How to store honey (and why it doesn't go off)

How should you store honey?

Keep honey sealed, dry and at room temperature, in a cupboard away from the stove and out of the sun. Not in the fridge. Stored that way it keeps for years, because it holds very little water and is acidic, so bacteria and moulds cannot grow in it. It can ferment if it takes up moisture.

Why it keeps

Two things do the work. Honey is around 17–18% water, far too little for micro-organisms to grow, and it is acidic. Bees reduce nectar to that moisture level by evaporation before capping the comb, which is what turns a perishable sugar solution into something that keeps.

Where to keep it

A cupboard at room temperature, away from the stove and out of direct sun.
Sealed. An open jar takes up moisture from the air, and enough of it allows fermentation.
Not in the fridge. Cold does not preserve honey any better and produces a coarse, gritty crystallisation.
Use a dry spoon. Water introduced on a wet knife is the usual cause of a jar fermenting.

What a best-before date means here

It is a quality date, not a safety one. Past it, honey is very likely fine — it may simply have darkened or lost some aroma (does honey expire? covers the date rules and how to tell if a jar has gone bad). That is also why buying a far larger jar than you will use within a year or two is reasonable for honey in a way it is not for most foods.

When honey has actually gone wrong

A yeasty or alcoholic smell, foam on the surface, or bubbles through the jar — that is fermentation, from moisture.
Crystallisation is not a fault, and neither is a white froth of fine air bubbles at the top.

Honey should not be given to infants under twelve months. That is a well-established food safety rule in New Zealand and elsewhere, and it has nothing to do with the quality of the honey.

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