Martin's Lane Honeyed Ale -12/09/09

[coatesg]

Right then, time to get into the brewing mode again! (Been a hectic last month - got married, honeymoon, etc! ) - and so tomorrow with luck, it's finally time to get round to using my wild hops I harvested last year (been in the freezer since) - pantsmachine already used a pile of them I sent him in his RIS (see : clicky).

I'm gonna brew a recipe inspired by the 1796 Windsor Ale in the Durden Park book, but using more honey to try and bring the flavour through. Recipe will be something like:

6.45kg Pale Malt
350g Honey (Waitrose) in boil towards the end
(Recipe calls for 0.6oz honey/gallon, but you'd hardly taste that in there... an old Brewers Contact indicates between 3-10% is fine for a subtle honey flavour, so I upped it accordingly)

Hops:
150g "Martin's Lane" (wild picked down the road, unknown AA, unknown variety!) - 90min boil, IBUs probably between 50 and 70.

Yeast:
Windsor (may pitch 2 packs - will see what I get in the FV - should be about 1064 I reckon).

[subsub]

Love honeyed ale, nice recipe. Don't tell Chris you're in my gang though

[coatesg]

Love honeyed ale, nice recipe. Don't tell Chris you're in my gang though

Never brewed with Honey yet (though will happily chug through a good few pints of Waggledance!) - we'll see how it turns out in two or three months (just trying to add the honey at the end of the boil to avoid getting rid of the honey flavours up the extractor fan....)

[booldawg]

Hope all goes well. I did something similar back in the summer which went down well. It wasn't overly honey flavoured but there was a hint just at the edge.

[floydmeddler]

LOVE brewing with honey.

[pantsmachine]

Nice one Graeme,

Never made it to the post office last time home as offshore again fast, will do this time(honest Mr)! Good luck with the brewday and congrats on the wedding.

I like the idea of Something from Summer 08 going into a beer in 09.

[coatesg]

Never made it to the post office last time home as offshore again fast, will do this time(honest Mr)! Good luck with the brewday and congrats on the wedding.

Cheers!I'd forgotten about the RIS - I'll look forward to it, but I'll do it justice and lay it down and give it time to age

I like the idea of Something from Summer 08 going into a beer in 09.

Well, I've got some goldings picked (and more to pick) from my own bine now - if I land up with enough, then I'll brew a big IPA (probably next year now!) which will be the 2010 beer

Anyhow, the brew went well - in fact I overshot a little on the gravity, but lost a pile to the hops (4 litres or so...), and so have about 20.5L at 16.2brix (1065ish). The hops smelt quite good, and I think there's a decent level of bitterness in there. Just pitched one packet of Windsor in the end.

[pantsmachine]

Nice one, i'll stick a bottle of my 'damn the expense IPA' in as well. Just for showing off of course! Its a leave it for a year beer as well. That won't stop me testing the theory with a 330ml sample bottle when i get home on Thursday/Friday. Nice one on growing your own hops. Did the same myself this year, my wife tells me the Northdown and Bramling X have hop flowers so looking fwd to seeing how much. Best hobby in the world mate!

[trucker5774]

I can' decide when to add my honey. Im looking at 3 options
1. flame out (cant see any point in boiling it)
2. In the FV
3. Late in the FV about 3/4 of the way into fermentation

I have the same issue with fruit (strawberries or cherries)......again thinking late in the FV

I have primed (over primed) with good results in terms of honey flavour

[coatesg]

It may depend on the honey - unpasteurised honey will have wild yeasts present, and you probably won't want these in beer so I opted for putting it in with 2 min of the boil left (no idea if the honey I used is already treated or pasteurised). I think you can heat treat the honey too if you don't want to do it this way - I'm quite interested in priming with it, so maybe will heat treat the honey for that.

[pantsmachine]

Bottles in the post, hope you enjoy!

[coatesg]

Finished out at 1016 so about 75% apparent - batch primed with 55g sugar, and bottled it all up this evening (cloudy, cloudy Windsor yeast )

[boingy]

Have you ever read the official info from the National Honey Board about using honey in beer?

http://www.honey.com/foodindustry/resou ... rewing.htm

They even list a method of pasturising honey so you can kill off all the yeasts and keep the flavour. It's a bit of a faff though:

---
The following method is recommended for pasteurizing honey for homebrewing:

1. Preheat the oven to 176°F.
2. Place the honey in a sanitized oven-proof saucepan.
3. Heat the honey on the stovetop to 176°F. The honey should be stirred occasionally.
4. When the honey reaches 176°F, cover the pan and place it in the oven.
5. The trick for the homebrewer will be maintaining the pasteurization temperature for the required time. Use a thermometer that is reliable, and hold the honey in the oven at 176°F for 2 and 1/2 hours.
6. At the end of the pasteurization process, bring the honey temperature down to the beer temperature by placing it in an ice bath.
---

And, while we are talking about it, the "National Honey Board"???? As Homer would say "this place has a board for EVERYTHING!"...

[coatesg]

Yeah - I'd seen the recommended stuff for killing the wild yeasts off, but it did look like a lot of faff! I added it to the boil at the end (about 2 minutes) to hopefully kill all the nasties off - I'll lose some flavour, but based on the hydro sample, apparently not all of it - there's a subtle honey addition there I think (though being masked a bit by the yeasty flavour for the minute).