extract belgian blonde needs something

6.6light pilsner lme
.5 Belgian pale (not exactly positive)
.5 white wheat
2oz n brewer
1oz willamete
3787 Trappist Hg
1lb orange blossom honey
& maybe 1lb belgian candi syrup

but i feel this recipe needs somethings added or exchanged from what i have here

Looks okay to me. Although 2 lb combo of honey and belgian candi syrup is too much IMO. I would forgo the honey and add the candi syrup only. I would go with the Simplicity or Golden from CandiSyrup Inc. Good stuff.

It's more about what the yeast does to the beer. And it will change flavors over time.

solbes said:

Looks okay to me. Although 2 lb combo of honey and belgian candi syrup is too much IMO. I would forgo the honey and add the candi syrup only. I would go with the Simplicity or Golden from CandiSyrup Inc. Good stuff.

It's more about what the yeast does to the beer. And it will change flavors over time.

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I have golden L5 but my girlfriend really want to put the orange blossom honey into this beer. could i do half and half or add something to help cope with the added sugars i am also using HG yeast

If you're going for a more traditional Belgian Blond, I would drop the honey and replace the Belgian Candi Sugar with regular table sugar. The Belgian Pale Ale malt and White Wheat would need to be mashed making this a partial mash beer versus an extract with specialty grains. Process wise, steeping speciality grains and partial mashing are very similar, but "under the hood" the starches in the pale and wheat malts would need to be converted to sugars. You may also want to consider adding a small amout of Aromatic malt for added comlexity, 2-5% of your grain bill should do.

BostonianBrewer said:

I have golden L5 but my girlfriend really want to put the orange blossom honey into this beer. could i do half and half or add something to help cope with the added sugars i am also using HG yeast

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The alcohol tolerance listed for a given yeast is fairly useless, most ale yeasts won't have any trouble fermenting a beer around 12%, or even a little higher. What's more important is pitching the right amount of yeast, oxygenating well, and controlling fermentation temperature. I'd recommend using a pitching rate calculator like yeastcalc.com or mrmalty.com.

If your girl is set on using the honey, that's fine, I think honey flavors work well in a Belgian Blond. I'd keep the overall percentage of sugar and honey at, or below, 10-12% of the total grain bill for a Blond.

Listen, honey isn't going to give you much flavor. It's going to ferment out and give you drier beer. If you want honey flavor, look into honey malt.

I would not add the candi sugar as well as the honey. Two pounds of simple sugars in a relatively small grain bill are not going to be ideal, to my way of thinking.

Right, its not that the honey or candi syrup are going to be too much sugar for the yeast to handle, its the fact that your simple sugars would be out of balance with the quantity of malt usd. The beer would be too dry and thin IMO. Whereas 2 lbs of simple sugars in a Tripel or Quad would be entirely appropriate because the malt backbone is there.

The Golden L5 candi syrup would give a different (and likely superior) flavor to the Blonde than simple table sugar. Though I do admit table sugar is pretty much the same as belgian candi sugar rocks, and I make that substitution all the time. Half and half would be fine, but I'm not sure how well the L5 keeps.