Raw & Unfiltered. Why does it matter?
PublishedThe goodness inside honey is pretty impressive, with all its natural healing properties for your heart, skin, immunity, and gut!
Our secret to ensuring every honey jar has all the benefits locked in is NEVER filtering and NEVER burning the honey. Not only does it make the honey healthier, BUT it heroes all the delicious natural flavors of the honey.
You might wonder, "why would anyone ever filter or heat the honey?"
Heating
A little heat has to be applied to the honey to make it runny and separate it from the beeswax. But it's all about how you do it! Here at Airborne, we have a secret method to protect the honey. How can we tell?
The HMF score. HMF (HydroxyMethylFurfuraldehyde) is used as a measure of heat and storage changes in honey. It is usual for HMF to be below 10 mg/kg in freshly extracted honey. Levels higher than this may indicate excessive heating during the extraction process. All Airborne honey has an average score of 6mg/kg. We've measured thousands of honey samples in our lab, and consistently, Airborne has the lowest HMF score on the market!
Want to know what the HMF is of your jar? You can find it on the back of your jar.
Filtering
Filtering of honey is routinely used to remove pollen and all visible impurities. At Airborne, we strain through a mesh size that removes visible impurities such as insect parts (bees' wings, legs, etc.) and larger beeswax particles left over from the extraction process but retain all the natural pollen, as shown below.
Many honey companies filter to remove all pollen and microscopic particles which damage the natural composition. They do this because these particles can act as a nucleation point - meaning the honey starts to crystallize around the pollen. But this is because honeys that are fast crystallizing have been used to produce liquid honey. At Airborne, we solve this problem with HPLC analyses enabling us to select slow crystallizing honeys - eliminating the need for filtering the pollen out of the honey - and leaving it Undamaged! We then use the fast crystallizing honeys for creamed honey.
