Formulating Honey (wheat) Ale Recipe

[TimT]

Straight in. Don't boil. You'll lose all the floral goodness.

As to which variety of honey to use, there are heaps - it depends a bit on what you want your final brew to taste like. Light honeys that ferment out with a neutral taste are supposed to be good to brew with - clover honey, orange blossom honey. Can't vouch for that. We've had three, maybe four main honey harvests; our second to last was very old and dirty (it came from the oldest part of the hive) and who knows *what* it had in it, probably more than a bit of eucalyptus. But it made some very nice meads. Our last batch was by contrast light and delicate (it may have come from autumn garden flowers, rather than big blossoming fruit trees - I dunno, maybe more sucrose, less fructose?), and tastes beautiful on sandwiches. But it didn't seem to ferment as well - I've made a dry and fairly bland rose-hip mead with it (some character and body should come with age). It made a nice bochet, but then again bochet is all about the dark colour and toffee flavours, and that stuff makes anything taste good.

Taste a few samples of honey, and try and think what they'll ferment out like.

 

[Forever Wort]

As for braggot I'm pretty sure the idea traditionally is to have a malt base with honey as an additive, though I'm interested in what happens if you switch that around. A honey beer will always taste like a beer, with some subtle honey qualities - but I now wonder what a maltose mead might taste like.

My understanding is that if an alcoholic drink is composed of 51% malt-based fermentables and 49% honey-based fermentables, then it is a honey beer. If it is 51% honey and 49% malt, it is a braggot.