After a short time melting, here's the lovely golden melting wax - just a little bit to go.
Last year at the Georgia Beekeepers' Association Fall Meeting, I heard Robert Brewer (a certified Welsh honey judge) talk about how to filter melted wax. In the past I've used panty hose, but Robert said to filter your wax through silk. It's hard to find silk today.
I went to Hancock's and they didn't even have silk lining material. Then a sales woman said, "I believe they did send us a small bolt by mistake." She went to some stack of fabric and pulled out white silk, exactly what I needed. I wanted white because I didn't want to discolor my wax by putting it through a filter with dye in it.
The converted Presto Pot has a spout on it and you can see the liquid gold pouring onto the silk filter. I did this late at night (11:30) and now the wax has been poured into a brownie sized pan and will cool until morning.
I never get it right the first time, so I can pour it again tomorrow, Friday and Saturday on my way to the Sunday contest! The pressure's on, though, because I can only pour it over a couple of times, rather than my record-setting eighteen last year!
You can get silk from Dharma Trading Company. They are a mail/internet order company for fabric arts. I love your blog and hope someday soon to have bees myself! Thanks for all the information!
ReplyDeleteStupid question maybe, but what do you do with the wax after you have filtered it enough?
ReplyDeletePour it into a mold of whatever kind you need. For a wax block for a honey contest, people use brownie size pans (8X8) or loaf pans. Our contest requires that the block weigh 2 -3 pounds and not be taller than 2 inches.
ReplyDelete