honey in beer
 

I've been thinking of adding 2 cups of honey to my boiling wort for some extra sugar for the yeast to munch on. I'll be using 6 pounds of liquid malt and about 1.5 lbs of crystalized malts. Has anyone used honey for extra sugar? As far as hops go I was planning on using 1 1/2 oz of Perle for 1st, 1 oz. Cascade for 2nd, and 1/2 oz cascade for aromatic. I like strong drinks and it seems that everything I brew is low in alc content, from 4.5% to 6%. I'm aiming for 7 - 9%, yet still have a nice body to the beer.

Any comments anyone?

Honey beers are pretty common. There are even some commercial ones out there.

Beware that as you get higher alchohol beers, they will take a lot longer to ferment and age to a pleasant taste. 4-6% doesn't sound low too me...more like typical beer.

Also, you don't need honey to make stronger beer. More DME will do the trick for sure.

All that said, honey can be fun to play with :D

Janx

I've done the honey thing a few times. One thing to be aware of is it seems to produce a much more agressive fermentation, blow off tube time.

So, DME is basically crystaliszed malt extract? I'm a total noob when it comes to brewing beer!

Yes
 

DME stands for dried malt extract. Same as the syrup, but with more water removed.
Getting back to the honey, however, I've used it in the boil, the primary, secondary, and at bottling. If you prime with it, it will take much longer to carbonate, as beer yeast has to choke down the more complex sugars that make up honey.This takes awhile. It will still be doing its thing months later, sometimes. Hope this helps,
Tom

I've read that you should just put it in with the boil, but don't use too much because it gives very strong flavours.

Well, I cooked up that batch with honey today and stuck it in the fermentor. I eventually used 6lbs of liquid malt, 2lbs of dme, and 1lbs of clover honey. I had a SG of 1.055. That's still lower than I was hoping for but we'll see how it turns out. I tasted a little of the wort before I put it in the fermentor, I didn't taste the honey at all, it just tasted like a really sweet wort. I guess I'll have to wait a month to see if it turns out ok....

I've experimented with honey the last few batches. I have never been able to taste the honey in the final product. (not that sophisticated :eek: ). The alcohol content hovered around 9 % which would be almost double the normal content. Gotta love that!

sounds like an idea, I'd like to try it. I've used corn syrup as a fermentable but not honey yet. Any thoughts on maple syrup too?

I've never added maple syrup as a fermentable, but have heard it works quite well.