Brewing with Honey - Maximizing Flavour

Gentlemen and Gentlewomen,

I have been home brewing beer for nine months now and have thus far mainly focused on working with honey. My current project is a honey back lager and I am currently working on a third batch. Obviously the problem I am having is getting the honey flavor to come out more and not be overshadowed by the dark beer. I am getting small improvements with each attempt but am now seeking advice from others. So far this is what I've tried:

Adding honey later in the brewing- The idea here is that the yeast fill up on grain and so less honey is fermented leaving more taste

Scaling back on specialty grains- the first batch ever used a lot of grain, with the addition of honey it made for a really strong beer (I think that's whats caused it anyway)

Trying new yest- This is what I'm currently doing, Im still a novice and would like to choose a lager yeast that will die off around 5% alcohol. I would love recommendations

Using honey as a bottling primer- Still tinkering with how much to add but I use plastic bottles so now damage has happened...yet (about 100-100g for 23L seems to work well)

I want to try adding more honey, right now I've been adding 2kg to each 23L batch. I'm worried this might have the same effect the grains did and make it stronger (law of mass action). I also wondered if it would be worth it to brew the honey into mead first, then add it to the beer (I kind of doubt this will work).

I don't want to share too many specifics of my recipe, but will answer any questions people might have.

try using honey malt to complement it. honey is nearly 100% fermentable so its hard to get some flavor left behind. you could maybe try making candi syrup with it in hopes the maliard reactions leave more flavor behind https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/20-lb-sugar-jar-yeast-nutrient-114837/

I've had good results with honey malt- just don't use too much of it! Another method I've found works well for honey is to dilute it half & half with water and then pour it into your fermenter around day 3 or at high krausen. I've done that a couple times and perceived a lot more honey-sweetness-aroma than adding the honey at the end of the boil. Your mileage may vary. Gluck.

Have you tried using honey combs (obviously with honey in it) during a secondary fermantation? I have yet to try it but in theory it should extract theory

I only bottle prime with honey. I was never impressed with honey malt but at the same time, I really only wanted a hint of honey. Its very important to consider the type of honey you are using. Clover honey is pretty useless for flavor. I really like orange blossom as it ends up giving me what I feel is a "true" honey taste. There are some many types but you should do some experimenting.

There's something called brewer's honey a few HBS sell. It's a powder and I'm not entirely sure what it is (maybe dried honey?) but it definitely contributes a huge honey flavor.

What kinds of honey have you been using? In my experience you need to use a really strongly flavored honey for it to really shine in a beer.

Timmyg316 said:

I don't want to share too many specifics of my recipe

Click to expand...

Why not?

Im in the process of putting together a honey brown for the holidays. It will be a tribute beer for Gpa and using honey collected from his hives. I considered several options to keep the abv down around 5%. I think that i will cold crash or lager WL Burton ale yeast and then add honey after transferring to secondary. Bring temp back up, prime and bottle. I, too am looking for a pronounced honey flavor. Looking forward to the replies.

Why not?[/QUOTE]

Because he will have to kill you afterwards.

As a Beekeeper I would use buckwheat honey! Nice and dark, not too sweet but it has a strong flavor.

Dave

Seriously, I wouldn't worry about sharing your recipe- that's the only way we're going to be able to make proper suggestions. Even if you want to go pro (really? really???) there are hundreds of commercial breweries that are happy to hand out their recipes to homebrewers and pros alike. Nobody wants the recipe to Coke because someone already makes it. I just can't get rich selling Sierra Nevada Pale Ale because someone already brewed that.

Chill out, tell us your recipe, and let HBT help you out.

maybe its for obamas next beer

Yea... You need honey malt, at least 5-10% of the grain bill. You can add honey to secondary, and prime with honey. How much to prime with? I use beersmith. Do you? At the minimum use unfiltered uncooked wildflower honey, buckwheat honey would be better. I just sampled a honey ale that had honey malt for 3% of the grain bill and I primed with wildflower honey. The sweet honey aroma is there, but it needs more honey flavor. You can tell its there, just not that prominent. Thats why I say at least 5% maybe 10% for the honey malt. I also might try adding some honey to secondary and see how that works out. So there's some food for thought from my experience. My goal is to keep the honey away from any sort of heat whatsoever. Worried about it mixing up? I stirred my honey (measured by weight first) with maybe a 1/4 cup of boiled and cooled water to thin it out then pour the whole thing in the bottling bucket or secondary whichever.

I guess the reason I wont share it yet is because I want it to be the most it can be. That being said, here is the gist of it.

360g grains (steeped for 20 mins below a boil)
3kg malt extracts (30 min boil)
21g hops (30min boil and 1 min boil)
4k honey (4kg is a test for this particular batch, previous ones have used 2kg - added 11 days after boil)

After boiling you get a specific gravity of 1053, honey is added at 1010 and brew is topped up to 23L.

As for what honey I use. I use honey from a farm in the place I grew up, I want my most important brews to connect somehow to that part of the world. The honey is a wildflower and so it probably is a lot of apple blossoms, squash blossoms (there's a squash farm nearby), clover, dandelions ect.

What I'm thinking is since 4kg of honey is quite a lot (and starting to make the brew expensive) I' try 2kg with some honey malt next attempt.

Try using the Screwy Brewer's site for a bottle carbing calculator. For 2.5 vols in 19L of beer at 70 deg, you could use 143g of honey. Go that from their calculator.

http://www.thescrewybrewer.com/p/brewing-tools-formulas.html#bpc

Gixxer said:

Try using the Screwy Brewer's site for a bottle carbing calculator. For 2.5 vols in 19L of beer at 70 deg, you could use 143g of honey. Go that from their calculator.

http://www.thescrewybrewer.com/p/brewing-tools-formulas.html#bpc

Click to expand...

Not bad, I'll definatly be using this in the future! I put in 23L which is my size and got 170g which is what I previously tried and seemed to much for this style. Honey really is a fickle thing to work with... why is it sooo good tho?

4 kg of honey is insane! It's not even beer at that point, more of a graff. And that's going to be around 12% ABV. You should be getting excellent honey flavor from using not more than 1kg of honey and that's still a ton. Honey malt will give some syrupy honey character, but I would play with your source of honey. Top quality orange blossom honey should impart a lot of flavor. I also will prime with 7 ounces of honey to get a boost and it's worked very well.

It is! I don't think once the dust settles on this recipe I will be using that much (unless its really delicious). I think what I might do next is go back to 2kg and test the honey malt. If that doesn't get the desired effect I might...might try 3kg but I'd like to keep the total cost of the brew below $40CAD.

I thought I would update the topic since the last batch is complete and I am in the midst of brewing an updated version based on comments.

The final version had some additional success. There was certainly an improvement in flavour in some bottles (a little unsure why it was somewhat inconsistant, maybe its fermenting more in the bottle now. Also, it did carbonate nicely, but I didnt write down and SAVE how much honey I added for brewing. Overall, it was drinkable, but quite strong, and expensive to make.

The current version substitutes 200g of crystal and dextrine malt for the same weight of honey malt. I think this is a good idea to try while going back to 2kg of honey. I am also changing up the yeast to this: http://www.wyeastlab.com/rw_yeaststrain_detail.cfm?ID=132 since it has a high attenuation and should reserve more flavor.

My honey amber beer that I brewed in August has all of the honey flavor conditioned out. Granted I used nowhere near the amount of honey and honey malt as you did, but the flavor and aroma progressed from sweet honey to plain beer after two months. In my notes I am going to use more honey malt, honey in primary after a couple days, prime with honey. Also going to adjust bittering hops so the beer can be drank young, like after two weeks of carbing.

Looking forward to your results, I might give that a go...

Timmyg316 said:

I thought I would update the topic since the last batch is complete and I am in the midst of brewing an updated version based on comments.

The final version had some additional success. There was certainly an improvement in flavour in some bottles (a little unsure why it was somewhat inconsistant, maybe its fermenting more in the bottle now. Also, it did carbonate nicely, but I didnt write down and SAVE how much honey I added for brewing. Overall, it was drinkable, but quite strong, and expensive to make.

The current version substitutes 200g of crystal and dextrine malt for the same weight of honey malt. I think this is a good idea to try while going back to 2kg of honey. I am also changing up the yeast to this: http://www.wyeastlab.com/rw_yeaststrain_detail.cfm?ID=132 since it has a high attenuation and should reserve more flavor.

Click to expand...

Just to be clear, high attenuation equals less honey flavor, not more. You want a medium attenuating yeast for what you're trying to accomplish. I highly recommend Denny's favorite 50 Wyeast1450

bottlebomber said:

Just to be clear, high attenuation equals less honey flavor, not more. You want a medium attenuating yeast for what you're trying to accomplish. I highly recommend Denny's favorite 50 Wyeast1450

Click to expand...

I hope your not telling me that the guy at the shop got it wrong >: (

Well, I guess this is why its a process.

Timmyg316 said:

I hope your not telling me that the guy at the shop got it wrong >: (

Well, I guess this is why its a process.

Click to expand...

Wouldn't be the first time the LHBS person gave bad info to a home brewer, won't be the last either.

IMO, use more honey malt. 5-10% of the recipe is a good start. I brewed a honey ale with 12% honey malt and no actual honey in it. Came out with a good amount of honey flavor. Plus honey malt is far cheaper (per pound) than actual honey and it won't ferment out like honey will.

If you go to kegging you could try adding some high quality (and late season harvest) honey to the keg (mix it up like you would for priming with it) then get it in to chill right away. You want to have flavor from the honey, NOT carbonation. I might actually do that for the next time I make the honey ale. I would start with no more than a pound in a 5 gallon keg/volume. Since I use 3 gallon kegs, I'll probably start with 1/2 a pound in each. But only adding it right before the keg goes into the brew fridge to chill down and then carbonate with CO2.