Honey Colour Portable Photometer Hanna®

01 · WHAT IS IN THE BOX AND ITS POWER

Five cuvettes, glycerol and a 9 V battery

The box holds five cuvettes with caps — square, 10 mm light path, with a locking system so they always sit in the same position — the light shield cap, a 30 ml bottle of glycerol and the battery.

It runs on a 9 V battery with no mains connection: this is field equipment. The maker quotes around 750 measurements per battery, and it switches itself off after 10 minutes idle — or after an hour in calibration mode.

02 · HOW IT MEASURES

Transmittance against glycerol, not visual comparison

The classic Pfund grader is a glass wedge judged by eye. This one reads the percentage of light transmitted by the sample against the glycerol reference, with a tungsten lamp and a narrow-band filter at 420 and 525 nm, and converts the result to mmPfund.

It is calibrated and adjusted by the user. The bottled glycerol is a consumable: when it runs out it has to be replaced with analytical-grade glycerol, not chemist's glycerine.

03 · COLOUR ALONE DOES NOT CLASSIFY

It is one criterion of three

The Honey Standard defines monofloral honeys by organoleptic, physico-chemical and microscopic characteristics. Colour is physico-chemical, alongside conductivity; what settles the botanical origin is the pollen analysis.

Put another way: a honey outside the colour range of its denomination is an immediate warning sign, but being inside the range does not on its own prove it is monofloral. For a trade, the photometer is the first screen — the fast, cheap one.

04 · A CRYSTALLISED SAMPLE

This is where the trap is

A crystallised honey cannot be read: it has to be liquefied first, and that is where the conflict appears. Above 40 °C honey starts paying for the heat in HMF, a legal parameter, so liquefying to read the colour can spoil the very sample you meant to sell.

The practical way round it is to work on a sub-sample, liquefied gently and at low temperature, then left to come back to room temperature before reading: colour is read on liquid, settled honey, not on honey straight off the heat.

05 · REFERENCE RANGES

Colour and conductivity of the Spanish monofloral honeys

06 · BEFORE YOU BUY

It measures colour, not authenticity: certifying a monofloral still needs the pollen analysis and the other parameters.