Beez Neez Clone

[hopie89]

Hi guys just made this one up with brewmate and looking for some opinions, I have no idea how it will turn out will be making it in the new year. I'm thinking to add the honey just before the end of the boil.



Beez neez (German Pilsner (Pils))

Original Gravity (OG): 1.050 (P): 12.4
Final Gravity (FG): 1.007 (P): 1.8
Alcohol (ABV): 5.67 %
Colour (SRM): 3.2 (EBC): 6.3
Bitterness (IBU): 15.8 (Average)

34% Honey
33% Pilsner
33% Wheat Malt

1.5 g/L Saaz (3.7% Alpha) @ 60 Minutes (Boil)
0.7 g/L Saaz (3.7% Alpha) @ 0 Days (Dry Hop)


Single step Infusion at 66C for 60 Minutes. Boil for 60 Minutes

Fermented at 12C with Saflager S-189


Recipe Generated with BrewMate



Suggestions welcomed I'm thinking the alcohol percentage is a bit high,
Cheers, :icon_chickcheers:

Hopie

 

[hopie89]

Oh BTW this is for 11L into fermenter with 0.84Kg of wheat malt and pilsner, and 0.87Kg of honey.

Cheers,

Hopie

 

[pyrosx]

Honey is weird. I did some horrible experiments a while back, involving some coopers pale kits, and a bunch of honey.

I made the same kit twice in a row, but the second one had a bunch of sugar substituted for honey.

With each kit, half of the bottles were primed with honey instead of sugar.

The only bottles that ended up even partially drinkable were the non-honey, sugar primed ones. All of the rest were godawful - no actual "honey" flavours at all, just weird floral acidic weirdness up the yin yang.

So there's two things -not- to do with honey: priming, and late/cold wort addition.

 

[MaltyHops]

This could be the diastatic enzymes thing happening ...

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.

 

[Dave70]

What are you looking for by adding honey?

 

[stef]

^ probably for the taste, one assumes?

 

[hopie89]

Thanks for the good info there. Yeah I'm looking for the honey flavour.

This could be the diastatic enzymes thing happening ...

So what I gathered from that article I should increase my grain bill a little to hit my intended OG for a smaller batch then at high krausen I should dilute some pasteurised honey to the SG of the wort and add that to the fv.

 

[MaltyHops]

So what I gathered from that article I should increase my grain bill a little to hit
my intended OG for a smaller batch then at high krausen I should dilute some
pasteurised honey to the SG of the wort and add that to the fv.

Actually, the way I read it is no, if the enzymes are not deactivated by
pasteurisation, all the normally unfermentable sugars (that provide some
level of sweetness) will end up getting fermented regardless of how high
you increase your grain bill (subject to yeast ability to work when alcohol
levels get really high I guess).

[warning: views regurgitated may be untested but they sound reasonable]
:icon_vomit:

I haven't used honey in brewing myself though look forward to a go at some
stage. I've had James Boag Honey Porter in the past that were quite nice.

T.

 

[hopie89]

Actually, the way I read it is no, if the enzymes are not deactivated by
pasteurisation, all the normally unfermentable sugars (that provide some
level of sweetness) will end up getting fermented regardless of how high
you increase your grain bill (subject to yeast ability to work when alcohol
levels get really high I guess).

[warning: views regurgitated may be untested but they sound reasonable]
:icon_vomit:

I haven't used honey in brewing myself though look forward to a go at some
stage. I've had James Boag Honey Porter in the past that were quite nice.

T.

Yeah I kind of thought that aswell so I might stick with my first thought and just put the honey in for the last bit of the boil to help it dissolve a bit.
Cheers,
Hopie

 

[MaltyHops]

It will be interesting to see how you go. Note that the Honey Farm
article's description on how to pasteurise is to heat honey at 80C
for two and a half hours so a wort boil at 60 - 90 mins may or may
not be enough. [oops - even less if you add at boil end]

In any case, the article suggests adding honey just at the high krausen
point so it might be like dry hopping in order to get the flavour benefit
of adding honey otherwise it's just an expensive way of adding sugar.

T.

 

[hopie89]

It will be interesting to see how you go. Note that the Honey Farm
article's description on how to pasteurise is to heat honey at 80C
for two and a half hours so a wort boil at 60 - 90 mins may or may
not be enough. [oops - even less if you add at boil end]

In any case, the article suggests adding honey just at the high krausen
point so it might be like dry hopping in order to get the flavour benefit
of adding honey otherwise it's just an expensive way of adding sugar.

T.

Yeah I might even just put it at the start of the boil for my first attempt. Its only a small batch so the expense isn't too bad, and its all about experimentation. If that doesn't work ill try the pasteurisation method and add at high krausen.
Cheers,
Hopie

 

[linny]

Hey just doing a bit of research ,,, found this thread . reading here https://www.matildabay.com.au/#beez-neez

they use pale ale malt and wheat malt ,,, where does the pilsner malt come into it ? im fairly new at this so please dumb it down ... HAHAHA i was looking at 55% pale malt to 45% wheat malt with POR hops with a couple of hundred grams of honey in the boil , do you think this sounds feasable ?

 

[TimT]

Personally I wouldn't want to pasteurise. Denaturises the honey and you lose a lot of that honey quality. Do research about how to use honey (small quantities, added at peak ferment, mixed in with water is usually what's recommended with beer) for best results.

Using honey for priming would seem to be a recipe for disaster - harder to dissolve than normal sugar, I'd imagine - and when it comes out of the beehive it is almost impossible for yeast to get to. Not liquid enough. It also has weird anti-bacterial properties, maybe due to substances added to the nectar when the bees ingest it and vomit it up.

Beez Neez use honey - though probably a standard variety they trust, from bees that collect nectar from one primary source (clover honey or something like that).

 

[linny]

Are you talking something like this ? http://beersmith.com/blog/2009/09/05/brewing-beer-with-honey/

 

[TimT]

Note also honey typically has a long ferment time, 12-16 weeks. Not sure if the pasteurisation would change that. Possibly, if some of the fructose sugars get converted back to glucose.

 

[Tahoose]

I'm also looking at doing this but on a 50/50 grain bill with ale malt and wheat 25 ibu's with POR and fermenting with a decent pitch of Nottingham ale yeast, adding the honey (dissolved) at about day 3.

Maybe I could bump up the temperature by a couple of degrees once the honey is in also.. But with a heathy pitch It should ferment out ok.

My other thought was maybe mash at 68-69c and assume that the sugars in the honey will be stripped out. Hopefully leaving some sweetness from the grain

 

[linny]

Could you post how it goes ? I wont be able to do this till next weekend

 

[Tahoose]

I dare say you'll get to this before me, have a pale ale on the cards for the next brew.

 

[Tahoose]

So update on my clone.



Beez Neez on the left and mine on the right. Not quite what I was after but it's drinkable...

Ended up with 38% of both Ale Malt and Wheat Malt, and the remainder in honey.

POR to 30 IBU's

5.5% ABV in the Bottle.

It has a thin body but I think this is due to the amount of honey, In future I'd limit the honey to maybe 10%.

It poured a little cloudy but after about 5 mins it dropped clear and on the last sip I got a bit more of a honey taste than the rest of the beer.

Was it worth doing - of course!

Will I do it again? Not for I while I don't think.