Honey extract recipe ideas

[Tobys]

Hi all,

I'm hoping to do an extract brew using honey, something along the lines of waggle dance / humdinger. Has anyone got any recipes I can work from please? Any advice on what honey to use and when to use it in the brew would be great.

Thanks all.

[seymour]

http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/nort ... r-kit.html
http://www.northernbrewer.com/documenta ... neyAle.pdf

NORTHERN BREWER'S WHITE HOUSE HONEY ALE
Official NORTHERN BREWER Instructional Document

An original recipe brewed by White House staff and shared with the world as a Northern Brewer kit. Built on a big foundation of malt with strong tones of biscuit and toffee, White House Honey Ale plays down hop bitter¬ness and plays up the fruity and caramelly aspect of English malt and yeast. A late addition of pure honey is the signature calling card of this recipe, imbuing a floral aroma and lightening the body. Ale to the chief!

O.G: 1.062
READY: 4 WEEKS
1 week primary, 2 weeks secondary, 1–2 weeks bottle conditioning

KIT INVENTORY:
SPECIALTY GRAIN
--0.75 lbs English Medium Crystal Malt
--0.5 lbs Belgian Biscuit Malt

FERMENTABLES
--6.3 lbs Gold malt syrup (boil for 60 min)
--1 lb Gold dry malt extract (boil for 60 min)
--1 lb Honey (boil for 5 min)

HOPS & FLAVORINGS
--1.5 oz East Kent Goldings (boil for 45 min)
--1.5 oz UK Fuggles (boil for 15 min)

YEAST
--DRY YEAST (DEFAULT): Danstar Windsor Ale. Optimum temperature: 64-70°F
--LIQUID YEAST OPTION: Wyeast #1332 Northwest Ale Yeast. Optimum temperature: 64–72°F

PRIMING SUGAR
--5 oz Priming Sugar (save for Bottling Day)

BEFORE YOU BEGIN ...
MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS
--Homebrewing starter kit for brewing 5 gallon batches
--Boiling kettle of at least 3.5 gallons capacity
--Approximately two cases of either 12 oz or 22 oz pry-off style beer bottles

UNPACK THE KIT
--Refrigerate the yeast upon arrival
--Locate the Kit Inventory (above) – this is the recipe for your beer, so keep it handy
--Doublecheck the box contents vs. the Kit Inventory
--Contact us immediately if you have any ques¬tions or concerns!

PROCEDURE
A FEW DAYS BEFORE BREWING DAY
1. If you chose liquid yeast: remove the pack from the refrigerator, and “smack” as shown on the back of the yeast package. Leave it in a warm place (70–80° F) to incubate until the pack begins to inflate. Allow at least 3 hours for inflation; some packs may take up to several days to show inflation. Do not brew with inactive yeast — we can replace the yeast, but not a batch that fails to ferment properly. If you are using dry yeast, no action is needed.

ON BREWING DAY
2. Collect and heat 2.5 gallons of water.
3. Steep specialty grain. Pour crushed grain into supplied mesh bag and tie the open end in a kno t. Steep for 20 minutes or until water reaches 170°F. Remove bag and discard.
4. Bring to a boil and add malt syrup and dry malt extract. Remove the kettle from the burner and stir in 6.6 lbs of Gold malt syrup and 1 lb Gold dr y malt extract.
5. Return wort to boil and boil for 60 minutes. The mixture is now called “wort”, the brewer’s term for unfermented beer.
--Add 1.5 oz East Kent Goldings hops 45 minutes before the end of the boil.
--Add 1.5 oz UK Fuggles hops 15 minutes before the end of the boil.
--Add 1 lb Honey 5 minutes before the end of the boil.
6. Cool the wort. When the 60-minute boil is finished, cool the wort to approximately 100° F as rapidly as possible. Use a wort chiller, or put the kettle in an ice bath in your sink.
7. Sanitize fermenting equipment and yeast pack. While the wort cools, sanitize the fermenting equipment – fermenter, lid or stopper, fermentation lock, funnel, etc – along with the yeast pack and a pair of scissors.
8. Fill primary fermenter with 2 gallons of cold water, then pour in the cooled wort. Leave any thick sludge in the bottom of the kettle.
9. Add more cold water as needed to bring the volume to 5 gallons.
10. Aerate the wort. Seal the fermenter and rock back and forth to splash for a few minutes, or use an aeration system and diffusion stone.
11. OPTIONAL: if you have our Mad Brewer Upgrade or Gravity Testing kits, measure specific gravity of the wort with a hydrometer and record.
12. Add yeast once the temperature of the wort is 78°F or lower (not warm to the touch). Use the sanitized scissors to cut off a corner of the yeast pack, and carefully pour the yeast into the primary fermenter.
13. Seal the fermenter. Add approximately 1 tablespoon of water to the sanitized fermentation lock. Insert the lock into rubber stopper or lid, and seal the fermenter.
14. Move the fermenter to a warm, dark, quiet spot until fermentation begins.

BEYOND BREWING DAY, WEEKS 1–2
15. Active fermentation begins. Within approximately 48 hours of Brewing Day, active fermentation will begin – there will be a cap of foam on the surface of the beer, and you may see bubbles come through the fermenta¬tion lock. The optimum fermentation temperature for this beer is 60–72º F – move the fermenter to a warmer or cooler spot as needed.
16. Active fermentation ends. Approximately 1–2 weeks after brewing day, active fermentation will end: the cap of foam falls back into the new beer, bubbling in the fermentation lock slows down or stops.
17. Transfer beer to secondary fermenter. Sanitize siphoning equipment and an airlock and carboy bung or stopper. Siphon the beer from the primary fermenter into the secondary.

BEYOND BREWING DAY— SECONDARY FERMENTATION
18. Secondary fermentation. Allow the beer to condi¬tion in the secondary fermenter for 1-2 weeks before proceeding with the next step. Timing now is somewhat flexible.

BOTTLING DAY—ABOUT 1 MONTH AFTER BREWING DAY
19. Sanitize siphoning and bottling equipment.
20. Mix a priming solution (a measured amount of sugar dissolved in water to carbonate the bottled beer) of 2/3 cup priming sugar in 16 oz water. Bring the solution to a boil and pour into the bottling bucket.
21. Siphon beer into bottling bucket and mix with priming solution. Stir gently to mix—don’t splash.
22. Fill and cap bottles.

1–2 WEEKS AFTER BOTTLING DAY 23. Condition bottles at room temperature for 1–2 weeks. After this point, the bottles can be stored cool or cold.
24. Serving. Pour into a clean glass, being careful to leave the layer of sediment at the bottom of the bottle. Cheers!

[Tobys]

Has anyone tried brewing this? Is it any good??

[floydmeddler]

I've brewed with honey loads of time.

This is a cracker: viewtopic.php?f=24&t=51644

This is more hardcore: viewtopic.php?f=24&t=46377 - I'm brewing this again only with 1.5kg of honey.

Don't boil your honey - you'll destroy those delicate flavours... and I don't care what the president of the United States says!

[seymour]

...Don't boil your honey - you'll destroy those delicate flavours... and I don't care what the president of the United States says!

I agree. I've brewed with honey lots of times--added to fairly typical recipes, also braggot, wormwood honeywine, mead, melomel, rhodomel, etc--and I'm always careful not to boil it.

I only shared the White House recipe because it created such a sensation recently. It's sort entry-level but pretty fail-proof and everyone who has tasted it seems to rave about it...

[floydmeddler]

I suppose it is pretty cool that they use English noble hops instead of American!

[Tobys]

Thanks both, really helpful! When you say don't boil the honey can you confirm the process you'd use? Heat it and make sure it doesn't boil/add at flameout or just add to fermentation vessel after initial fermentation without trying to sterilise?

Thanks again!

[seymour]

I'd recommend boiling the main batch as usual, then at flame-out, immediately pour-in the honey. It'll still be hot enough to sterilize, but hopefully not blast all the delicate aromas away.

Another hint, try soaking your honey container(s) in hot water until you need them, which softens the honey and allows it to flow faster, leaving less behind.

By the way, the same Northern Brewer site has an extract recipe for the White House Honey Porter too, in case you're interested.

[Tobys]

Thanks very much, will give it a try after Easter.

[floydmeddler]

I'd recommend boiling the main batch as usual, then at flame-out, immediately pour-in the honey. It'll still be hot enough to sterilize, but hopefully not blast all the delicate aromas away.

That's 100c - so boiling point. Plus, there is still the vigorous primary ferment which could bast away those delicate flavours as well.

Adding to primary after the ferment has died down will give good results too.

[seymour]

I'd recommend boiling the main batch as usual, then at flame-out, immediately pour-in the honey. It'll still be hot enough to sterilize, but hopefully not blast all the delicate aromas away.

That's 100c - so boiling point. Plus, there is still the vigorous primary ferment which could bast away those delicate flavours as well.

Adding to primary after the ferment has died down will give good results too.

That's true, and an even better suggestion if you want maximum honey aroma and plan to drink through the whole batch relatively fresh.

Keep in mind, though, honey (by it's very nature involving sticky sweet nectar from thousands of plants carried on the legs of thousands of insects) is absolutely teeming with wild yeasts, so given enough time, your beer will continue fermenting MUCH drier and differently than intended with your primary English ale strain.

[floydmeddler]

I always bring it up to 70c-75c and allow to pasteurise for 15 mins before adding to the fermenter. That should take care of those unwanted yeasties too.

[Tobys]

Hi all - I did the brew below a while ago (although I've dropped the bitterness slighty for this one) and it worked really well. I thought I'd brew the below and then add approx 500g clear honey from a nationwide super market chain which I thought I'd add to the primary after 3 days or so. I plan to heat the honey to 70-75 degrees as mentioned in one of the posts above. Any thoughts on the recipe as a honey ale?

Dried Malt Extract Pale 60 mins 3000 grams 93.5%
Crystal Malt 60 mins 210 grams 6.5%

Challenger Whole 60 mins 18 grams 40.9%
Northdown Whole 60 mins 16 grams 36.4%
Northdown Whole 10 mins 10 grams 22.7%

Final Volume: 25 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.044
Final Gravity: 1.010
Alcohol Content: 4.3% ABV
Bitterness: 26 EBU
Colour: 20 EBC

Safale us-05 Yeast

[seymour]

If you liked the recipe before (and I sure like the look of it,) then you'll surely like it again with the aromas and alcohol jacked up a bit. Plus, I don't think you can go wrong with the Challenger/Northdown combo. Well played!

[Tobys]

Hi all, brewed on Tuesday and things seem to be fermenting well. I plan to add the honey tomorrow. Should I add water to the honey when sterilising it? Should I stir it in to the ferment or gently or just add and leave?

Thanks all.