Beez Kneez Clone

[furby83]

hey all,

i'm in the process of making a "Beez Kneez" clone/mutant/??

1 x Morgans Export Golden Sheaf Wheat
1 x Morgans Master Malts Wheat
500g Capilano "Blue Gum" honey
kit yeast.

made to 23L
O.G 1050
C.G 1025

i tasted it after taking the second reading and it tasted "watery" and no honey flavor.
i'm going to let it keep going for another week.

i want to add more honey to it. can i just dump it in.

 

[Tanga]

Yup, no worries. The honey will be fine. Might help with mixing to add just a little hot water to it in a sterilised jug and mix. If the jug is glass then just pop a cup of water in it and gladwrap over the top until it's boiling and steaming, remove gladwrap, pour out 3/4 of the water and add the honey.

I did something similar, 1 Morgan's wheat, 1 kg of honey (unpasteurised) made to 20L with a little late B-Saaz. Used a wit yeast. I haven't tried it yet but I'll let you know when I do.

It was pretty tasty on bottling though.

 

[Samuel Adams]

i tasted it after taking the second reading and it tasted "watery" and no honey flavour.

I'm no expert with using honey in brews but from what I've read it is 100% fermentable.
So I'd imagine that would strip most of the honey flavour away.

Maybe you could try priming the bottles with honey to keep more of the honey flavour ?
A mate did this with a few of his wheat beers, time consuming but effective.


Oh and my last tasting of Beez Kneez (draft) I could hardly taste a hint of honey !

 

[Matt Browne]

ESB make an EzyBrew liquid wort 3 litres.
I can thoroughly recommend although a little low in honey flavor but pretty close!!!

 

[spaced]

You will want to pasteurise the honey and then add it to your beer at bottling time.

 

[Tanga]

You will want to pasteurise the honey and then add it to your beer at bottling time.

Not necessary if you are using shop bought honey. It's already pasteurised.

 

[spaced]

Not necessary if you are using shop bought honey. It's already pasteurised.

According to Capilano's website (just taking a known brand), it isn't


http://www.capilano.com.au/index.php?optio...&Itemid=118

Q1. Is
your honey pasteurised?
Answer:
No - honey is actually quite antibacterial in its natural state and does not
support bacterial growth as a result of its high concentration of sugars, low
moisture and low acidity or pH. As a consequence, we do not consider the
heating of honey to high temperatures necessary and hence our retail packed
honey is classified as un-pasteurized.
While our honey is heated to around
45 degrees celsius only briefly to conserve its natural goodness, this is simply
for the ease of processing and pumping (honey is easier to filter and pack when
warm) we do not consider it to be pasteurized.




NOTE: Pasteurised products are those such as milk, whereby
the product is held at a relatively high temperature for a set period of time,
as a means of killing common bacteria.

 

[furby83]

hey all,

i added 1kg of "market honey" on tue, melted it with some hot water (boiling about 50% honey /50% water)


going to be putting into mini-kegs on maybe wed next week.

 

[furby83]

UPDATE:

at the 2 week mark
S.G. = 1020 (yesterday ~midday)
S.G. = ~1015 (today ~5:00pm)

i was hoping to bottle/keg tomorrow but it doesn't "read" as finished.
i'm going to run it through a filter (irrigation filter filled with cotton wool balls).

can i keg tomorrow or should i leave it a few more days?

 

[jakub76]

You will want to pasteurise the honey and then add it to your beer at bottling time.

there's no need to pasteurise honey...as Spaced also pointed out "honey is actually quite antibacterial in its natural state and does not support bacterial growth"

Sounds like you've added plenty of honey into the primary now. There's no harm in leaving it on the yeast for an extra week or so to make sure it finished and cleans up what it can. Then I would suggest priming in the keg with 150g of honey. It'll cost you another couple of weeks wait but should give you more honey flavour/aroma.

Let us know how it turns out

I use honey in a Wit recipe and it definately adds to the flavour, complimenting the spices, though I couldn't single the honey out as the dominant flavour. My opinion is that the honey adds to the flavour mostly through aroma and as such is most effectively utilized in priming a closed vessel.

 

[furby83]

UPDATE:

FG: 1010

kegged into mini-kegs.
used 3 carb drops per keg.

 

[MaltyHops]

Here's a page on using honey for brewing: Honey Farm - Brewers Corner

Covers why honey should be heated to 80C for 2.5 hours to deactivate
diastatic enzymes of honey - which become active when honey is diluted
to a high water content and can "... degrade the dextrins (non-fermentable
carbohydrates) in beer into simple sugars, thereby destroying the texture
and body of the end product." - perhaps the cause of the "... tasted "watery"
and no honey flavor ..." result.

Also recommends that the pasteurised honey be added to fermenting wort
at high kraeusen.

T.

 

[furby83]

UPDATE:

Tapped a keg mid last month and have had it sitting in the fridge.
have noticed that the hop flavor has become more pronounced and the honey flavor which was light but still noticeable has dissipated.

i will be making this again as some people at work have asked for it (surprising since i work in a liquor store) but the next time i think i will leave out the Golden Sheaf Wheat and just go with the Wheat malt and a low alpha hop.

can you recommend a low alpha hop. i'm aiming for an IBU of 15 +-.

hopefully by the time i get to making it (about march/april when the temps start to cool) i will have a kegarator and be able to put honey into the keg without it being fermented to prime.

(taken today during the superbowl)