AG#05 - Summer Honey Beer - BIAB - with pics

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Inspired heavily by floydmeddler's Honey Zest Ale - Orange Zest and Crushed Coriander viewtopic.php?f=24&t=49791

I present AG #5!
Had a brilliant brewday on sunday with 3 close friends helping me out, after a heavy party the night before...
my wife summed it up well: "the house smells of home brew, hops and farts"


Recipe: Summer Honey Ale - Orange Zest and Crushed Coriander
Style: English Best Bitter -ish
TYPE: All Grain

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Boil Size: 36.58 l
Post Boil Volume: 29.30 l
Batch Size (fermenter): 25.00 l
Bottling Volume: 23.60 l
Estimated OG: 1.044 SG
Estimated Color: 17.5 EBC
Estimated IBU: 31.8 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 71.9 %
Boil Time: 90 Minutes

Ingredients:
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4.00 kg Pale Malt, Maris Otter
0.40 kg Crystal Malt
0.10 kg Wheat Malt

15.00 g Fuggles [3.68 %] - Boil 90.0 min Hop 5 5.7 IBUs
30.00 g Challenger [7.12 %] - Boil 90.0 min Hop 4 22.1 IBUs

0.99 oz Coriander Seed (Boil 10.0 mins) Spice 9 -
91.00 g Orange zest, Sweet (Boil 10.0 mins) Spice 8 - thats x4 shaved oranges worth
26.00 g Bobek [4.38 %] - Boil 10.0 min Hop 7 4.0 IBUs

20.00 g Bobek [4.38 %] - Aroma Steep 30.0 min Hop 10 0.0 IBUs

1.0 pkg s-04
0.5 kg Honey to add after primary

Picys:
filling the buffalo, note my rough n ready extra shiny wrapping:


grains:


testing alk:


measuring CRS

- used the following profile water treatment:

alk: 194
crs, res. alk: 40
hardness: 378
ca: 151.36
mg: 29
Sodium: 54.88
Carbonate: 116.32
Sulphate: 176.6
Chloride: 105.4

Burton profile and 39.4l of water = CRS: 33 ml

shaving oranges:


right to the limit of the buffalo, next time i'll reserve some water for sparging if I go for 25l again.


bag out onto oven tray (great tip I picked up on the forum), squeezed it plenty and did a mini-sparge by pouring a litre or so of 75c water over it


There she boils!


I mashed at 66c, then poured an extra litre of water over the bag to try and push up efficiency a little.
Mash efficency was up from 70%ish to 80%ish so the extra mini-sparge step seemed to do the job, I think I'll hold back a few litres of water to do this again.

I got 25 litres or so into the FV with an OG of 1.035, well under 1.038 target, not sure what happened there, never mind the honey will beef it up a fair bit hopefully. I think I'll go with a full 500g now.

The post boil sample was really bitter, again fingers crossed the honey helps with balance.

Not sure when to add honey, I might do so tonight (3 days in FV) if the gravity has dropped to around 1.010, or might leave it till the weekend (so 7days in FV?).. not sure...
I'm thinking just heating it up in a pan on the hob with a little water to around 80c holding for 5mins or so then dumping straight into the FV...
Thinking the thermal mass of the FV will negate the hotness of the honey... Or should I do something else, also to stir or not to stir it in?

feedback very much welcome I'm still learning!

[floydmeddler]

Looks great man! I'd add the honey when the current sugars have totally fermented out - prob a week after brew day. I usually add to pan with a little water or beer from the fermenter, bring to 80c, cover with a clean cloth (stops condensation drips falling into the honey) and leave for 15 mins. Some people cool it down. I don't as in your own words, the thermal mass of the FV will negate the hotness of the honey.

90g of orange zest too. Good Call!!!

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Sounds good floyd, a job for the weekend then
I just took a sample it's at 1.010 already - after three days in FV, so by the weekend I think it will have done remaining sugars.
It tasted superb, really nice character, reminded me of the badger ales, fruity hoppy goodness

90g of orange zest too. Good Call!!!

lol it seemed a shame to not stick them all in, I've done this on wit's with great success!

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2 days later and still at 1.010 still tastes beautiful, and at only 3.3% makes me think I need to do a low ABV version... anyway to stick with the plan I'll think I'll chuck in 500g of honey tommorow

@ Floyd - do you think I should secondary this, by that I mean how long do you think Honey would take to ferment out?
It's going in a budget keg so bottle bombs arn't really a concern, although I'd rather not create a keg bomb...

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Chucked in a jar of 340g of rowse honey today, for some reason I thought it was 500g, ohh well, should be enough, beersmith thinks it will end up around 4.4% which would be spot on for my tastes, especially considering how tasty the non-honeyed version is.
I first boiled some water in a pan with the lid on, to ensure it was clean of bugs, then added the contents of the jar of honey, brought temp to 80c then turned off gas and stuck lid on for 15mins, then added to FV giving it a gentle stir with a sanitised spoon.
I'll try not to touch the FV now until next weekend, when if it's back around 1.010 I'll keg with another 80g of honey to prime.

[floydmeddler]

Sorry I didn't get back to you. Sounds like this brew is an absolute success already! Mine is still in a secondary vessel clearing. Will prob leave it there for another week then mini keg it. Can't wait to get stuck into it!!

[WishboneBrewery]

Nice gloves

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Nice gloves

...them the finest marigolds known to man

Update: I took a sample on Saturday night and it's back at 1010 (I didn't take a reading after adding the honey so I assume this is done), so I've stuck it into a buget keg with 34g of lidle honey, sanitised in the same way as last time.

For the first time ever it filled my keg right up, I had to drink the last pint or so from the FV, I'm assuming this is a good thing, i.e. minimal headspace, less oxidation.. or is it bad ... no headspace = keg bomb?

Anyway leaving this in the warm for a week, then into garage to condition.

Out of interest Beersmith thinks this is 3.3% but that's based without taking the honey into account, any rough way to figure out what 374g added?

[swiggingpig]

In Beersmith 2 Honey is listed in with the grains so you can add that to your recipe to get a more accurate ABV%

[floydmeddler]

374g of Rowse honey will add 5 points on to your gravity - this honey will prob be the same. It more than likely won't ferment back to the gravity pre-honey. Probably 3 points or so below again as honey is more or less 100% fermentable. I reckon this beer will end up pretty much bang on 4%.