Honey Wheat: Strong Honey Flavor

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Superkabuto

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I brewed a honey wheat last night and used 2.5 lbs of honey in a 6 gallon batch. I tasted my gravity sample (1.062) and the honey taste was overwhelming. I assume this will mellow over time, right? Anyone else have this problem?
 
Most of what you recognize as honey flavor will ferment away. It will end up a lot more subtle.
 
Unless you used Honey Malt in that brew all that honey is going to act pretty much like white sugar in that beer. It'll ferment almost completely out.
 
I think you'll be fine. I recently brewed an American Honey Brown Ale and used 3 lbs in 5.5 gallons batch. You taste the honey, but it's perfect and not overwhelming at all.
 
The honey takes a while longer to ferment as well, so make sure you're taking hydrometer readings. I read somewhere that if you'll taste it every so often until you get the taste/FG you want, then you can cold crash and it'll stay close to that flavor. I didn't do that and the flavor changed significantly while in the keg.
 
The honey takes a while longer to ferment as well, so make sure you're taking hydrometer readings. I read somewhere that if you'll taste it every so often until you get the taste/FG you want, then you can cold crash and it'll stay close to that flavor. I didn't do that and the flavor changed significantly while in the keg.

This is good to know. How long do you think fermentation would take in my case, in a 6 gal batch, 6.6# LME, 2.5# honey (1.062)? It's been fermenting aggressively the past 24 hours or so.

I don't really have the space to cold crash the entire batch. I do bottles.
 
Unless you used Honey Malt in that brew all that honey is going to act pretty much like white sugar in that beer. It'll ferment almost completely out.

True that. I've used 4lbs of honey in a porter one time (the most I've ever used) and you don't taste it. It tends to dry beers out, not flavor them.
 
This is good to know. How long do you think fermentation would take in my case, in a 6 gal batch, 6.6# LME, 2.5# honey (1.062)? It's been fermenting aggressively the past 24 hours or so.

I don't really have the space to cold crash the entire batch. I do bottles.

If you bottle then you can't really "save" the honey flavor and sweetness, when you bottle and warm to carbing temps you'll start re-fermenting the honey and eventually have bottle bombs.

I'm not a big fan of honey in beer, table sugar is cheaper and yields almost the same result in a beer. Now a mead or braggot on the other hand is something different entirely! :mug:
 
Are bottle bombs still a threat if my carbing and fermenting temps are the same? I keep all my beer - bottled and fermenting - in the same place.

Well I believe what he's saying is that if you cold crash to stop fermentation and keep some honey flavor, but then bottle, you may have too much fermentables therefore leading to possible bottle bombs. My advice if you want some honey flavor use honey malt or add a bit of honey simple syrup to your beer when serving.
 
Are bottle bombs still a threat if my carbing and fermenting temps are the same? I keep all my beer - bottled and fermenting - in the same place.

Bottle Bombs are a threat if your beer isn't done fermenting before you bottle, or if you overprime. I keep mine in the same place as well...
 
As an aside, your beer isn't done fermenting because you pause fermentation by cold crashing. It'll start back up again if the fermentables are there, that's how we get the carbonation in our bottle conditioned brews.
 
As an aside, your beer isn't done fermenting because you pause fermentation by cold crashing. It'll start back up again if the fermentables are there, that's how we get the carbonation in our bottle conditioned brews.

Yep. I guess I'm thinking about my process where I rack straight to a keg and into the kegerator. I guess you could cold crash when it's a hair sweeter than what you're looking for, rack to a secondary, back to fermenting temp, then repeat. In other words, you've got to seperate the yeast because as long as there's honey in your beer, it's going to ferment. If I'm not mistaken, honey is almost 100% fermentable. Mine has been in the keg since 12 May and I've noticed quite a change in flavor. It's dried out a bit. I'm pretty sure I'm going to brew this again but cold crash to the kegerator when I hit my target flavor. I'm not going to worry about FG too much because it started pretty high. I'm really looking for a sweeter honey beer to give to some of the women around here who aren't big into beer.

I am going to make a braggot within the next few weeks and hopefully it'll be ready for the first snowfall.
 
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