# does honey last forever?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-honey-last-forever/278753>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [December 8, 2004, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-honey-last-forever/278753 "2004-12-08T15:52:17Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Anaptyxis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/anaptyxis/32/3171_2.png) [@Anaptyxis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaptyxis)\
**Post date:** [December 9, 2004, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-honey-last-forever/278753/21 "2004-12-09T19:55:07Z")

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The mention of pancake syrup brings me to a related question. Last week I just threw away part of a bottle of real maple syrup, because when I poured some over my oatmeal, a weird gelatinous scum that had been floating on top of the syrup slid out onto my food before I could stop pouring. I was so grossed out that I chucked the oatmeal, and the rest of the syrup too. The bottle was maybe five years old, used as intermittently as I eat oatmeal (once a month, maybe, in the winter).

Any idea what that nasty goo was? Should I be keeping maple syrup in the fridge?

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**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\
**Post date:** [December 9, 2004, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-honey-last-forever/278753/22 "2004-12-09T20:47:06Z")

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> [@Anaptyxis](#):
>
> The mention of pancake syrup brings me to a related question. Last week I just threw away part of a bottle of real maple syrup, because when I poured some over my oatmeal, a weird gelatinous scum that had been floating on top of the syrup slid out onto my food before I could stop pouring. I was so grossed out that I chucked the oatmeal, and the rest of the syrup too. The bottle was maybe five years old, used as intermittently as I eat oatmeal (once a month, maybe, in the winter).
> 
> Any idea what that nasty goo was? Should I be keeping maple syrup in the fridge?

Sounds like maybe some kind of slime mold. Looking at **matt\_mcl** ’s wikipedia cite…

> [@](#):
>
> Honey does not spoil. Because of its high sugar concentration, it kills bacteria by osmotically lysing them. Natural airborne yeasts can not become active in it because the moisture content is too low. Natural, raw, honey varies from 14% to 18% moisture content. **As long as the moisture content remains under 18%** , virtually no organism can successfully multiply to significant amounts in honey.

…I’m thinking pancake syrup and maple syrup shoud maybe be refrigerated since they tend to be more watery than molasses, honey and sorghum syrup.

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**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\
**Post date:** [December 10, 2004, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-honey-last-forever/278753/23 "2004-12-10T01:43:24Z")

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> [@Anaptyxis](#):
>
> Any idea what that nasty goo was? Should I be keeping maple syrup in the fridge?

Once it’s opened, yes. And if it crystalizes you can use SCSimmons’ method to fix it…well, it’ll fix strawberry and cranberry, at least. We don’t use maple, so I’m not sure about that one actually.

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