Honey in Mead vs. Beer

For someone who brews Beer with honey, are the rules the same as with Mead?

1) What is the highest heat a beer brewer should subject his/her honey?
2) What % honey should we use in a beer recipe to get subtle aroma/flavor, but not make it a honey beer?
3) What would you consider the best process for adding honey to beer?
4) What specific type of honey do you recommend?
5) Do we need to take any special steps to sanitize/pasteurize the honey?
6) Any other tips you can think of?

For the first three questions... I'm thinking 100 F tops, 10-15% total honey, and adding it to either primary, secondary, or possibly 3/4 of the way through chilling the wort.

what are you trying to make? beer? or mead?

mead is honey mixed with water. amount of each sort of depend on what you are trying to make.

Beer. Sorry, I thought that was clear.

I have used honey before in beer, but I wanted to get some confirmation from the honey pros in the mead forum.

I figure the more you know the better.

Post-boil, post-chill honey addition. No need to pasteurize, but use good sanitization with your containers and so forth.

Get raw honey if possible. I like Tupelo but according to everybody I've read, the rule is: if it tastes good, use it!

Was that a post-boil AND a post-chill addition, or just one addition in the primary/secondary? Do you recommend adding if before pitching the yeast, or during active fermentation?

I'd go post-chill. And I'm thinking that the quantity is going to depend on your malts and the type of honey that you're using and how much of it you want to show through. As well as perhaps the type of beer. I used around 13% for a lager and it had quite a bit of its honey properties. Don't know if this is true yet though haven't had the temperature for more lagers.

I've only used orange blossom honey twice before in IPAs, but I wanted more aroma from it.

The beers are mostly 7-9% IPAs with tons of American NW fragrant hops and smooth but high bitterness... Similar to Surly Abrasive but way drier. I'm thinking much of the aroma from a post-chill/pre-fermentation honey addition of 10-15% will dissipate.

I know from drinking good mead that it's the most fragrant of all beverages. I was hoping to get some of that aroma without focusing 30-100% of my recipe on honey. Perhaps a better process would help.

I've been doing some honey beers since mid 90's (my favorite is a honey coriander steam, and am kegging a honey blonde this weekend). I add my honey at flame out. Still hot enough to "pasteurize" bot not too hot for very long to boil off honey character. I usually add between 3 & 4lbs of honey. I have been augmenting with some honey malt (between .25 & .5lb, but never above .5lb)

I've been buying local wildflower honey, results have been good. I have experimented with grocery store honey in a pinch, but it always seems bland & lacking.

I warm honey jar in pot of warm water to make pouring easier.

Have you considered back-blending with a good mead? I've never tried it, but it'd be easy to experiment with different blend ratios to get the aroma you're after.

TyTanium said:

Have you considered back-blending with a good mead? I've never tried it, but it'd be easy to experiment with different blend ratios to get the aroma you're after.

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Now that's an idea! A little intricate, but it would probably yield great results.

Not haveing done beer, grain of salt here.

My thoughts are that if you are sweetening the beer with honey then add it in the secondary, that is post the active fermentation and when your rack it off of the lees that the first active fermentation. A technique called backsweetening is where you add the honey after you stop or slow down the yeast with Postasium Sorbate and Sulfates. This way the yeast doesn't eat up your honey and you need less honey.

If you want the honey's sugar to actually be fermented along with the wort then you want to add it when you pitch your yeast, just before when the temp is low enough so as not to kill the yeast is fine. By the Way: This is actually called a Braggot. Sort of a medium ground between beer and mead.

Honey does not require heating or sterilization. It is naturally antiseptic in it's natrual liquid form. The reason why sanitation is important on your containers is that once you thin out that honey with the wort it loses that antiseptic quality. Same thing if you add even 10% water to honey. When it is too liquidy it is no longer antiseptic. But at that point you are in a realitively sterile (minus the yeast you are using) environment so it doesn't matter. And heating the honey up can lose some of the delicate aroma and flavors. Did you know that they used honey and gauze only in the civil war to treat wounds?

Type of honey: Best for unfiltered, so called "Raw" honey. Don't buy from a grocery store. One of those whole food stores MAYBE, like Alfalfa's, Whole Foods, Vitamin Cottage are a so-so honey that is comercially availible. Best to buy honey from an apiary or through a honey dealer online or even a farmer's market. Unless you find a deal for buying in bulk then you will pay more for the honey. But trust me, the unfiltered, realitively unheated honey is worth it. Note sometimes such honey will be partially crystalized. Heating that up is OK but I wouldnt go over 100 degeres for even a coulple of minutes. Just enough to melt it into your wort is all that is needed.

Hope that this helps.

bobbrews said:

For someone who brews Beer with honey, are the rules the same as with Mead?

1) What is the highest heat a beer brewer should subject his/her honey?
2) What % honey should we use in a beer recipe to get subtle aroma/flavor, but not make it a honey beer?
3) What would you consider the best process for adding honey to beer?
4) What specific type of honey do you recommend?
5) Do we need to take any special steps to sanitize/pasteurize the honey?
6) Any other tips you can think of?

For the first three questions... I'm thinking 100 F tops, 10-15% total honey, and adding it to either primary, secondary, or possibly 3/4 of the way through chilling the wort.

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1) you don't need to heat it at all, just warm it enough to get it to pour...I find it helpful to mix it in a small quantity of warm water as well. There is indeed concern for loss of aromatics with heating, and this is much more important with small additions to a beer than it is for a brew that's made with a more significant percentage of honey.

2) The break point between beer and braggot, I've always felt, is about 50%. I've seen some people still call it at braggot at 40% of fermentables as honey. I assume you're only talking about adding a pound or two, and only having a small percentage of honey. A couple of thoughts here though:
.....a) you may get more honey like character by using honey malt than from actually adding honey. It's not that you can't get honey character from honey itself in a beer, but it can be subtle, and depends a lot on exactly what your base beer is, and on the honey itself. A pound of clover honey probably won't show up much in a robust porter, but add a pound of buckwheat to a cream ale, and you have a very different animal!
.....b) I think it's best to add honey near the *end* of primary ferment...things starting to wind down, but not quite done... The vigor of primary fermentation, and the huge amount of CO2 off-gassing can also scrub a significant amount of aroma out. By adding the honey later, you get a less vigorous "secondary primary" fermentation that I think carries the character of the addition out to the end better.

3) See 2b)

4) As per 2a), you will get more bang from your buck from a more robust, strongly flavored honey...

5) No...just pitch it in...

6) Consider mashing a little higher to maintain body...you will thin out the beer a little by adding a fully fermentable sugar source like honey

Good info guys.

See, I don't want the sweetness or an obvious flavor character from the honey malt. I usually skip crystal malt altogether, so I don't want any of those similar traits. I want a pleasant but subtle aromatic note from real, quality honey in a dry hoppy beer. I usually use 5-10% corn sugar additions, so the honey would replace that at 10-15%.

TyTanium said:

Have you considered back-blending with a good mead? I've never tried it, but it'd be easy to experiment with different blend ratios to get the aroma you're after.

Click to expand...

See "Braggot" -- this is a mead-beer blend. Mixed one up yesterday with a sweet mead and IPA -- quite tasty. I did roughly a 50/50 mix.

I don't think that quite counts as a braggot.

Curtis2010 said:

See "Braggot" -- this is a mead-beer blend. Mixed one up yesterday with a sweet mead and IPA -- quite tasty. I did roughly a 50/50 mix.

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bk0 said:

I don't think that quite counts as a braggot.

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Yes it does... From the BJCP description:

Ingredients: A braggot is a standard mead made with both honey and malt providing flavor and fermentable extract. Originally, and alternatively, a mixture of mead and ale. A braggot can be made with any type of honey, and any type of base beer style. (emphasis added)

Unfortunately the descriptions only provide rough guidance as to what proportion of honey is required to make something a braggot. It does say this:

Comments: Sometimes known as “bracket” or “brackett.” The fermentable sugars come from a balance of malt or malt extract and honey, although the specific balance is open to creative interpretation by brewers. ... Products with a relatively low proportion of honey should be entered in the Specialty Beer category as a Honey Beer. (again, emphasis added)

I think the OP's 10-15% is more of the specialty/honey beer range...