Honey Pale Ale

[Dave S]

Has anyone brewed using honey? I tasted a honey dew bitter a while ago. Can't remember which brewery it was from but it tasted rather nice. I saw a recipe over the weekend that used 500g honey, pasteurised and added after the initial vigorous ferment. I don't know if that's a lot, a little or just about right. I think the OG was 1050 odd.

[seymour]

Lots of times. I've included honey in lots of "regular beers" but I also make mead, melomel, metheglin, braggot, Wormwood Honeywine, etc, which is primarily honey. Just keep in mind honey is nearly 100% fermentable, so it adds much more alcohol per unit of weight compared to malt. For the same reason, it will significantly thin your beer's body, and lastly: don't let the fermentation temperature climb too high or you'll get some jet fuel fusels. Happy brewing!

[Dave S]

Lots of times. I've included honey in lots of "regular beers" but I also make mead, melomel, metheglin, braggot, Wormwood Honeywine, etc, which is primarily honey. Just keep in mind honey is nearly 100% fermentable, so it adds much more alcohol per unit of weight compared to malt. For the same reason, it will significantly thin your beer's body, and lastly: don't let the fermentation temperature climb too high or you'll get some jet fuel fusels. Happy brewing!

Thanks Seymour, I think if I do try a honey brew I'll tread cautiously and maybe start with around 250 g.

Oh, one other thing, the recipe I was looking at reckoned the honey needs to be pastuerised at 80 C due to inherent wild yeasts, Do you have a take on that?

[dreadskin69]

this is also on my to do list. so going from what you have said seymor, brew the beer weak abv and sweet (mash at 68°?), all base malts so not to mask the honey favours? i presume keep the hops not to foward either.
is there anyway to work out the abv if you add the honey after initial fermentation has calmed down?
i remember reading there is a type of malt called honey malt, but I've never been able to see any for sale online.

[dreadskin69]

Dave, can u stick ur recipe up? cheers

[seymour]

...Oh, one other thing, the recipe I was looking at reckoned the honey needs to be pastuerised at 80 C due to inherent wild yeasts, Do you have a take on that?

Yeah, it's true. In the first place, brewer's yeast as we know it almost surely got into beer on the legs of insects who picked it up from the sticky sweet parts of plants. Honey is collected from thousands of plants by bees, so it contains a whole soup of "yeasts." It would make for a fun wild fermentation experiment, but a pretty big gamble with a traditional beer recipe. I recommend adding the honey at flame out, thus the temperature is high enough to pasteurize it, but hopefully not so vigorous as to boil away all your flowery aromas.

...so going from what you have said seymor, brew the beer weak abv and sweet (mash at 68°?), all base malts so not to mask the honey favours? i presume keep the hops not to foward either.
is there anyway to work out the abv if you add the honey after initial fermentation has calmed down?
i remember reading there is a type of malt called honey malt, but I've never been able to see any for sale online.

That would work, though I like honey in complex, even spiced brown beers too. You're really not going to discern too much honey presence, to be honest, this is really about increasing your fermentable sugars. If you want to observe the intricacies of varietal honeys, you need to be brewing straight-up mead.

Honey Malt doesn't contain honey, You're not missing out. it's just lightly caramelized in a way that reminds some people of honey. I find it mushy, boring, and unpleasant, actually, and much prefer to substitute something like CaraVienna or Biscuit Malt if I brew a recipe calling for Honey Malt.

[dreadskin69]

i too make mead all the time. its just i remember having honey ale in Vancouver and it was great, push you could definitely taste the honey. i wonder if a heather honey, or other strong tasting honey would work best. Tue one in Vancouver was amber however, hence why i wonder if it was from honey malt...

[seymour]

Yeah, Canadian Blond Ales with honey are great. I could be wrong, but I think the recipes are pretty basic, like: 90% 2-Row Pale Malt, 5% Pale Crystal Malt or Munich Malt, 5% Honey, fermented cool with a neutral ale yeast like Nottingham or Chico to let more honey character shine.

[dreadskin69]

cheers again mate!

[Dave S]

Dave, can u stick ur recipe up? cheers

Sorry mate, can't seem to find it at the mo. I was just having a casual browse. I'll have a look when I get home though. It might still be in my browser history.

[ercol]

While part of me is slightly ashamed to admit it, i made the 'White House Honey Ale' (or at least an All grain approximation) a few months ago, thinking to myself 'it a curiosity project' but my god was it good! So much so i made it again.

I guess if anyones in a position to make sure he churns out a half decent beer its the potus.

link here: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2012/09/ ... eer-recipe

Personally i made the assumption the recipe on there was for 23L (i dont think it says). Made the conversions to metric on the grains and hops, then ignored the 'malt extract' and added in enough pale malt to hit a reasonable percentage (4.6%) - then mashed for an hour @ 67, boiled for an hour with the Goldings at the start and the fuggles right at the end. Then used the Fullers yeast strain as i had some going. So thinking about it its entirely possible i've made a completely different beer all together, but whatever! It was good.

Incidently, i used Rowse Honey because it was on offer, but have since read that its a pretty good choice for beer....


Recipe:

4kg Pale Malt
340g Amber
230g Biscuit

Hops:
43g Fuggles @ 60min
450g Honey @ 30min
43g Goldings @ Flameout.

Mash @ 67 for 1 hour.
1 hour boil.
Ferment 7 days w/Fullers/Nottingham/So4 yeast.
Prime 3/4cup sugar (no idea on weight, sorry) & Bottle. Nice honey flavour aftertaste after 2 - 3 weeks but not quite developed. 6 weeks in the bottle it was perfect. Now @ 10 weeks and none left so cant comment further

[Rookie]

Three days ago I bottled a batch of coconut honey Am hefe. I used 12 ounces of honey in a three gallon batch and primed with honey. The hydrometer sample tasted really good and should be great when carbed.