Honey, Honey...

[deebee]

I am going to try honey in a brew or two. I know it's been covered before and will do a search when I get home. But anyone got any tips on styles, quantities, yeasts?

Likewise warnings on what to avoid?

Cheers in advance...

 

[GMK]

Make some:
- mead
- Honey Wheat
- Honey Larger

You can add 1kg of honey in liue of LME.....
Go easy on the hops for the beers, dont want to over power the honey.
Can add some spices as well - again go easy - Cinnamon, nutmeg and or cloves.
If boiling the honey - good idea if it is natural (except wheat) scim the crud off the top in the boil and add spices 2mins before flame out.

Hope this helps

 

[deebee]

Thanks Ken.

 

[Jovial_Monk]

If you boil honey you drive off all the aromatics, if you skim the scum off boiling honey you remove what yeast nutrients honey posseses. Maybe in beer it won't matter too much, but it would in a mead.

I would add my honey straight into the fermenter, dump and stir. Honey has such a high sugar content that any bacteria landing on it has the juices sucked out of it by osmosis, i.e. honey is clean. If not sure about that, add the honey to your wort post boil.

About the only kit beer I remember at all is a tin of Morgans Blue Mountain Lager with a kilo of honey, blue gum IIRC. Drink the beer reasonably quickly. Some really good brewers use honey as the sugar when making Belgians. I use a kilo of honey to add to my RISs, though there the honey taste does not really come through all the dark malts.

Jovial Monk

 

[Snow]

My Tripel that won the National comp had a kilo of Capilano Pure Honey in it. It was boiled for 60 mins with the other fermentables and worked perfectly.

- Snow

 

[Jovial_Monk]

i did say the boiling or not boiling was not as important in a beer. In a mead, however, it would destroy all honey aroma.

There is no need to boil honey.

Jovial Monk

 

[GMK]

i did say the boiling or not boiling was not as important in a beer. In a mead, however, it would destroy all honey aroma.

There is no need to boil honey.

Jovial Monk

The mead brewer from Canbrewers - won the mead category in the state and Nationals uptil they took it out - Quotes the following:

"Boiling the honey does loose some of the aromatics but makes the mead alot cleaner and clearer.
The scum on top that we remove is mostly the left over wax residue.

Not boiling the honey - gives a more cloudy and aromatic mead."

JM

I have some mead brewed from last may. I used honey caps that i steeped in water for a week. Boiled with spices, skimmed the wax and crap off and fermenting with liquid sweet mead yeast, yeast nutrient and a few oak chips.
SG = 1130 Racked it twice now and it is approx 1040.
Removed the oak chips the other day.

I can bring a sample along to your AG day with Batz on the 17Apr04 if you would like to try some even though it will probably not still have finished fermenting by then.

But it was Very tasty and Aromatic the other day when i racked it.

 

[Snow]

Ken,

what FG would you expect on that mead?

- Snow

 

[Jovial_Monk]

I would LOVE to taste the mead!

If you ever buy bulk honey from a wholefood store then try not boiling and see how it goes.

I do not claim to be an expert on mead, but I was quoting some expert meadmakers on the RatChat (http://www.skotrat.com/skotrat/brew-rat-chat/ and bring a thick skin and a sense of huimor along)

Jovial Monk

 

[GMK]

Ken,

what FG would you expect on that mead?

- Snow

I am hoping to get the FG down to 1008

Problem is...with Quality Control in place i now only have approx 5 ltrs left - if that.

By the time it gets there - i will probably be lucky to have 12 stubbies.

As i am still not setup for AG yet...

I might brew a mead when Batz comes over....

Have a merry mead making April instead of May...

 

[mick]

If you boil honey you drive off all the aromatics, if you skim the scum off boiling honey you remove what yeast nutrients honey posseses. Maybe in beer it won't matter too much, but it would in a mead.

I would add my honey straight into the fermenter, dump and stir. Honey has such a high sugar content that any bacteria landing on it has the juices sucked out of it by osmosis, i.e. honey is clean. If not sure about that, add the honey to your wort post boil.

About the only kit beer I remember at all is a tin of Morgans Blue Mountain Lager with a kilo of honey, blue gum IIRC. Drink the beer reasonably quickly. Some really good brewers use honey as the sugar when making Belgians. I use a kilo of honey to add to my RISs, though there the honey taste does not really come through all the dark malts.



JM...

Is this all i need ?

I can kit and a kilo of honey ?

how about hops ?

and how was it anyway ?

Cheers

 

[Jovial_Monk]

All I need?

hey it is your beer! make it simple or complicated! For simple, yet different, batch, yup can wort, kilo honey

I remember the lovely honey notes in the beer. . .

JM

 

[mick]

Do you remember the FG ? I want a beer around 5 % mark.


May need to add some dextrose still.

Cheers

 

[Jovial_Monk]

The Fg? hmmmmm nope

OK can kit, figure 23 points, 62% used up by the yeast, 14 units used up, 9 units left after ferment
Honey, hmmm degrees extract say 303, GU=303*1/23=13 points all turned to alcohol

so, 23+13=36OG
9 units left, *1.23 to convert Ra to AA=11 so the FG was 1011 by my figures

this is after a litre or three of 6% Mild. . .

so, 36-17=

 

[Boots]

I just got myfirst issue of BYO which I subscribed to and there was a good article on brewing with Honey, Treacle, molasses, and sugars, by John Palmer.

He said that honey should definitely be pasteurised before adding it to the brew as there are/can be nasties in honey. This should be done by adding the honey to the boiled wort after flame-out but before cooling. Boiling will take away most of the honey character. He also gave a range of amounts to add to a 19L batch to get different levels of honey character. I'm at work at the mo, so don't have the article with me. If anyone's interested I can post them later.

Cheers

 

[Jovial_Monk]

Once again, do not believe everything you read

Daniels has the same crap about honey

just add honey to the fermenter, no need to pasteurise
I got this from several rats who have won many, many prizes in the US in meads and beer. i have made several beers that included honey by adding it to the fermenter, "dump and stir" and they ALL were OK

JM

 

[GMK]

Snow

Just talked to DOminic Canberra brewers Mead Master...

Told my mead should be bottled around the 1025 FG mark...

Will not get to 1008.

 

[Jovial_Monk]

Hmmmm I guess

My mixed berry melomel started at 1130, after a week of vigorous fermentation I took another SG reading: 1130! So, determining the OG of a mead must is difficult as the heavy honey sinks to the bottom.

That melomel attenuated down to 1028-1030ish from memory. The amount of attenuation depends greatly on the yeast you use, with champagne honey attenuating the must the most, white wine yeast a lot less

I added no oakchips, but some fine pips from the fruit got into the bottles and upped the tannin content (just as well, the mel was rather bland to start with) Last bottle I tasted a few weeks ago, tannin had stopped increasing and the fruit flavor had started developing. Reckon it will be perfect in 2005 by which time it will be 3 years old (pitched it in Mar 2002)

And I just dumped the honey in the fermenter

The fruit was pasteurised by being held at 80C for 20 mins. If you want to pasteurise your honey mix it with hot water, bring to 80C then hold for 20 mins


Jovial Monk

 

[Snow]

Do you need to add extra sugars to carbonate mead? Or does the high OG encourage self-carbonation?

- Snow

 

[Jovial_Monk]

My melomel is in bottles over a year, sealed with corks not caps. The corks don't look like they are being forced out by CO2 pressure. Also, the bottle of it that I drank, no sign of the slightest hint of spritzig.

I guess the long secondary drops out a lot of yeast. Also, with a strong mead, and most are, the yeast cannot tolerate the alcohol and so will not ferment in the bottle

Jovial Monk