Try it Out Tuesday - Rendering honeycomb wax into the golden yellow stuff

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1/22 A box of fun
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2/22 Look at this beauty piece
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3/22 Smells delish!
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4/22 Equipment needed to render all this honeycomb wax down
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5/22 Muslin, now you see me.........
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6/22 Now you DON'T.....well if you look real close...LOL
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7/22 Cutting up the muslin cloth to wrap the honeycomb in
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8/22 Pile it in
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9/22 Tie it up ready to go into the pot of bubbling water
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10/22 Whoa, what a concoction. Smells like a mix between honey and marmite ??!! The wax melts down really quick in the cloth and starts cleaning out the gunk
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11/22 Pressing as much of the wax out of the cloth as we can while in the hot water
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12/22 Discard gross cloth and dirty wax and residue
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13/22 Pour the liquid into containers to set and separate
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15/22 Water and dirt sink to the bottom, clean wax floats to the top
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16/22 Once top wax layer is cool and set, discard the dirty water underneath and get rid of it
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17/22 Now for the cleaning. See all that dirt on bottom layer of yellow wax? This next bit gets rid of that
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18/22 ewwwww, bee poo
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19/22 Double boiler to melt yellowish wax down
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20/22 Pass through muslin and strainer to catch more of the grub out of it
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21/22 Did the cleaning, double boiler and through a filter part three times before happy to say it's as yellow as we'll get it and poured into a paper cup to set
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22/22 Yellow beeswax! Smells amazing. Feels amazing Lots of work but awesome to be utilising all the byproducts of my friends honey hives Next up - using this wax to make other things - reusable food covers/wraps, maybe some lipbalm
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Who knew this was a thing?

My friend Gary here at work is a beekeeper, rolling into his second season at managing his hives and creating honey. I mentioned to him that I'm keen to make my own beeswax cloth food wraps, he suggested instead of buying solid beeswax online why not take his? Sure, that'd be great! Full knowledge of where it came from and continuing the cycle of work that starts with the bees.

He turns up with this massive container.....ummmm, it's NOT Yellow?!

Good one city kid, yea it doesn't come like that, you gotta work it. Roll up ya sleeves and learn about rendering and cleaning honeycomb wax....take it away Try it Out Kitchen at Stelle's house

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