Honey?

**jma99** · 12-02-2006, 02:22 AM

Greetings!
Tomorrow morning I'm planning on brewing NB's Irish Draught AG.
The directions call for adding 1lb of honey into the fermenter.

Fermenter?! I thought honey was full of those tiny bugs.....

Should I add it to the fermenter or the boil?
If it's to be the boil, how long?

Many Thanks!

Joel

Adrian Abascal · 12-02-2006, 02:40 AM

I never heard of honey bugs (baby bees?) but I wouldent worry. Honey is known for its anti bacterial properties and the yeast will act as competitive inhibition to the bugs.

disaffected · 12-02-2006, 03:26 AM

Honey is chock-full of living critters including wild yeasts and bacteria. Boiling it drives off a lot of the volatile flavors and aromas, but not boiling it risks infection. You could pasteurize it, or you might just dump it in to your wort for the last few minutes of the boil, but you shouldn't put raw unpasteurized honey in your cooled wort.

Check out this Honey in Beer PDF document that you can download from The National Honey Board.

There's also a PDF document they provide that explains How to make Mead.

Adding a bunch of honey to beer just ruins it, in my opinion. But that is clearly a matter of taste. Lots of people like it.

homebrewer_99 · 12-02-2006, 04:01 AM

I don't care for honey in beer either.

t-dogg · 12-02-2006, 05:42 AM

i agree i would not put honey into my cooled wort honey is very fermentable so i have used a lb or so to boost al. content

**jma99** · 12-02-2006, 10:00 AM

Thanks guys!
It's 5:58amand my strike water is allmost up to temp.....

I'll add the 1 lb of honey at the end of the boil. That should take care of killing any lingering critters.

First time I've added honey to an Irish style myself, so here goes......