, turn it on and toss a tarps over it until it is needed

What do you think?

David

ScottMP

David

How about a radiant platform that the barrels sit on ?

Adjust the temp to 100 and no problem with the crystalizing ?

Scott

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Colin

David been there done that

Wish I knew the btu answer to heating Honey. I,ve done it sucsessfully w/a copper manifold 6" o.c.in direct contact under a 300 gallon steel crystalized tank of honey using 180 degree water in a 50 degree ambiant.

Done it unsucsessfully on a 1500 gallon polyethylene tank w/aprox.500 gallons of cystalized honey by wrapping the lower tank w/ PAP 4" o.c. and insulated w/ R-19 using 150 degree water in a 25-30 degree ambiant.

We have radiant floors installed for both of these producers in thier holding (100 degree hot rooms) prior to extracting, and also thier extracting rooms (65-70 degree). The latter producer mentioned above built a new elevated storage tank (1500-2000 gallon) mounted up to the ceiling in his hot room and eliminated his problem.

The best to you.
Colin

Dave_4

have you considered drum-coils

tranter makes 'em...

http://www.tranterphe.com/phe/platecoil/platecoil.htm

Joe Lambert

Specific Heat of Honey

I copied this from a web site:
Specific Heat, Thermal Conductivity

The specific heat of honey is in the 0.54-0.60 cal/g/°C range for liquid honey, and is equal to 0.73 cal/g/°C for finely granulated honey.

So, by rule, this unit conversion is equal to BTU/lb-F.
To heat one pound of finely granulated honey one degree faranheit it will take about .73 BTU.

pfitter_8

I like the idea

of a portable hot box for honey barrels. remember those barrels are heavy, aprox 660lbs. I still have qualms of overheating, the heat will move slow through the honey and their is the potential of overheating the outside product. The post above (or below?) that used 108 F on a tank scares me.... not my honey. let us know how you make out. pictures if you can...

p

David Francis

Thanks Joe

There have been some good ideas on this topic.It sure does make life easy when something is tossed around like this.

Again Many Thanks To All

David