All Grain Honey Beer

[micmacmoc]

Hello Folks!
I'm back brewing after some time off with ill health. The family bought me a grainfather to make brewdays more convenient, it helps! Have done a 'The Boy Taylor' AG kit from Malt Miller, lovely brewday. Someone in my village keeps bees and offered me a pound of his honey for some beer.I thought this would be a 'chuck it in the boil at the end' job, but no, its not that simple is it? Apparently that loses all its aroma and flavour, honey being something like 98% fermentable. So my pan is to do a lightly hopped beer with honey malt and oats. I might try toasting the oats too. Anyway this is where I am at with the brew:
19lt
Pale 2 kg
honey malt 1 kg
caramalt 0.5kg would this overpower the honey/ honey malt?
oats 0.25kg (oven roast for a bit?)
Saaz to about 30 ibu, mostly late addition?
US05 yeast?
If anyone would critique this/offer any advice I would be most grateful.
Lovely to be back brewing again.
stew in mevagissey

[Rookie]

I'd use less honey malt and wouldn't bother toasting the oats. Otherwise it looks okay.

[Top Cat]

Hello Folks!
I'm back brewing after some time off with ill health. The family bought me a grainfather to make brewdays more convenient, it helps! Have done a 'The Boy Taylor' AG kit from Malt Miller, lovely brewday. Someone in my village keeps bees and offered me a pound of his honey for some beer.I thought this would be a 'chuck it in the boil at the end' job, but no, its not that simple is it? Apparently that loses all its aroma and flavour, honey being something like 98% fermentable. So my pan is to do a lightly hopped beer with honey malt and oats. I might try toasting the oats too. Anyway this is where I am at with the brew:
19lt
Pale 2 kg
honey malt 1 kg
caramalt 0.5kg would this overpower the honey/ honey malt?
oats 0.25kg (oven roast for a bit?)
Saaz to about 30 ibu, mostly late addition?
US05 yeast?
If anyone would critique this/offer any advice I would be most grateful.
Lovely to be back brewing again.
stew in mevagissey

Near my neck of the woods, there’s a brewery called Enville brewery. They brew an ale (Enville ale), with honey, the beer is a beautiful mellow drink. Although I know of no precise recipe for this beer, a local ingredients stockist Dark Rock brewing co sell a part mash kit.
The honey which you have to buy separately is added during fermentation, three or four days from yeast pitch I believe.
Hope this helps.

[MashBag]

I have done this. Needs to be light to enjoy the honey.
Light ale, lightly hopped.
Do not boil the honey you will destroy its finer quality. Add it to the fermenter.

[Carnot]

Well I have more than a little toe in the water. We are bee farmers and produce high end honey, some of which goes into mead. Every beer brew that I have done, kits and all grain, have a honey starter which has never failed and gives a unique twist. Never , ever go above 50 deg c with honey as you will destroy the flavour big time. A hive will run about 35 deg C and we never exceed this temperaure when we process our honey.

Where the recipe includes sugar I use honey. The starter used about 200g honey in 1 litre plus nutrient. I have never had a stuck fermentation. My last brew, Jim's ESB, took off like a scolded chicken. It was done in 3 days and is so far really looking good.

My advice - add the honey after the boil to the fermentor. All my mead is done in warm water and it will blow your socks off. I am now in the difficult position of getting the mead ready for HMRC accredititaion. Not an easy task as you hav to be able to prove the alcohol content using their method,OR one that will replicate their method. I am not a fan of pycnometers. Give me a hydrometer any day.

[Top Cat]

Well I have more than a little toe in the water. We are bee farmers and produce high end honey, some of which goes into mead. Every beer brew that I have done, kits and all grain, have a honey starter which has never failed and gives a unique twist. Never , ever go above 50 deg c with honey as you will destroy the flavour big time. A hive will run about 35 deg C and we never exceed this temperaure when we process our honey.

Where the recipe includes sugar I use honey. The starter used about 200g honey in 1 litre plus nutrient. I have never had a stuck fermentation. My last brew, Jim's ESB, took off like a scolded chicken. It was done in 3 days and is so far really looking good.

My advice - add the honey after the boil to the fermentor. All my mead is done in warm water and it will blow your socks off. I am now in the difficult position of getting the mead ready for HMRC accredititaion. Not an easy task as you hav to be able to prove the alcohol content using their method,OR one that will replicate their method. I am not a fan of pycnometers. Give me a hydrometer any day.

Great knowledgeable quote Carnot, have been thinking of dabbling with honey to replicate the Enville ale beer, of which I mentioned in an earlier post, full mash.
May need a little help on the starter, I’m assuming the 1 litre is pre boiled water, what yeast do you use?

[MashBag]

Nicely put & good luck with HMRC.
I hope it all goes well!

[micmacmoc]

Really great responses there, thanks to all of you. Really hope things run smoothly for you Carnot, it’s a fascinating project. I have a little shop here in East Cornwall, we sell locally made booze, one of which is a distilled mead. It’s a bit heavy duty and produces terrible hangovers! This may be my imagination or is there something about honey fermented that gives off worse or just different hangovers?

Again, thanks to all the replies. I hoped to make this brew next week but the honey didn’t materialise. I think I may just buy some. I won’t toast the oats and use just the caramalt as I haven’t the honey malt. Honey in the fermenter after the boil and post cooling (i ferment at 17-18 C).

[Carnot]

Sorry to be a bit tardy but the bese take precedence and this year is like no other. Reaaly challenging.

I am pretty lazy with my startesr. I just use the tap water warmed to about 30 deg C - no campden tablets. It goes into an erlemeyer flask of 1 litre with about 200 -250 g of honey. I usually uses our leftovers. It goes onto a magnetic stirrer for about 20 hours+/- with 2.5g fermaid K to get it going. The stirrer is vigourous so that it areates the starter. When the wort is ready the starter is pitched . One of my favourite yeast is Guervin GV12. For mead making I tend to use Mangrove Jacks Mead yeast and go to the high end 250 g honey per litre.

When buying honey avoid the supermarket brands. It is invariably adulterated.. Try and find a local beekeeper and ask him to view his apirary. There is a huge amount of dodgy honey for sale, much of it from China and Eastern Europe. If it does not set then be suspicious. Many bee keepers feed huge amounts od sugar syrup to boost honey yield. It will look pale. runny and will have no taste. The real McCoy will blow your socks off.

Currently drinking AG Courage Directors with the honey starter. Really good, using GV12 yeast.

[micmacmoc]

Thanks for that, spoke to a local apiarist who nearly bit my head off before I’d even asked him! “You’re going to ask me for honey are’nt you? well it’s not as easy as all that, it’s terrible times, there’s little honey and I’ve lost three hives.” I felt sorry for the bloke so didn’t ask anyway! I bought some honey malt and have some locally produced set stuff in my shop which I shall remove before mrs.moc notices! I think there’s about 0.75kg I could get away with.
Thanks again all!
There’s a stout scheduled next but not sure I will get the chance.