FILTERED HONEY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23202, 28 May 1937, Page 15

FILTERED HONEY

IMPROVEMENT OF FLAVOUR According to the annual report of the Cawthron Institute, a way of eliminating undesirable colours and flavours from honey has been discovered. The report states that work in this direction has been the most important activity in honey research at the institute. A considerable quantity of honey produced in New Zealand is affected by kamahi, ragwort, manuka and other bitter or undesirable flavours, and in addition the colour of such honeys is frequently too dark, thereby greatly depreciating them in the eyes of consumers.

After a long series of laboratory experiments, a procedure has been worked out by which flavours and colours can be almost completely eliminated. The method is filtration. It is estimated that the treating of low-grade honey should be commercially successful, but lack of finance has prevented the testing of the laboratory process on a semicommeifcia] scale. Other investigations have been into the chemical composition of New Zealand honeys, particularly the sucrose content. More recent studies have been commenced with the object of elucidating the cause of " frosting," which defect appears to be connected with the size of dextrose crystals.