HONEY. WHAT AND WHEN?

[PEZ]

i love skinners honey bunny and their heligans honey.the wytchcraft one i'm not so keen on..

but yeah, in a kit, when would i add honey? would i drop it in to ferment aswell or maybe into the bottle instead of the sugar? and in liquid form or what?
ha yeah i dont know.

[burgo]

A little bit off subject but has anyone ever tried Maple Syrup ?

[PEZ]

on pancakes i have.
there is a manchester ale, thomas somebody who does a maple moon ale which is really nice..

but yeah its all about the honey?> i'm gonna stick a bit in the bucket with this admirals revenge i reckon

[PEZ]

nelsons revenge sorry

[burgo]

I know that some people prime with honey, not sure how much taste it gives to the beer.

[PEZ]

prime?

[Benson_JV]

prime?

To prime is to carbonate the beer.
When bottling (or kegging) you add sugar (or other fermentable, eg, sugar) that'll be fermented, and thus carbonates the beer.
Unless your using cornies which force carbs the beer

[PEZ]

ok what do yo reckon, instead of the sugar???

[Big Al]

I've heard adding honey also gives lager a more golden colour.
As it is high in sugar I guess you can use it instead of sugar.
I am planning on using honey in my next lager but half sugar half honey and see how that turns out.

BUt I will use it in the inital stages.

[PEZ]

ok i'm gonna get a local organic honey tomorrow, looked today in tescos but could only find organic from new zealand. i'm lookin
for local minimally produced shit, will hopefully help my hay fever too..

will use it to prime half the bottle and drink them 2nd so they have longer to do the biz in the bottle.will just go for a teaspoon in each 500ml bottle
i reckon..

one last question, hats the frickin difference between the clear honey and the cloudy? which do i want?
my heart says cloudy but my head says clear..

[PEZ]

bought the nz honey in the end cos couldnt get to a farm shop.. but then found the hydrometer still stuck on 1020.. 8 days now, so i got me arm in there, i'm badass like that and gave the sludge a bit of a mix up... the lids puffed up again.. problem is, i'm away now till sunday! is it gonna keep till then??

[delboy]

bought the nz honey in the end cos couldnt get to a farm shop.. but then found the hydrometer still stuck on 1020.. 8 days now, so i got me arm in there, i'm badass like that and gave the sludge a bit of a mix up... the lids puffed up again.. problem is, i'm away now till sunday! is it gonna keep till then??

Yipe it'll be fine until then, thats certainly one way of rousing the yeast , hopefully you've not infected it and hopefully the puffed up lid is due to a restart of fermentation rather than just a release of CO2

[PEZ]

cool thanks mate. yeah i realised after i have a bit of excema on that elbow too but i dont think it went that deep not quite

[PEZ]

ps-what wouldve been a better way to rouse the yeast? as in, what are u suppposed to do and what are the dangers of arm stirs?
this is only my second brew as you can probably tell haha

[davvac]

Hi PEZ

I'm not adverse to getting a bit of beer/arm action going on, but the risk is that the beer will become infected and turn bad.

I've got a long plastic spoon (from Wilkinsons) that I use for rousing/aerating/dissolving the kit thoroughly. It aint great , but it does the trick and is easily sanitised.

The rousing of the yeast sediment to restart a stalled ferment needs to be gentle, so as not to entrain any air into the beer. A deep slow stir to get the yeast back into suspension is what you're after.

Anyway, I don't suppose there'll be too many issues with the auld arm there, until you get a brew that fails!

Did you take an OG reading on the Nelson's? Mine started at 1046 and is down to 1010 with no interference (arm or otherwise), but I didn't use the yeast that came with the kit - I got me some Safale 04.

Cheers

Dave