See

discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/236264232

Heat eect on rheology of light-and darkcolored honey

Dataset in Journal of Food Engineering January 2002
DOI: 10.1016/S0260-8774(01)00034-6

CITATIONS

READS

48

290

5 authors, including:
Basim Abu-Jdayil

Kamal Al-Malah

United Arab Emirates University

Higher Colleges of Technology

83 PUBLICATIONS 999 CITATIONS

40 PUBLICATIONS 461 CITATIONS

SEE PROFILE

SEE PROFILE

Zaitoun Shahera
Al-Balqa' Applied University
53 PUBLICATIONS 236 CITATIONS
SEE PROFILE

All in-text references underlined in blue are linked to publications on ResearchGate,

letting you access and read them immediately.

Available from: Basim Abu-Jdayil

Retrieved on: 09 August 2016

Journal of Food Engineering 51 (2002) 3338

www.elsevier.com/locate/jfoodeng

Heat eect on rheology of light- and dark-colored honey

Basim Abu-Jdayil
a

a,*

, Abd Al-Majeed Ghzawi b, Kamal I.M. Al-Malah a,

Shahera Zaitoun c,1

Department of Chemical Engineering, Jordan University of Science and Technology, P.O. Box 3030, Irbid 22110, Jordan
b
Department of Plant Production, Jordan University of Science and Technology, P.O. Box 3030, Irbid 22110, Jordan
c
Department of Bio-Agricultural Technology, Al-Balqa Applied University, Jordan
Received 8 September 2000; accepted 15 January 2001

Abstract
The eect of temperature and time of constant temperature heating (tCTH ) on the rheological properties of light and dark types of
honey was examined. Honey samples were heated up to 40C, 60C, 80C or 94C, and hold for 5, 10 or 20 min, and their viscosities
were then measured either immediately at the heating temperature or after being cooled overnight, where measurements were carried
out at 25C and 35C as a function of the shear rate. The types of honey used were identied via assessing the source of the nectar
using pollen analysis (Melissopalynology). It was found that both honey types behave like a Newtonian uid regardless of the
conditions of heating. The time of heating required to reach the desired ultimate temperature correlates with the water content of the
fresh, untreated sample. A light-colored, low water-content, heat-treated honey showed a change in viscosity only at higher heating
temperatures when compared with the fresh untreated control sample. On the other hand, a dark-colored, heat-treated honey
showed a change in viscosity at all levels of heating temperature. In general, the viscosity of a heat-treated honey increases with
increasing ultimate heating temperature and tCTH . 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Rheology; Light honey; Dark honey; Melissopalynology; Heat treatment

1. Introduction
Honey is a sweet, viscous yellowish liquid prepared
by bees from nectar plants, collected, and then stored by
them for later use as a food (White, 1999). Honey types
are classied by the main source(s) from which the bees
gathered the nectar. According to their color, honey
types can be classied as light- or dark-colored honey.
In general, dark-colored types of honey are richer in
minerals than light ones (White, 1961). In addition, light
colored types usually contain about 0.2% colloidal
matters; on the other hand, dark colored types may
contain nearly 1% (White, 1999).
Viscosity is considered one of the most important
properties of honey. This property is of great practical
importance to beekeepers and honey processors. The
rheological behavior of honey was investigated for the
*
Corresponding author. Tel.: +962-2-7095-111; fax: +962-2-7095018.
E-mail addresses: jdayil@just.edu.jo (B. Abu-Jdayil), ghzawi@
just.edu.jo (A. Al-Majeed Ghzawi), almalah@just.edu.jo (K.I.M. AlMalah), zaitoun@bau.edu.jo (S. Zaitoun).
1
Fax: +962-5-353-0469.

sake of attaining a longer shelf life and facilitating

proper handling, packing, and processing of honey
(White, 1978; Assil, Sterling, & Sporns, 1991).
The rheological properties of honey, like many other
physical properties, depend on many factors, including
composition and temperature. One of the major factors
is the water content. Generally, the viscosity of honey
decreases with water content (Zaitoun, Ghzawi, AlMalah, & Abu-Jdayil, 2000). Moreover, water content is
the major factor that inuences the keeping quality or
storageability of honey (White, 1975).
The rheological properties of honey also depend on
the composition of individual sugars, and the amount
and type of colloids present in honey (Bhandari,
D'Arcy, & Chow, 1999). Honey mainly consists of
dextrose and laevulose (a mono-saccharide), while small
amounts of maltose and sucrose (disaccharides) are also
present. Disaccharides, made of two monomeric
monosaccharides, give rise to a higher viscosity than
monosaccharides when compared at the same mass
fraction (Chirife & Buera, 1997).
It is natural for many types of honey to granulate or
crystallize upon storage. Since the retail honey market
largely favors liquid honey, some types of processing are

0260-8774/01/$ - see front matter 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0 2 6 0 - 8 7 7 4 ( 0 1 ) 0 0 0 3 4 - 6

34

B. Abu-Jdayil et al. / Journal of Food Engineering 51 (2002) 3338

necessary to maintain the liquid state. This is most

commonly done by straining, heating, or ltration
(White, 1999). In honey processing, heating is applied
for the following reasons: First, to warm it suciently to
facilitate straining, handling, and packing. Second, to
delay granulation. Other reasons for heating of honey
are to destroy yeast that may be present; hence, the
keeping quality of the honey is assured (White, 1975).
Recently, there has been an increasing demand for a
virgin honey that has not been heated, because it is
thought that heating of honey reduces its quality (White,
1999). However, research in the eld of changes in the
rheological properties of honey as a result of heating is
very scarce or non-existent.
The objective of this work is to study the eect of heat
treatment on the rheological properties of light- and
dark-colored types of honey collected from dierent
regions in Jordan. Since rheology is used as a quality
control parameter for many food products, the rheological properties of treated honey will be measured to
identify whether any deterioration of the quality of
honey upon heating has taken place.

the six types of honey tested, designated by the common

name, and its water content.
2.2. Water content
The water content of fresh and treated honey samples
was indirectly assessed via measuring the refractive index of the sample using a refractometer (Belling &
Stanley, England; Model #: A88121). The water content
data of Chataway (1935) and Wedmore (1955) as a
function of the refractive index at 20C were taken and
plotted in Fig. 1. Based on a simple linear regression, the
following equation was obtained:
w% 608:277

395:743n

where w% is the percentage of water content and n is

the refractive index of honey at 20C. Eq. (1) was used
to determine the water content of honey samples (see
Table 1).

2. Materials and methods

2.1. Materials
In this investigation, six dierent types of honey were
tested. These six types can be mainly divided into two
groups: light- and dark-colored honey. The samples of
natural capped honey were collected from honeybee
colonies located in dierent regions in Jordan. Honeycombs were uncapped, extracted and professionally
treated, and were then lled in jars. Assessing the source
of nectar using pollen analysis (Melissopalynology)
identies the type of honey used. The melissopalynological analysis was carried out in compliance with the
methodology set by the International Commission for
Plant-Bee Relationships of the International Union of
the Biological Sciences, as described by Louveaux,
Maurizio, and Vorwohl (1978). Table 1 shows each of

Fig. 1. The water content of honey as a function of the refractive index

at 20C.

Table 1
The viscosity and water content of types of honey used
No.

Common name

Viscosity of fresh sample at 25C (Pa s)

Water content of fresh sample (wt%)

1.
2.
3.

Light-colored honey
Apple honey
Ziziphus honey
Citrus honey

30:0  0:454
15:7  0:340
12:2  0:170

15.78
16.71
17.37

4.
5.
6.

Dark-colored honey
Black Horehound honey
Globe Thistle honey
Squill honey

24:4  0:356
13:0  0:205
11:6  0:253

15.92
17.11
17.90

B. Abu-Jdayil et al. / Journal of Food Engineering 51 (2002) 3338

35

2.3. Heat treatment

A fresh honey sample of 100 g was poured into a
closed vessel. The vessel was then immersed into a water
bath and heated up to a specied temperature (40C,
60C, 80C or 94C). The sample was kept at the specied temperature for a certain period (5, 10, or 20 min).
Viscosity of a honey sample was both immediately
measured by a viscometer at the same heating temperature, and later, after being placed in a refrigerator for
one day, where it was cooled down to about 8C. The
viscosity test was then carried out at both 25C and
35C. In addition, fresh untreated samples of honey
were also measured at 25C and 35C. It should be
pointed out that three replicates were done for most of
the viscosity measurements and the standard deviation
was found to be less than 3% of the measured value.
2.4. Rheological properties
A rotational, concentric cylinder viscometer (Haake
VT500) was used to measure the rheological properties
of honey samples. The viscometer used is Searle type, in
which the outer cylinder is xed, and the inner cylinder
rotates. The measuring system (MV3) consists of a rotating cylinder with a 15.2 mm radius, a length of 60
mm, and a gap width of 5.8 mm. The range of shear rate
was 2.2219.8 1/s. The temperature of a honey sample
was controlled by pumping water to the jacketed vessel
of the viscometer using Haake D8 thermostat.
3. Results and discussion
The apparent viscosity of honey samples as a function
of the shear rate was measured just after being heated
for a certain period and next day of heating at 25C and
35C. All examined samples of honey (fresh and heattreated) behaved like a Newtonian uid, regardless of
the temperature of measurement and conditions of heat
treatment. Fig. 2 shows an example of the ow curves of
honey samples measured at 80C, where the shear stress
linearly varies with the shear rate and passes through the
origin. Zaitoun et al. (2000) reported that the ow behavior of Apple, Citrus and Ziziphus light-colored types
of honey, in the temperature range of 2040C, can be
well described by Newtonian's law of viscosity. In most
of the published works, honey was reported to behave as
a Newtonian uid (e.g., Junzheng & Changying, 1998).
Table 2 shows the elapsing time required to reach the
ultimate heating temperature. It is clear that for each
group of examined honey (light- and dark-colored), the
elapsing time is proportional to the water content of
honey. With dark-colored types of honey, Common
Black Horehound has the lowest water content, and at
the same time, it takes the longest time to reach the

Fig. 2. Flow curves of honey samples measured at 80C.

desired ultimate heating temperature. On the other

hand, light-colored types of honey behaved the same as
dark-colored types, but with small dierences between
times needed to reach the desired ultimate heating
temperature. If a comparison is made between a lightand dark-colored type of honey, both having the same
water content, the dark colored type of honey required a
longer time to reach the desired ultimate heating temperature. This may be attributed to the dierence in
composition; i.e., the presence of colloidal matters
(proteins) in a dark-colored honey by an amount that is
ve times larger than that in a light-colored type. The
presence of proteins requires an additional time of
heating because of protein denaturation.
Proteins are heat labile substances. Thus, protein
denaturation involves a conformational change from the
native, folded state to the denatured, unfolded state
accompanied by an endothermic heat eect (Al-Malah,
McGuire, & Sproull, 1995). It should be pointed out
that there was no noticeable change in color of honey as
a result of the heat eect. Metal ions are thought to be
covalently complexed with protein molecules. If it is true
that there exists any protein precipitation, this will reect upon the color of honey. Therefore, the stability of
color upon heating is an indication of no protein precipitation, but only protein denaturation in solution.
The eect of constant temperature heating time (tCTH )
on the rheological properties of light-colored types of
honey is shown in Fig. 3. At low heating temperature, it
is clear that there is no change in viscosity upon heating.
The greatest change in viscosity of light-colored types of
honey was observed upon heating at 94C, as shown in
Fig. 4. It is clear that the viscosity of Citrus honey was
almost unaected by heating. At the same time, Apple
honey shows the lowest thermal stability, where the

36

B. Abu-Jdayil et al. / Journal of Food Engineering 51 (2002) 3338

Table 2
Time of heating required to reach the desired ultimate temperature
Time (min)
Temperature
(C)

Apple
honey

Ziziphus
honey

Citrus
honey

Black Horehound
honey

Globe Thistle
honey

Squill
honey

40
60
80
94

7
21
32
54

6
18
28
42

5
17
27
40

10
22
37
64

8
20
32
60

6
19
30
45

Fig. 3. Eect of tCTH on the apparent viscosity (measured at 35C) of

light-colored types of honey heated at 40C.

Fig. 4. Eect of tCTH on the apparent viscosity (measured at 35C) of

light-colored types of honey heated at 94C.

eect of heating increases with increasing tCTH . It is

important to notice that change in viscosity of Apple
honey, which reaches a maximum of 10% compared
with that of the fresh sample, was accompanied by an
insignicant change in the water content. Comparing the
results of light-colored types of honey between one another reveals that the eect of heating increases with
increasing fresh sample viscosity (i.e., with decreasing
water content).
On the other hand, heating has a considerable inuence on the viscosity of dark colored types of honey.
Figs. 57 show the eect of heating temperature for
dierent tCTH on the viscosity of Black Horehound and
Globe Thistle dark-colored types. As the temperature of
heating increased, the viscosity of dark-colored heattreated honey increased. As expected, increasing tCTH
leads to a larger dierence in viscosity between a fresh
and heat-treated sample. Fig. 8 illustrates the eect of
heating temperature, for tCTH equals 20 min, on the
viscosity of Squill honey, which conrms the previous
nding that increasing the temperature of heating results
in an increase in the viscosity of heat-treated honey

Fig. 5. Eect of tCTH on the apparent viscosity (measured at 35C) of

two types of dark-colored honey heated at 40C.

B. Abu-Jdayil et al. / Journal of Food Engineering 51 (2002) 3338

Fig. 6. Eect of tCTH on the apparent viscosity (measured at 35C) of

two types of dark-colored honey heated at 80C.

Fig. 7. Eect of tCTH on the apparent viscosity (measured at 35C) of

two types of dark-colored honey heated at 94C.

compared with that of the fresh, untreated sample. The

relationship between the incremental percentage of viscosity upon heating and the water content of fresh
samples for dark-colored types of honey is similar to
that of light-colored types. Squill honey (with the
highest water content, see Table 1) has the lowest incremental percentage of viscosity, which is about 14%.
On the other hand, Black Horehound type, which has
the lowest water content, has the maximum incremental
viscosity percentage (about 20%). The incremental viscosity percentage of dark-colored types of honey, because of heating, was accompanied by a somewhat
decrease in the water content. For example, water con-

37

Fig. 8. Eect of heating temperature on the apparent viscosity (measured at 35C) of Squill honey heated for tCTH 20 min.

tent of Black Horehound is reduced from 15.91%, for a

fresh sample, to 15.52% for the heat-treated sample at
94C and for tCTH 20 min. This represents a 2.45%
reduction in water content upon heating. Under the
same conditions of heating, the reduction in water
content for Globe Thistle and Squill types were 2.33%
and 2.21%, respectively. It is clear that reduction in
water content is small and it is not the only reason for
the incremental viscosity percentage. Based on the previous results, it can be concluded that dark-colored
types of honey are more vulnerable to heat than are the
light-colored types. This is in agreement with the ndings of White, Kushnir, and Subers (1964), who reported that dark-colored types of honey tend to be
aected by heat faster than light-colored types. In addition, it was reported earlier that dark-colored types of
honey contain more colloidal matters (mainly proteins)
than light-colored types. The incremental viscosity percentage of dark-colored, heat-treated honey associated
with a decrease in the apparent water content may be
attributed to the denaturation of proteins. Denaturation
of proteins is associated with an increased water uptake
at the expense of free unbound water present in a honey
matrix; hence, a decrease in the free unbound water
content and an increase in the viscosity of honey.
Finally, it should be mentioned here that, other
changes in honey might take place upon heating, which
cannot be detected by only measuring the rheological
properties.
4. Conclusions
Heat treatment did not change the ow behavior of
honey. Regardless of honey type, ultimate heating

38

B. Abu-Jdayil et al. / Journal of Food Engineering 51 (2002) 3338

temperature, and tCTH , honey behaves like a Newtonian

uid. The time of heating required to reach the desired
ultimate temperature correlates with the water content
of the fresh, untreated sample. A sample with lower
water content takes a longer time of heating. In general,
compared with the same conditions of heating and level
of water content, a dark-colored honey takes longer
time than a light-colored type. A light-colored, low
water-content, heat-treated honey showed a change in
viscosity only at higher heating temperature when
compared with the fresh untreated control sample. On
the other hand, a dark-colored, heat-treated honey
showed a change in viscosity at all levels of heating
temperature. In general, the viscosity of a heat-treated
honey increases with increasing ultimate heating temperature and tCTH .
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the Higher Council for Science and Technology (HCST) in Jordan for funding this
project.
References
Al-Malah, K., McGuire, J., & Sproull, R. (1995). A macroscopic
model for the single-component protein adsorption isotherm.
Journal of Colloid and Interface Science, 170, 261268.

Assil, H. I., Sterling, R., & Sporns, P. (1991). Crystal control in

processed liquid honey. Journal of Food Science, 56, 10341041.
Bhandari, B., D'Arcy, B., & Chow, S. (1999). Rheology of selected
Australian honeys. Journal of Food Engineering, 41, 6568.
Chataway, H. D. (1935). Honey tables, showing the relationship
between various hydrometer scales and refractive index to moisture
content and weight per gallon of honey. Canadian Bee Journal, 43,
215.
Chirife, J., & Buera, M. P. (1997). A simple model for predicting the
viscosity of sugar and oligosaccharide solutions. Journal of Food
Engineering, 33, 221226.
Junzheng, P., & Changying, J. (1998). General rheological model for
natural honeys in China. Journal of Food Engineering, 36, 165168.
Louveaux, J., Maurizio, A., & Vorwohl, G. (1978). Methods of
melissopalynology. Bee World, 59, 139157.
Wedmore, E. B. (1955). The accurate determination of the water
content of honeys. Part I. Introduction and results. Bee World, 36,
197206.
White, J. W. (1961). A survey of American honeys. 7. Relation of color
to composition. Gleaning in Bee Culture, 89, 292293.
White, Jr., J. W., Kushnir, I., & Subers, M. H. (1964). Eect of storage
and processing temperatures on honey quality. Food Technology,
18, 153156.
White, Jr., J. W. (1999). Honey. In Dandant & Sons (Ed.), The hive and
the honey bee (pp. 491530). Hamilton, IL: Dandant & Sons.
White, Jr., J. W. (1975). Physical characteristics of honey. In E. Crane
(Ed.), Honey, a comprehensive survey (pp. 207239). Heinemann,
London.
White, J. W. (1978). Honey. Advances in food research, 24, 288354.
Zaitoun, S., Ghzawi, A., Al-Malah, K., & Abu-Jdayil, B. (2000).
Rheological properties of selected light colored Jordanian honey.
International Journal of Food Properties (accepted).