When to add Honey?

My next brew is going to be a blonde ale and i was going to add a couple of pounds of clove honey to it to try and raise the abv a little and add a unique taste. When would be a good time to add the honey?

add honey malt for a honey flavor. liquid honey will raise the abv but you won't detect the honey flavor.

It will be completely fermented out and in the process it will raise the ABV, dry out the beer and leave behind little to no aroma or flavor. If that is the goal, go for it, but sugar is significantly cheaper and will do the same thing. If you want honey flavors add a touch of honey malt.

Excuse my ignorance but what do you mean by dry out the beer?

thood6 said:

Excuse my ignorance but what do you mean by dry out the beer?

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When you add things that are almost entirely fermentable like sugar, honey, etc. it ferments out completely without leaving behind any body. It can be used to your advantage if you want a refreshing beer lacking body like a saison, but it can also be detrimental if you want the beer to have a malt backbone.

Add it 5 min after flameout and if you want in the fermentor.

High grade will indeed leave a pronounced taste-aroma.

The only honey I use is Leighton’s Orange Blossom Honey.

When I used honey it was advised to cool the wort to around 110* then add the honey (honey is antimicrobial I believe, so no worries of bacteria). The aromatics / flavor compounds will boil/evaporate off if its added to very hot wort.

Like Houblon I used an orange blossom honey and mine also had a very noticeable honey taste.

Honey is about 80% fermentable sugars, not completely (which would be 100%). So you can get some flavor additions from it. Which is why mead tastes like it does. BUT, beer (and the malts in it) tend to overpower the honey flavors rather easily.

If you want noticeable honey flavor, use honey malt. If you want to boost the abv of the brew, and still want to use honey, use an extra pound of DME too. Your best chance to get honey flavors to come through is to add it once the wort is chilled to under 110-100F. You can so add ir once fermmntation hs slowed down (after a week or three) in primary. You can also prime woth honey if you're going to bottle the batch.

Personally, I've done both/all of the addition types and have gone to using honey malt instead of honey, in my beers. I save honey for making mead.

Also, you'll want a honey with strong flavor on its own in order for it to have any chance in a beer.

the best way too add honey is to add it to the wort after a week fermenting.. cook the honey in a little water for 5 min at 170 deg then let it cool to the temp of the fermenting beer and add it to the wort at the peak of fermentation(apro 1 week) you will get great aroma from it and it will let the more complex sugars ferment out first.. this is the best way to add honey but rt after flame out(when the wort is still 170 deg or higher) isnt wrong ether.

use dark high quality honey

If you heat honey above 100F you might as well just use sugar or DME. You do NOT need to heat honey AT ALL. It is 100% safe without ANY heating.

I always just put it in the fermenter before I added the cooled wort. Put a gallon or two of wort onto the honey, shake it violently to get it to dissolve, then add the rest of the wort. It does dry out the beer, but you can taste honey flavor with as little as 1 or 2 pounds of honey in 5 gallons of beer.

I will likely use honey malt in the future, though, as it didn't give enough honey flavor for me. And high quality honey is expensive.

The darker the honey the stronger the honey flavor - typically. Clover is a pretty light honey, you might want to look for a buckwheat or alphalpha or a wild flower honey from a hot state like TX, NM, AZ.

Become friends with a local bee keeper, or if you want to raise bees send me a message. The cool thing about honey is it takes on flavors from the plants the bees worked. This is how you end up with a true orange(citirus), watermelon (vine fruit) or my favorite and super expensive (to the consumer ) mesquite honey.

If your looking for the best (imo) brewing honey around, go with raw goldenrod honey. It stinks..bad.. but has a lower amount of fructose giving you a drier brew, but the taste really comes through since its not completely consumed by the yeast. The smell dies after a while.

I hear that holly honey is just as good if not better than goldenrod, but i dont have any growing around my apiary.

Hope this helps

To all the nay sayers I had to back off the honey as it was overpowering, again a tried & well tested recipe that has been posted since 2007 on NB forum.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f70/panty-dropper-honey-wheat-151570/

High grade honey, low hops, ferment cold, clean yeast and it works every time.

As per earlier comments, my understanding is that honey adds little in terms of flavor/aroma, but I'm brewing a honey kolsch next and adding in some real honey seems the appropriate thing to do. Some report that a quality honey at FO is detectable and I'm wondering if others have experience with this. I'm posting my recipe below. The honey portion will be to boost from 5 to 6% abv. Kolsch is thin enough to begin with though, so I will be adding some dextrin malt to maintain a balanced mouthfeel. Appreciate any feedback, especially your experiences with honey and if it adds to flavor or aroma in any way.

HONEY KOLSCH (5.5 gal / 1.055 / 24 IBU)
78% 2 Row
8% Vienna
8% Clover honey @ 0 (100F)
3% Honey Malt
3% Carapils
1 oz Hallertauer Trad @ 60 & 10 *
0.5 oz Hallertauer Trad @ 0 *
WY 2565 Kolsch

* I opted to increase Kolsch hopping rates to work with the higher than average abv.

How many pounds does honey add per pound? I have an OG of 1.040 I want to adjust to 1.050

stever1000 said:

How many pounds does honey add per pound? I have an OG of 1.040 I want to adjust to 1.050

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About 0.008 points, or 0.75% alcohol. This calculator is a great tool for figuring amounts out:
https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/calculator/

EDIT: forgot to say my above calculation assumes 5.5 gallons. Lefou's post made me realize this omission.

How many gravity points does one pound of honey add?
That depends on the type of honey, the specific gravity and amount of liquid it's mixed with.
If you mix one lb. of honey into one gallon of water it would yield a gain of approximately 40 gravity points and 4% ABV. If you want 10 points of gravity, about 4oz. of honey/gallon of water would work and should give you approximately 1% ABV boost. Yeast and temperature will make a difference on FG, but the calculator will give you a general idea.

Any online calculator can help crunch numbers for you. I typically use Brewer's Friend for my baseline recipes.

rhys333 said:

About 0.008 points, or 0.75% alcohol. This calculator is a great tool for figuring amounts out:
https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/calculator/

EDIT: forgot to say my above calculation assumes 5.5 gallons. Lefou's post made me realize this omission.

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Lefou said:

How many gravity points does one pound of honey add?
That depends on the type of honey, the specific gravity and amount of liquid it's mixed with.
If you mix one lb. of honey into one gallon of water it would yield a gain of approximately 40 gravity points and 4% ABV. If you want 10 points of gravity, about 4oz. of honey/gallon of water would work and should give you approximately 1% ABV boost. Yeast and temperature will make a difference on FG, but the calculator will give you a general idea.

Any online calculator can help crunch numbers for you. I typically use Brewer's Friend for my baseline recipes.

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I will check out brewers friend, but for quick reference, is it 16oz = 40 points or 16oz = 8 points?

Let's assume you start out with one gallon of water - SG of 1.000. Add 16oz. of generic honey and you'd expect a jump to 1.040 or thereabouts. It's really an estimate, but using a hydrometer to verify is good insurance.

Different honeys have different degrees of sugar per pound, so +1 to the checking with a hydrometer.

Sorry for the confusion...if my wort is 1.040 and the honey mixture is 1.040...how do I get to 1.050

If you add the 1 lb of honey to 1 gal of 1.040 wort, you add 40 points to the wort for a total of 1.080.

So a quarter pound of honey per gallon will raise it to about 1.050.

stever1000 said:

Sorry for the confusion...if my wort is 1.040 and the honey mixture is 1.040...how do I get to 1.050

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How big of a batch are you brewing stever? If its a standard 5 to 5.5 gallon batch, you need 1.25 lbs of honey. That'll mean about 13% of your fermentables are honey. I like to keep simple sugars like honey in the 5-8% range, or up to 10% max to prevent too thin a body.

rhys333 said:

How big of a batch are you brewing stever? If its a standard 5 to 5.5 gallon batch, you need 1.25 lbs of honey. That'll mean about 13% of your fermentables are honey. I like to keep simple sugars like honey in the 5-8% range, or up to 10% max to prevent too thin a body.

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Yes that's correct, 5.5 gallon batch

Thanks for the help everyone

I think with too much honey and you risk a stalled fermentation also, as nutrients could run short, is that true? I've got some honey malt on order and it seems like some of each would work nicely.....hmmm......

I am looking to make a guinness clone with a little bit of honey sweetness so when served on nitro you get just a little bit of honey flavor in the head.

In this post guys say to use honey malt for flavor. How much would i use in a 5 gallon BIAB BREW.
Thanks for any help,
Tom

I only add honey after fermentation is complete or appears to be completing.

Also, I recommend unprocessed honey. "raw" or "organic" labels are a good indicator. Better is your local farmers market.

Most honey from the store is highly filtered. Removing pollen and other flavors.

The darker the honey, the better. Just like maple syrup. you want the "darkness" if you want the flavor.

some "honey malt" is also a good way.

do both.