Saturday, November 1, 2008

Brushy Mountain Strainer and Bottler


5 deep frames of capped honey were removed from the freezer and the comb was crushed using a stainless steel scraper and a plastic cutting board. How much crushing is enough--stop when the voice of reason, "my spouse," says to stop. Next, the crushed comb was placed into a 5 gallon pale containing a nylon strainer which sits on top of yet another 5 gallon pale used for collection and bottling. The honey filled 30 8 oz. bottles and there was wax too. Residual honey was washed from the wax using the nylon straining bag. I am extremely pleased with this low tech extraction scheme. The only moving part is the honey gate and the only surprise was that I thought the draining was going to complete over-night. However, to complete the straining properly required 3 days of periodically stirring the crushed comb . See the picture of the straining/bottling gadget purchased from Brushy Mountain.

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