Next Brew to Please the Missus

[Chris The Fish]

After many deliberations and mind changes over what to brew next, the wife has asked me to make a honey style brew.

Knowing the good lady doesnt like bitter ales i thought of making a lager kit up with ale yeast (Nottingham) then supplimenting some sugar for honey, then priming the bottles with honey.

Using lager kits as 'summer beer' kits by using ale yeast is something ive seen mentioned on here a few times and realy appeals to my creative side. Is there anything i should look out for when doing this sort of cross-kit? has anyone else done anything similar either with or without the addition of honey?

even though she doesnt like bitter ales, should i dry hop a little to add extra flavour to the lager kit

what do you lot reckon?

[mysterio]

I agree, treat honey like sugar and you'll probably end up with a nice beer.

I wouldn't bother with the dry hopping if you're aiming for a wife-pleaser, though. Non-beer drinkers tend not to like hops, plus dry hopping tends to lend a grassy taste to the beer.

[fivetide]

Does it?

I've been dry hopping to add more character to kits, am I actually impeding the taste rather than making it more interesting?

The most recent one I have clearing, I dry-hopped with Cascade for five days in the secondary, then discarded and kegged...

[delboy]

Its all down to personal preference, you won't know till you give it a try
The grassy notes are ususlly attributed to leaving the hops in to long (i wouldn't worry about 5 days).

[Sheepy]

some good info on brewing with honey here,
http://byo.com/feature/924.html

[mysterio]

It's probably just my taste, but every time i've dry hopped the beer tastes and smells like lawn clippings to me. Sometimes I quite like that but I don't dry hop very often. Maybe i'm just using varieties that arent suited.

[bitter_dave]

I've heard it said that Fuggles are not suited to dry hopping as they leave a grassy flavour, but that was on a forum that tends to get hysterical, so I'm not sure I trust them. In any case they put me off: I've never dry hopped with fuggles.

I've dry hopped with Goldings, Styrian Goldings and Cascade a few times. I chuck them loose in the barrel and they stay there as long as it takes to drink; I can't say I've noticed a grassy flavour - maybe it's been there but I've interpretted it as something else The beer I dry hopped with Cascades wasn't all that great, but I could never figure out why... the other beers tasted good in my opinion.

... anyway, don't worry fivetide, I'm sure your beer will be great

[fivetide]

Hmm, I did read around the subject before choosing the hops, but I guess as you say it's a matter of trial and error. I think the First Gold worked well in the Wherry - you can certainly feel the hops on the nose, but I left a bagged ounce of those in the barrel for 10 days or so. The Cascade I mentioned were in a secondary of Great Eastern for just five days.

These are a done deal, but any views on Brambling Cross as a dryhop? I was going to use it in Smugglers for a bit of variation.

On the honey front, I'm extremely interested in the effect that just priming with honey would have. My reason being the surplus between secondary and a Corni, and the possibility of putting this in PETs with honey. How much standard clear honey (preferably in spoonfuls) would you use per litre?

My wife loves to Waggledance!

[fivetide]

Just for interest, this is what the ounce of Cascade looked like after five days in secondary. Barely dented its powers I reckon.



Let us know what route you take towards your summer honey beer!

[Chris The Fish]

On the honey front, I'm extremely interested in the effect that just priming with honey would have.

This was my first thought, to just prime with honey, however i then got myself thinking - would say 5ml of prime (per bottle) have any affect on taste?

how much of honey is fermentable? if vertually all the sugars in honey ferment in the bottle will there be any discernable taste left to flavour the bottle? thats what sort of made me think of replacing some of the inital sugar load with honey to ensure a honey flavour.

ill have to think on this one and maybe do some google reasearch.

cheers for all the interesting comments so far.

Chris

[Sheepy]

The link i posted above stated that honey from the shops is heat treated. However the link is to an american site. So is the honey from the shops in the UK heat treated too? It would be nice just to be able to add honey to the mix without losing the aromas by boiling it.

[Chris The Fish]

the article also says that honey is very fermentable so i think ill go with about 20% of the initial sugars as honey, then prime half the batch with honey, and half with dextrose and see what the results are like, hopefully this would suit the missus with the sweeter honey primed stuff and i can drink the other, or thats the plan anyhow.

ill leave the hops out for now and see how this goes.

cheers for the feedback all.

[fivetide]

Great. let us know what honey you go for too. I'm interested in knowing how it will effect the brew clearing. Are you hoping it will clear or are you assuming a clousy finish?

[Chris The Fish]

im going to be brewing this tonight, and ive a few quesitons.

Ill be using about 400ml of honey, about 500g of spraymalt and 500g of glucose to add to the kit - do i have to boil the honey? would this have any effect on the spraymalt if i boil it all together prior to adding it to the kit?

[steve_flack]

If you boil the honey you will pretty much lose any aroma you'd hope to gain by using it. Some commercial honeys are pasteurised but some aren't and those won't be sterile (people may claim it is but honey isn't sterile it's just that any bugs are in suspended animation due to the high sugar content). You could try honey pasteurisation I guess.