Why You Should Never Store Honey In A Metal Container

Honey is always nice to have on hand. It's a great natural sweetener and it rarely spoils before you can use it, all thanks to its long, stable shelf life. The delicious, sticky syrup only requires a few things to store well too. At its easiest, you can simply keep honey in the container you bought it in and place it somewhere cool and away from light (via The Spruce Eats).

If you prefer to transfer the honey into another container, materials like food-grade plastic or glass work well. However, metal is almost always a bad choice when dealing with honey. Even when choosing what to leave inside the honey jar long-term to dip and drizzle the golden sweetener out, metal is never a good choice. Something like a wooden or even a glass dowel are significantly better options for leaving in the honey jar. As it turns out, a metal spoon left in honey too long, such as overnight, can corrode due to the honey's acidity (via Honey City).

Because honey is acidic and reacts poorly with metal, that's why the substance can't be kept in a metal container. While corrosion is a factor, it isn't the only issue with the pairing; ultimately, metal causes honey to oxidize. According to Kemin, that means the honey will develop "off-flavors and off-odors." No one wants their honey to actually spoil or spoil fast because of a bad choice of storage container.

Something else to consider is that metal is a good conductor of heat. So if you store your honey in a metal container, you run the risk of the metal heating up on a hot day in the kitchen, in turn passing that heat on to the honey.

Metal might seem like a convenient option when you have a metal container that's the right size on hand, so it might feel hard to pass it up. But you'll be glad to have the honey taste and handle just as fresh as the day you bought it by storing it properly — even if it does mean another trip out to the store for a different container. Remember, you can always just leave it as you bought it from the store, too, or serve a small amount in a small, open bowl alongside any meal if you're looking for a better short-term presentation.