Mini cappings melter Carl Fritz®

01 · HOW IT SEPARATES

Wax floats, honey goes to the bottom

The 2,000 W element sits under the lid, with a fan spreading the heat across the whole surface. The wax melts up top; the honey below stays warm and goes no hotter.

From there density does the work: molten wax is lighter (0.96 against 1.4) and stays floating, while the honey gathers at the bottom. You draw the honey first through the 1½" tap welded low down, and the wax afterwards.

02 · THE 40 °C AT THE BOTTOM

That is honey's ceiling, not a catalogue figure

Above about 40 °C honey starts paying for it in HMF, which is a legal parameter, and in aroma. That is why the design holds the lower part right there: it is the most you can ask of it without spoiling it.

Even so, it is worth knowing: that honey has spent three or four hours warm and comes from cappings, with more fine wax in suspension. The sensible thing is to treat it as a separate lot rather than mix it straight into the extracted honey.

03 · THE LOAD AND THE TIME

40 kg a batch, three to four hours

The tank is Ø 55 cm by 63.5 tall, about 75 litres, which is exactly what 40 kg of cappings take up. At full load the whole cycle runs three to four hours.

The time depends above all on how drained the cappings go in: the more honey they carry, the longer they take to separate.

04 · THE SECOND FUNCTION

Decrystallising, under the same 40 °C rule

It also serves to decrystallise jars or small buckets. The thermostat reaches 110 °C, but that headroom is for the wax phase: with honey inside, the criterion is the same and you do not go over 40.

One installation note: 2,000 W at 230 V want a proper socket, not a thin extension lead shared with the rest of the honey house.

05 · BEFORE YOU BUY

This is the machine that makes a medium apiary's cappings pay, and it stands almost a metre tall.