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steve123

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Been brewing with a buddy of mine for a few months now, he's got culinary experience and we've been playing with some flavors and now it's time to think about spring, so far the recipe looks:

6 lbs Light LME
1 lb Extra Pale DME
1/2 lb Crystal Munich malt
1/4 lb Wheat malt
WLP036 yeast or WLP500 yeast (refer to links)
2 oz Cascade 4.5% (Bittering)
1 oz Amarillo 9% (Aroma)
1 lb wildflower honey

60 min boil
2 hop additions

My opinion is for the WLP500 yeast, has a fruity light plum flavor. And anyone that knows how honey goes, very specific to what nectar and where the it is from.

We'd appreciate the feedback. It's great to have a place to ask beside the local homebrew store.
 
steve123 said:
Been brewing with a buddy of mine for a few months now, he's got culinary experience and we've been playing with some flavors and now it's time to think about spring, so far the recipe looks:

6 lbs Light LME
1 lb Extra Pale DME
1/2 lb Crystal Munich malt
1/4 lb Wheat malt
WLP036 yeast or WLP500 yeast (refer to links)
2 oz Cascade 4.5% (Bittering)
1 oz Amarillo 9% (Aroma)
1 lb wildflower honey

60 min boil
2 hop additions

My opinion is for the WLP500 yeast, has a fruity light plum flavor. And anyone that knows how honey goes, very specific to what nectar and where the it is from.

We'd appreciate the feedback. It's great to have a place to ask beside the local homebrew store.

The later you add the honey, the more flavor you'll get of the honey. So, if you want a stronger honey flavoring wait for the last minute or so of the boil.

Amarillo hops are real nice. I think you'll be pleased with them. You might want to seperate the Cascades addition though. 1 oz at 60 min and then 1 oz at 30 min.
 
I"m not sure what 036 is, but 500 is the chimay trappist yeast. That is some gooood yeast, but I"m not sure how well it will do with the american hops. Maybe go with some noble european hops like hallertauer, styrian goldings or saaz. Just my 2 cents :)
 
I wouldn't use cascade as a bittering hop. I'd use a high AA variety to save a buck or so. Then put the cascades in later when more of the flavor/aroma will come through. Amarillos have nice flavor/aroma too, but I'm not sure how they'll go with the Cascades. Maybe a better hop head than I can talk about that.

As for the pound of honey, I'd slightly dilute it so it mixes better, then add it to secondary, once you already have enough alcohol to potentially kill any nasties in the honey. Expect it to take a month or so ferment out and then another month to condition.

You can also add it to the boil. That's the safer way, but I like to live dangerously. By adding it to the boil, you can be sure it is sanitized. It will also ferment out faster, but make sure you control your fermentation temperatures. And you will lose some flavor from the honey. I would, personally, start with a half pound of honey, at least until you've had a few honey beers. I'm sure you've had "Honey Brown", but let's be honest, it's only got a bee's fart's worth of honey in it. Honey is actually a significantly stronger flavor than most homebrewers think (because most commercial brewers are stingy with such an expensive ingredient).

As for the Liquid extract, I think you want a really nice honey color. So I would recommend either more extra light extract in place of the liquid or, at least, a late extract addition. And now that I think about it, maybe cut down the hops too. That's pretty hoppy for a beer that should emphasize maltiness and sweetness. I mean, I'm guessing you're well over 40 IBU's there. I'd shoot for more like 20-30. Maybe with a very small quarter ounce amarillo dry hop.


Just my $0.02
 
Thanks guys will pass this down and I'm sure he'll be reading this tonight anyway.

I believe it was How to Brew that explains how much honey to use to get your desired resulting flavor, 5% for just a taste, close to what I'd imagine commercial companies do, 10% for developing a honey flavor, then like 30-60% is where you get the I LOVE honey taste. We're shooting for it to be there, but not too strong so 10% was our goal.

Good idea though putting it in late in the boil, since we're familiar with using our malts in th boil I think that's the way we'll go. Still haven't tried a secondary ferment but now have another barrell it might be time for us to learn.

Another good point in sdaying it's probably going to take longer to ferment out, should have thought about that, seen it before in mead making.

back to pretending that I'm working....

Keep the suggestions rolling
 
Hey guys, I'm the co-brewer for this. Thanks so much for the insight and ideas. I've started adapting the recipe using some of your suggestions. Will post the update soon.

Cheers!
 
Ok, here is the updated. I've taken in a lot of the ideas and hope to hear more. We are going for something that really embraces the essence of spring. Sweet and floral (got a little hop heavy in the first. We have tendency to like hoppy beer and tend to think in that direction.) Keep suggestions coming!

6 lbs Light LME
2 lb Extra Pale DME; (1 early addition, one late addition)
1/2 lb Crystal Munich malt
1/4 lb Wheat malt
WLP500 yeast
1 oz Hallertauer (U.S) 5.5% (Bittering)
1/4 oz Amarillo 9% (Dry hopped)
1 lb wildflower honey

I am thinking about adding the honey at the end of the boil to preserve flavour as suggested, and its a little more comfortable for us. This is our first true self developed recipe. Thanks!
 
Very interesting, I look forward to seeing how this comes out. With 1.75 lbs of Amarillo, I could brew a ton of this beer. :D
 
be sure to use raw honey instead of pasteurized. the pasteurized honey wont ferment. the "correct" way to add honey to maximize the flavor is to steep it in water at about 150F-160F for a while (i don't recall how long exactly, maybe an hour will do) so that you can kill off the nasties as best as possible, and then add it during primary fermentation at high krausen. i'll do my best to dig up where i read this so i can confirm all of this, but i read it pretty recently and that's the gist.

EDIT: gotta love google! BYO honey article
 
pardon the pun,

Sweet. I was kinda worried about the honey, in the back of my head i was thinking hey maybe any bugs will get boiled off or might even help with some of teh fermentation. But we've never used any creepy crawlers other then the yeast(and whatever my 1yr old coughs around the house).



Happy Drinkin'
 
SenorWanderer said:
be sure to use raw honey instead of pasteurized. the pasteurized honey wont ferment. the "correct" way to add honey to maximize the flavor is to steep it in water at about 150F-160F for a while (i don't recall how long exactly, maybe an hour will do) so that you can kill off the nasties as best as possible, and then add it during primary fermentation at high krausen. i'll do my best to dig up where i read this so i can confirm all of this, but i read it pretty recently and that's the gist.

EDIT: gotta love google! BYO honey article


Ok, call me ignorant if you want, but I seem to be really missing something here. You say to NOT use pasteurized honey, that it will not ferment. You then proceed to tell him to take his raw honey and PASTEURIZE it himself. This makes no sense to me at all.
 
rabidgerbil said:
Ok, call me ignorant if you want, but I seem to be really missing something here. You say to NOT use pasteurized honey, that it will not ferment. You then proceed to tell him to take his raw honey and PASTEURIZE it himself. This makes no sense to me at all.

Yeah, that didn't really make any sense to me either. I think for the most part, adding the honey at the last five minutes of the boil should do the trick of killing any additional bacteria, add sufficient flavor and help the soften and properly mix the honey into solution.

Whenever I've added honey, it's just to the last few minutes of the boil and have been pretty happy with the results.
 
I've been reading around on the forum here and a few other sites. One said to add it after the heat is off all together and let it sit for 5 mins before straining and cooling. I think I might do that. I want to keep as much flavor as possible.
 
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