We have been busy here at Our Bright Acres and have several announcements to make, which we will also share on Facebook.

1. We now have creamed honey available for sale.

We have had inquiries into “creamed honey” in the past, but this is the first time we have been able to do some batches and finally make it available for sale. We are pleased with the results! Creamed honey is sometimes called whipped honey, but it has not been whipped. In fact, we try to minimize the amount of air bubbles introduced when stirring. Regular creamed honey is just raw honey that has crystallized with very fine granular crystals. It does taste creamy! When raw honey normally granulates (crystallizes), it typically does so with large, hard crystals. It no longer pours out of your honey bear and is difficult to work with unless you have a stiff spoon. Creamed honey, on the other hand, is a spreadable product, and it does not ever turn rock hard and chunky because it is maximally granulated.

To make creamed honey, you start with one part honey that is already creamed. We purchased a pound of this from a beekeeping friend, and this became our “starter” or “seed”. To this starter, add five or six parts regular raw honey and mix it thoroughly. The next step is time plus good temperature. The starter seed granules encourage the rest of the honey to granulate with the same fine crystalline structure. I imagine the process is a bit like high cloud formation of water vapor crystallizing around the ‘seed’ aerosol particles in the atmosphere. The process seems to happen the quickest around a temperature of 55 deg F – it takes about two weeks. That’s why the fall is a great time to be ‘curing’ creamed honey without special equipment.

We put a batch of it in a bucket on our garage floor, and with the past cool nights and days in the 60s that we have enjoyed, a closed garage (or unheated basement) can provide a relatively stable temperature in the 50s for a good time period in the fall. The photo at left shows honey half-way through the creaming process. You can see how stiff and finely granulated it is already.

At this point we split our batch into a few different smaller batches. We stirred in cinnamon into some for a popular cinnamon creamed honey flavor. And we tried a small batch infused with therapeutic-grade, essential oil blend. We call it “spiced” and it’s definitely turning out to be a favorite of mine. Wish I had made a bigger batch. Then it is back to the garage to finish the curing process.

We are making it available in our online store today.

2. The other announcement is that we are using honey sales for the rest of the month of November as donations to a couple worthy causes that have been laid on our hearts.

The first is African Harvest – Zimbabwe. Fanny and Martha Nyamutora are from Zimbabwe. They lived in Rochester for several years while Fanny did schooling here and then they returned to Zimbabwe to lead an equipping ministry and Certificate study program. I (Carl) had the privilege of visiting them with a team in 2008. It was an eye-opening experience to see the challenges that were faced in that country, and many still are. Fanny and Martha are visiting the states now and will return to Zimbabwe in December. Check out http://www.zimharvest.org

We will be present at Bear Creek Christian Church in Rochester on Sunday, November 13. We will have a table with honey and some hand-crafted items for sale. 100% of the proceeds will go to the Nyamutora’s Zimbabwe ministry. In addition, 100% of the proceeds from our online sales for the rest of the month of November will also go toward this ministry. So if you missed the Bear Creek event, just visit us online.

The other event that is coming right up is the Tiny Hands International fundraiser that is happening at Calvary Evangelical Free Church in Rochester on November 19 from 10 – 2pm. Tiny Hands is an amazing ministry aimed at ending child-trafficking and helping children and families world-wide. We will have a table, again with honey items and homemade sign crafts that Jana has been diligently working on. Please stop out and support this crucial need!