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Post by tommymorris on Aug 13, 2021 8:58:03 GMT -6
My brother in law is a bee keeper and he gave me some fresh honey. It’s tasty but I already for got what types of flowers it’s from.
Anyway I am planning a honey blonde ale. 92% Best Pilsner, 8% Honey at flame out. About 1045-1048 OG.
Any hops suggestions? Edelweiss was my plan. What do you think? I think the many flavors of Edelweiss might blend in well here. I also have Spalt Select, Sterling, Crystal, Hallertau, Magnum.
I have lots of other hops. Some candidates include Galaxy, Citra, Ekuanot, Amarillo, Chinook. But, I think those might be too much.
Question 2: what about yeast: English, American, Lager? I was initially thinking BRY-97. I also have Verdant IPA, Nottingham, Windsor, Lalbrew London, S-23, Lalbrew New England, Diamond.
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Post by Ken on Aug 13, 2021 10:18:38 GMT -6
I like the sound of it but honey beers kind of threw me similarly to fruit beers. I ended up with rocket-fuel-tasting beers because the honey is so fermentable. In fact, I believe it's so fermentable that you really get NO honey character because it's all being metabolized by the yeast. So the question becomes "why do we want to add honey?"... is it just for fermentables or do we want honey character in the beer? If it's the former, carry on. If it's the latter then maybe we need honey malt. I know very little about honey but I did experiment with some years ago and determined that clover honey was not for me. The character was not what I would want. I also tried some orange blossom honey and it was smoother and better. I think I would attack this in a similar way as fruit... either mash higher or use some amount of crystal/caramel malt to offset the dryness you might get from the honey being so fermentable.
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Post by tommymorris on Aug 13, 2021 10:38:04 GMT -6
Why is it in the beer? No good reason except I want to tell my BIL I brewed with his honey 🍯
But, good points. I will keep thinking. I might switch to a CAP and use the honey in place of flaked maize. Not sure.
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Post by gusso on Aug 13, 2021 13:56:13 GMT -6
Braggot? I've never brewed one but have thought about it much. My brother just sent me a pic of a 4 pack of braggot he just bought - 14% abv. Sounds like something I'd be interested in trying.
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Post by Ken on Aug 13, 2021 14:22:53 GMT -6
Why is it in the beer? No good reason except I want to tell my BIL I brewed with his honey 🍯 But, good points. I will keep thinking. I might switch to a CAP and use the honey in place of flaked maize. Not sure. I tried making a number of honey beers for awhile there... honey blonde, honey brown, honey wheat, honey pale ale, etc. They all suffered from a very HOT, jet fuel flavor. This may have been long enough ago that I actually bottled these beers and maybe I was just trying them too soon and they were young. It might be fun to make a beer where a pound of honey was added at flameout just to see how the character of the beer comes out. It's been A LONG time but I was heavy into this idea there for awhile. How much will your 8% honey come to? How many pounds? This would be an easy thing to try with a neutral, low-hopped ale. |
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Post by tommymorris on Aug 13, 2021 14:23:38 GMT -6
BIL only gave me 1 pound plus a honey bear bottle which is being used in the kitchen. So Braggot doesn’t seem like a good option.
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Post by brewbama on Aug 13, 2021 14:43:20 GMT -6
The White House Honey Ale series boils 1 lb honey for 60 min. Does that create rocket fuel?
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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Post by gusso on Aug 13, 2021 14:45:34 GMT -6
BIL only gave me 1 pound plus a honey bear bottle which is being used in the kitchen. So Braggot doesn’t seem like a good option. Yeah, that won't do! |
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Post by tommymorris on Aug 13, 2021 14:48:01 GMT -6
The White House Honey Ale series boils 1 lb honey for 60 min. Does that create rocket fuel? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk I made that beer. It was fine. I don’t remember it being too low gravity. For my beer, I am thinking 8-10% honey. I don’t think there is enough to make the gravity super low. |
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Post by tommymorris on Aug 13, 2021 14:52:02 GMT -6
Why is it in the beer? No good reason except I want to tell my BIL I brewed with his honey 🍯 But, good points. I will keep thinking. I might switch to a CAP and use the honey in place of flaked maize. Not sure. I tried making a number of honey beers for awhile there... honey blonde, honey brown, honey wheat, honey pale ale, etc. They all suffered from a very HOT, jet fuel flavor. This may have been long enough ago that I actually bottled these beers and maybe I was just trying them too soon and they were young. It might be fun to make a beer where a pound of honey was added at flameout just to see how the character of the beer comes out. It's been A LONG time but I was heavy into this idea there for awhile. How much will your 8% honey come to? How many pounds? This would be an easy thing to try with a neutral, low-hopped ale. For a 3 gallon batch about 0.35-0.4 lbs. of honey. A similar about of invert sugar didn’t ruin my 1957 Whitbread IPA. So, I can’t see it making jet fuel. |
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Post by gusso on Aug 13, 2021 14:54:43 GMT -6
The White House Honey Ale series boils 1 lb honey for 60 min. Does that create rocket fuel? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk I wouldn't think so. I regularly use 3# in my Tripels. |
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Post by Ken on Aug 13, 2021 14:56:58 GMT -6
I'm not very good at determining the "extract" potential of things. How does one know how much in the way of fermentables one pound of honey would add? When I make most of my batches I use about 10 pounds of grain and end up with a 4.5 to maybe 5% beer. I would want to lower my grain amount to take the honey into consideration but how to know how much that would be?
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Post by brewbama on Aug 13, 2021 15:01:16 GMT -6
I just plug it into BeerSand let it do the calculations.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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Post by Ken on Aug 13, 2021 15:13:46 GMT -6
I just plug it into BeerSand let it do the calculations. Okay, I don't have BeerSand (  ) so I used Brewgr for this. I went and looked at 4-5 of my upcoming recipes which all have 10 pounds of grain. The OG ranges from 1.047 to 1.050 for those. If I use 7.25 pounds of grain plus a pound of honey I'm at 1.047. 7.50 pounds of grain plus a pound of honey is 1.049. Nice. Does the honey need to be boiled for the full time or could I add it at flameout? |
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Post by gusso on Aug 13, 2021 15:31:13 GMT -6
I just plug it into BeerSand let it do the calculations. Okay, I don't have BeerSand ( ) so I used Brewgr for this. I went and looked at 4-5 of my upcoming recipes which all have 10 pounds of grain. The OG ranges from 1.047 to 1.050 for those. If I use 7.25 pounds of grain plus a pound of honey I'm at 1.047. 7.50 pounds of grain plus a pound of honey is 1.049. Nice. Does the honey need to be boiled for the full time or could I add it at flameout? I always do flame out on honey. |
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) so I used Brewgr for this. I went and looked at 4-5 of my upcoming recipes which all have 10 pounds of grain. The OG ranges from 1.047 to 1.050 for those. If I use 7.25 pounds of grain plus a pound of honey I'm at 1.047. 7.50 pounds of grain plus a pound of honey is 1.049. Nice. Does the honey need to be boiled for the full time or could I add it at flameout?