Alternative Sugar Beer White House Honey Ale: 2nd Place, 2013 Chicago Cup

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Pappers_

Moderator Emeritus
HBT Supporter
Joined
Jan 31, 2009
Messages
17,908
Reaction score
4,419
Location
Chicago
Recipe Type
All Grain
Yeast
Windsor
Yeast Starter
no
Additional Yeast or Yeast Starter
no
Batch Size (Gallons)
5.5
Original Gravity
1.053
Final Gravity
1.008
Boiling Time (Minutes)
60
IBU
38
Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp)
62F, 10ish days
Secondary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp)
none
Tasting Notes
Jasmine aroma and flavor from the honey, dry and easy to drink
Yesterday, our version of the White House Honey Ale took 2nd place in the specialty beer category at the 2013 Chicago Cup http://www.bossbeer.org/competition.html

This is an English-style pale ale with high-quality local honey added, which gives it a little more character in both the aroma and flavor, and make its a drier, easy-to-drink beer. This was one of those beers that satisfied both craft and non-craft drinkers alike.

8.5 lbs Pale Malt
1 lbs Munich Malt
1 lb. Wheat Malt
0.75 lb. Caramel Malt 20L
1 lb. Honey
1 oz. East Kent Goldings hops (7% aa) - 60 minutes
1 oz. East Kent Goldings hops - 20 minutes
1 oz. Challenger hops (5% aa) - 5 minutes
Irish Moss
Danstar Windsor Yeast

Mashed at 151F for 60 minutes, single infusion and batch sparge.

Added the honey towards the end, with five or ten minutes to go. Had the honey (which had crystalized) measured out in a large mixing bowl. Added a pitcher or two of hot wort from the boil kettle to the mixing bowl and stirred like crazy to melt the honey. Then poured the whole mixture into the boil kettle.

Fermented at 61F.
 
Cool. Congrats!

How did you enter it? ESB as base style with honey added?

I think I entered it as an English Pale Ale (base style) with honey (special ingredient). And thanks! I was surprised, because often the speciality beer category is dominated by big or over-the-top beers and this isn't that.
 
Did you get any honey flavor in the beer? If so does it fade with time? I was thinking of adding a touch of honey malt.

Did you use MO as your base? I'm thinking of brewing something similar. My inspiration is honey nut Cheerios. I know sounds weird!!!!

I'm thinking victory malt as well
 
Did you get any honey flavor in the beer? If so does it fade with time? I was thinking of adding a touch of honey malt.

Did you use MO as your base? I'm thinking of brewing something similar. My inspiration is honey nut Cheerios. I know sounds weird!!!!

I'm thinking victory malt as well

There was both honey aroma and flavor - with the honey I used (locally produced) it came across as a jasmine and floral aroma and flavor. It hadn't faded much in six months, but I don't know beyond that, I drank it all!

I used Gambrinus Organic Pale Malt as the base malt.

Unlike Honey Nut cheerios, which is sweet, this was a dry a beer, with a FG of 1.008. That dryness made it a very easy to drink beer.
 
New to the forums. I'm going to try your recipe this weekend for my 2nd ever AG brew. However, due to availabilty, I will have to substitute Perle for Challenger and WLP013 for the Danstar Windsor. Curious how this may alter the overall character of this beer. I also plan on using a Belgian Pale 2-row, well, just because :p

Any idea how these changes may alter the overall feel of this recipe? I'm still trying to get a grasp how different yeasts and hops affect flavor. It seems like a giant trial and error method, which I'm OK with because the end result is always beer :drunk:

Thanks.
 
New to the forums. I'm going to try your recipe this weekend for my 2nd ever AG brew. However, due to availabilty, I will have to substitute Perle for Challenger and WLP013 for the Danstar Windsor. Curious how this may alter the overall character of this beer. I also plan on using a Belgian Pale 2-row, well, just because :p

Any idea how these changes may alter the overall feel of this recipe? I'm still trying to get a grasp how different yeasts and hops affect flavor. It seems like a giant trial and error method, which I'm OK with because the end result is always beer :drunk:

Thanks.

London Ale yeast should be an interesting yeast for this beer, but I've not used it so can't comment from experience. I also think the Perle will be fine too, I might consider swapping it for the first East Kent Goldings hop addition, in other words using the Perle at 60 minutes and moving the EKG to the last addition.

Good luck with your second all-grain batch!
 
Cool. I'll give that a shot. Thanks for the advice. I really dig friendly atmosphere here. One more question. I don't have the the capability to ferment at 61. The lowest I can keep it is between 64-66 degrees. Should I expect much ester production at that temp?
 
Cool. I'll give that a shot. Thanks for the advice. I really dig friendly atmosphere here. One more question. I don't have the the capability to ferment at 61. The lowest I can keep it is between 64-66 degrees. Should I expect much ester production at that temp?

That range should be fine for the London yeast.
 
Congrats on the 2nd place!

Id like to brew this but am not sure how to convert the recipe to extract. Anyone have any idea on what the malt/grain would be converted to an extract recipe?
 
Beersmith gave me the following using light dry extract as the base.

3.8 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 20L (20.0 SRM) Grain 1 2.8 %
3 lbs 9.8 oz Light Dry Extract (8.0 SRM) Dry Extract 2 42.4 %
7.0 oz Wheat Liquid Extract (8.0 SRM) Extract 3 5.1 %
3.7 oz Amber Liquid Extract (12.5 SRM) Extract 4 2.7 %
3 lbs 15.9 oz Honey (1.0 SRM)

Does that look close?
 
You know, I forgot to ask... what it's the size of the boil and the sparge?? I'm still pretty new at this. I didn't seem to see it in the OP.
 
Well I just finished brewing this recipe this morning. My God the honey aroma was amazing. The whole thing smelled just like honey wheat bread. My gravity after cooling the wort was a bit high though, about 1.065. My temps may have been off a bit during mash and sparge. We'll see what happens.
 
Pappers_ said:
A couple of weeks, no secondary.

What was your OG and FG? Total IBUs? SRM?

Thanks I'm still in the planning stages. I'm thinking about using wy1968 or wy1084
 
What was your OG and FG? Total IBUs? SRM?

Thanks I'm still in the planning stages. I'm thinking about using wy1968 or wy1084

The numbers are in the first post, the recipe, in this thread. They are part of the form that you fill out when adding a recipe to the database.

OG 1.053
FG 1.008
IBU's (estimated) 38
 
Pappers.... Do you think it would change the beer much other than a little higher gravity and maybe a little darker to increase the Pale Malt to 9lbs and the Caramel20 to 1lb? Just easier to buy in full pound increments.

Thanks,
-Craig
 
Pappers.... Do you think it would change the beer much other than a little higher gravity and maybe a little darker to increase the Pale Malt to 9lbs and the Caramel20 to 1lb? Just easier to buy in full pound increments.

Thanks,
-Craig
I think that would work fine, Craig. It would be a little sweeter because of the caramel, but not a lot and it is already a dry-ish beer because of the honey. My recipe is an adaptation from the extract recipe the White House chefs released.
 
I'm brewing this tomorrow and plugged the recipe into Beersmith and scaled to a 4 gallon batch. It's estimating my IBUs at only 18.2, and that's with me upping them to the same amounts used in the 5 gallon recipe. Any idea why that would happen?

I'm not a hop head but I'm concerned this beer wouldn't be very balanced at only 18 IBUs. I'm a newbie though so I reserve the right to have no idea what I'm talking about here.
 
I'm brewing this tomorrow and plugged the recipe into Beersmith and scaled to a 4 gallon batch. It's estimating my IBUs at only 18.2, and that's with me upping them to the same amounts used in the 5 gallon recipe. Any idea why that would happen?

I'm not a hop head but I'm concerned this beer wouldn't be very balanced at only 18 IBUs. I'm a newbie though so I reserve the right to have no idea what I'm talking about here.

My IBU estimate comes from Beersmith. When I'm able I'll double check Beersmith.

Edit: I checked Beersmith and it says 37.9 IBU for this recipe. 21.6 in the 60 minute addition, 13.1 IBU in the 20 minute addition, and 3.2 IBU in the 5 minute addition.
 
My IBU estimate comes from Beersmith. When I'm able I'll double check Beersmith.

Edit: I checked Beersmith and it says 37.9 IBU for this recipe. 21.6 in the 60 minute addition, 13.1 IBU in the 20 minute addition, and 3.2 IBU in the 5 minute addition.

Thanks... after looking at your numbers I found it was a newbie user error. I had the equipment set to extract and when I changed it to mini BIAB I'm now at 37.8 IBU's in mine. :mug:

Thanks again for sharing the recipe, can't wait to try this one!
 
can anyone covert this to a partial mash recipe?

I'm not using a program or anything, but this is what I would do for a partial mash.

4.5 lbs light DME OR 5.6 lbs light LME
1 lbs pale malt
1 lbs Munich Malt
1 lb. Wheat Malt
0.75 lb. Caramel Malt 20L
1 lb. Honey

Mash grains at 151F for 60 minutes

Everything else remains the same.
 
Love honey beers and have made the original several times. IMO, the addition of 1/3 Honey malt really imarts a true honey flavor as the actual honey ferments out completely dry.
 
Well after much deliberation I decided I under-carbed this one pretty good. Couple that with my OG of 1.065 and I got a very boozy ale. I really think my perle and London ale yeast substitutions have given this beer a truly peculiar character. I think I used just shy of 5 oz of corn sugar for a 5 gallon batch. According to the carbonation chart I followed that amount should be appropriate for the style. Any idea why my carb levels came out so low? It was low enough that even my wife noticed. :p
 
I think I used just shy of 5 oz of corn sugar for a 5 gallon batch. According to the carbonation chart I followed that amount should be appropriate for the style. Any idea why my carb levels came out so low? It was low enough that even my wife noticed. :p

5 ounces is fine for bottle carbonating. How long has it been, at least two or three weeks? Also when you wrote "I think I used . . ." is it possible that you're not sure how much you used?
 
No I definitely used just under 5oz. I did sound uncertain in that post, sorry. I remember weighing out to about 4.75oz of dextrose. I fermented for 2 weeks in primary (i don't usually use a secondary) and bottle conditioned for 3 at around 70 degrees. Then they went to the fridge to sit about 2 more weeks at about 33/34 degrees.

I sampled all throughout the process and found it to taste very boozy. I figured it would settle down after a few weeks. I'll have to give it some more time to see, but they're almost all gone. The family loved it, despite my criticism.
 
No I definitely used just under 5oz. I did sound uncertain in that post, sorry. I remember weighing out to about 4.75oz of dextrose. I fermented for 2 weeks in primary (i don't usually use a secondary) and bottle conditioned for 3 at around 70 degrees. Then they went to the fridge to sit about 2 more weeks at about 33/34 degrees.

I sampled all throughout the process and found it to taste very boozy. I figured it would settle down after a few weeks. I'll have to give it some more time to see, but they're almost all gone. The family loved it, despite my criticism.

One thought about carbonation is to check a bottle for carbonation before moving all of them to the fridge. Have you had issues with carbonation in previous batches? If not, I think you may have just chilled them too early, although three weeks is often/usually plenty to carbonate.
 
Yeah I was checking them periodically like I said. The carbonation felt a little weird but like you stated, 3 weeks should have been plenty.

One thing to consider though... my pint bottles seemed slightly more carbonated than my bombers. Coincidence?
 
FYI

ALL-GRAIN TO EXTRACT
Amount of pale malt x .8125 = amount of liquid malt extract
(example: 8 lbs. pale malt x .8125 = 6.5 lbs. liquid malt extract)

Amount of pale malt x .6875 - amount of dry malt extract (DME)
(example: 8 lbs. pale malt x .6875 = 5.5 lbs. dry malt extract)

Amount of wheat malt x .937 = amount of liquid wheat malt extract
(example: 6.5 lbs. wheat malt x .937 = 6.1 lbs. liquid malt extract)
 
Isn't the President from Chicago? I detect an advantage in the competition just with the name. :)

Just kidding. It does look like a pretty good recipe and I'm sure I'll try it as I'm a fan of english style anything. Congrats!

I did look at the competition results and noticed something a little odd....someone's "old speckled rooster" came in 1st under the English Pale Ale category but it was listed as a Special/Best/Premium Bitter. If I recall, Old Speckled Hen (which I think this person was referring to on the commercial side) is an ESB by category. Of course, like our head brewer always said...you enter the beer on what it is...not what you want it to be. Maybe it should have been called Young Speckled Chick (less body and less oomph).
 
Love honey beers and have made the original several times. IMO, the addition of 1/3 Honey malt really imarts a true honey flavor as the actual honey ferments out completely dry.

I agree that a little honey malt in this recipe would be a good thing. I assume you mean 1/3# not 1/3 of the total grain bill. That stuff is apparently quite strong.
 
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