What is Squishy Honey?

December 18, 2010 8:07 PM

There's a fuzzy blob in my fridge! We named her Squishy Honey. What is she?

I made simple syrup and refrigerated it. After a few months this small fuzzy translucent gray dime sized blob possibly made of fungus started living in the container. We named her Squishy Honey. Does anyone know what she is or what we can feed her so she grows to be a superstar?

posted by Kateruba to science & nature (9 answers total)

It's mold. Throw it out.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 8:11 PM on December 18, 2010 [1 favorite]

ha, ha...looks like honey is pretty happy with simple syrup as a food source, and also at cool temperatures. but she might grow faster at room temperature (a lot of fungi like 30C). (caveat:she might die, too, if she is very fussy about the cool temp, or other organisms might have an advantage over her at room temperature and steal the food/suffocate her..)

i suggest some bedazzling of the container, though, to really get her dreaming of superstar status...
posted by Tandem Affinity at 8:12 PM on December 18, 2010

and put her in front of a poster of Glitter.

But seriously, throw that shit out before the spores inhabit other food items
posted by zombieApoc at 8:18 PM on December 18, 2010

Ditto Chocolate Pickle.

(which is also the name of my new band. Our debut album will be called "Throw It Out.")
posted by Sara C. at 8:18 PM on December 18, 2010 [3 favorites]

This is a great blogpost on spoilage times for simple syrup.
posted by Prince_of_Cups at 8:53 PM on December 18, 2010 [2 favorites]

I think you've already established she likes simple syrup so I think you could just stick with that. And you can't throw her out now that you've named her, so I think you'll be moving that jar house to house for the rest of your life.
posted by A Terrible Llama at 3:35 AM on December 19, 2010

that looks like yeast - keep adding flour and water once a day and stirring (you can put it in a pickle jar and keep adding). it'll start to bubble, and in about a week you can make sourdough
posted by lrodman at 4:13 AM on December 19, 2010

I vote for a filimentous fungus instead of yeast. Wild isolate of yeast generally do not look as fuzzy as this. Let me guess -- it stays in the center or bottom of the liquid, and the whole thing ossilates/jiggles when shaken? We get them occasionally in the yeast lab that I work in. These guys are quite hardy, so moving them to room temperature is probabhly ok and will make it grow faster. They probably sporulate, so moving it out of the fridge is best. They are fun to watch, though! Yea microbiology!
posted by Peter Petridish at 5:56 AM on December 19, 2010 [1 favorite]

Argh. Second part of your question -- add more simple sugar. Adding anything too rich will contaminate it with other, less fun things.
posted by Peter Petridish at 5:58 AM on December 19, 2010