What typical percentage of water does honey have and can it be successfully reduced to powder form?
Honey typically has 14-17% moisture content. It must be below 18% for honey to store well; anything higher than this allows yeasts and bacteria to grow in it, which causes the honey to deteriorate (most commonly by fermentation). When harvesting honey it is important to check (eg. by using a refractometer) that the water content has reduced to below 18%, ie. that the honey is ‘ripened’. And yes, you can powderise honey, but there would be little point in doing so: this is basically the same process as in producing granulated etc. ‘dry’ sugar products from molasses, by removing all the impurities and moisture and ending up with pure crystallised fructose and/or glucose. We can produce the same end result far easier and cheaper by growing sugar cane etc. (and don’t then need to bother the poor old bees that already work very hard for their living!), so why do that to honey?
