Why honey crystallizes, and why it is still good.

Honey crystallizes because it is a supersaturated sugar solution that cannot hold all of that sugar in liquid form forever. Glucose, the less soluble of the two main sugars in honey, eventually separates out of the liquid and locks up with a little water as solid crystals. Nothing has spoiled. The jar has simply done what nearly every jar of real honey does sooner or later.

How fast it happens depends mostly on which flowers the bees were working. Cornell's Dyce Laboratory for Honey Bee Studies puts it plainly: honeys with a high glucose to fructose ratio, like goldenrod and goldenrod-aster blends, crystallize much faster than low-glucose honeys like tupelo, which can stay liquid for years. In mid-September in Libertyville, goldenrod and aster are exactly what our bees are on, so our fall honey sets up quickly.

Temperature matters too, and so does what is floating in the jar. The Dyce work found that 57 degrees Fahrenheit is the optimal temperature for crystallization, which is why honey in a cool basement or an October garage firms up before honey in a warm kitchen. The University of Minnesota Bee Lab adds that lots of pollen particles speed things along, because every speck gives the first crystal something to grow on.

A jar that turns grainy is not a jar that went bad. It is a jar with nothing to hide.

Crystallized honey is still honey. Mississippi State University Extension says honey is safe to eat indefinitely as long as it is stored and handled properly, and that people see the darkening and the grain and wrongly assume the jar has gone bad. If you want it pourable again, stand the jar in warm water and stir. The Minnesota Bee Lab says never take honey above 100 degrees Fahrenheit, and Cornell notes that heat damage to honey is cumulative, so gentle and brief beats hot and fast.

We like that honey crystallizes. It is the product telling on itself, showing you plainly what is inside instead of staying glossy and unreadable on a shelf. That is how we try to run the dealership a few minutes down the road in Libertyville, where the price on the window is the price and we never go over MSRP. Warm the jar, stir it, put it on your toast.