Honey Digital Refractometer Hanna®

01 · IT READS BRIX; MOISTURE IS DERIVED

A hundred minus the Brix, and there is your water

The meter shows degrees Brix, the dissolved solids in the sample. In honey nearly all of that solid is sugar, so the trade works with a practical equivalence: approximate moisture = 100 − °Brix.

That puts the numbers that matter in plain sight. 80 °Brix is about 20 % moisture, the legal maximum for honey; 82 to 82.5 °Brix is 17.5 to 18 %, which is what a packer usually asks for. Below 80 °Brix the honey moves into the ground where it ferments, and that is the moment to decide what to do with the batch — not once it is already in jars.

02 · THE TEMPERATURE OF THE SAMPLE

Automatic compensation reaches 40 °C

Automatic temperature compensation corrects the reading between 10 and 40 °C. Outside that window the meter still gives you a number, but it is no longer compensated.

In practice: honey that has been warmed to decrystallise has to cool before you measure it. And that is not only for the instrument — above 40 °C honey starts paying for the heat in HMF, so a cool sample suits it on both counts.

03 · TWO DROPS, AND IT NEEDS CALIBRATING

Zero is set with distilled water

The sample is 100 µl, two drops, and it has to cover the whole prism: a half-wetted prism gives a low reading that looks good. The answer comes in 1.5 seconds.

Zero is set with distilled or deionised water, and that is what keeps the meter honest over time. A refractometer out of calibration does not warn you: it goes on producing figures to one decimal place, only shifted. Between samples, a clean and dry prism — a trace of the previous honey drags the reading.

04 · IP65 IS NOT SUBMERSIBLE

You rinse it; you do not dunk it

The ABS housing is IP65: it stands dust and water jets, which is what a honey house asks for. It is not made to be submerged.

It switches itself off after three minutes and the 9 V battery lasts around 5,000 readings, so it will see several seasons on one cell. The pipette, the battery and the manual come in the box.

05 · BEFORE YOU BUY

If you also need conductivity and colour — the other two parameters that define a honey — there is a complete Hanna case.