What to do with an ice tea jug full of honey?

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BrewSpook

BrewSpook

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A recent trip to the in-laws scored me a 1 gallon sun-tea glass jug filled with honey from their hives. I haven't weighed it, but FIL says a gallon of honey should be about 12lbs.

Several things crossed my mind such as mead, but i would rather not tie up my carboys for an extended period.

If anyone out there has some really good recipes with honey in them I would love to get some ideas. I have to have this thing empty so I can return it by Thanksgiving.
 
definitely mead. do some research and brew it right, then let it age in bottles instead of a 'tertiary' carboy. you won't lose a carboy for all that long. Jamil did a recording with Ken Schramm (sp?) on mead that is good listening.
 
I wouldn't age a mead out in bottles, you'll have a ton of sediment if you don't let it drop clear in the carboy. Maybe do up a barleywine strength braggot for Christmas? How many pounds of honey are we talking here?
 
I edited the post, realized I never finished the sentence where I talked about weight. I haven't weighed it yet, but it should be about 12lbs.

I was thinking maybe several different batches of something with honey in it as opposed to a primarily honey beverage.
 
Well, unless you brew large batches, or very frequently, a mead or braggot is really the way to get through 12# of honey in a few months. (I only use 1# per 5-gal in my beers, when called for a hint of honey)

If time in the fermenter is your main concern, you could brew a short mead. Or perhaps try a cyser or pyment?

I like the braggot idea. 6# of honey after flameout in a 5-gal batch of beer will get your there. You have enough for 2 batches then... Maybe one braggot on an English ale recipe, and one on a dark roasty holiday special.. with spices! :)

The wiki article on mead has many varieties of mead, metheglin & melomels for inspiration...
--LexusChris
 
I'm thinking maybe 6 gallons of a short mead (dry and sparkling for New Years - cherries or something added) and the rest for 2 or 3 batches of beer. Maybe a honey brown, a honey kolsch, and something else.

Anyone have some really good beer recipes with 1-3#s of honey in them?
 
I like to do old ales with honey replacing the corn sugar. Something like this maybe.

9.5 lbs. English Maris Otter
0.5 lbs. UK Dark Crystal
0.25 lbs. UK Medium Crystal
0.25 lbs. Pale Chocolate Malt or some normal chocolate malt in a smaller addition for color
1 lbs. 2.4 oz Honey added in the last 10 minutes so as to avoid loss of aroma
2 oz. East Kent Goldings (60 min)
1 oz. East Kent Goldings (20 min)
1 oz. Styrian Goldings (0 min)

WPL 002 or Wyeast 1968

Should be ~ 1.064 but I don't have my copy of brewsmith handy.

If I remember right Radical Brewing has a bunch of honey added recipes.
 
If I got my hands on fresh honey straight from the hives, I'd be all over a mead!!

With a great source like that, its well worth it tie up a carboy for as long as you need. Buy an "ale pail" to replace the tied up carboy if buying another carboy is too expensive for you.
 
Make a braggot! I have made 1 so far and promptly made another directly after I bottled & tasted the first batch. It is something amazing to say the least and requires very little work to put together not to mention a high gravity is very easy to achieve with 6lbs of Honey + 4-5 lbs of 2-row malt. That means you could make at least two batches if you have the extra malt compared to a single mead. Plus you may have to buy some extra ingredients(Yeast nutrients, mead yeast, etc) to produce the mead where as most stuff for creation of the braggot can be utilized from your beer supplies. I used my 2-row and Pacman for my ingredients because I didn't want to purchase mead yeast. Also meads can consume your fermenter for 3 months+ from what I have read. That's the main reason I have kept myself away from it. As for the braggot as I got away with 3 weeks in a primary before I reached a stable FG and bottled.

For the record the first batch I made contained 6lbs clover honey, 5 lbs 2-row malt, and 1lb BrewVent Malto-dextrin. It came out a beautiful golden/amber color that I'm in love with. The second batch I made contains 2 lbs of blackberry syrup/slurry, 6lbs wild flower honey, and 5 lbs 2-row malt. From what I've taste tested so far it is exquisite. Also the beer has a beautiful red/purple tint to it. Hopefully it will look pretty nice in the glass. Its worth mentioning I'm not a big fan of fruit flavored beers, but I have fallen in love with the braggot style.
 
onemanlan said:
Make a braggot! I have made 1 so far and promptly made another directly after I bottled & tasted the first batch. It is something amazing to say the least and requires very little work to put together not to mention a high gravity is very easy to achieve with 6lbs of Honey + 4-5 lbs of 2-row malt. That means you could make at least two batches if you have the extra malt compared to a single mead. Plus you may have to buy some extra ingredients(Yeast nutrients, mead yeast, etc) to produce the mead where as most stuff for creation of the braggot can be utilized from your beer supplies. I used my 2-row and Pacman for my ingredients because I didn't want to purchase mead yeast. Also meads can consume your fermenter for 3 months+ from what I have read. That's the main reason I have kept myself away from it. As for the braggot as I got away with 3 weeks in a primary before I reached a stable FG and bottled.

For the record the first batch I made contained 6lbs clover honey, 5 lbs 2-row malt, and 1lb BrewVent Malto-dextrin. It came out a beautiful golden/amber color that I'm in love with. The second batch I made contains 2 lbs of blackberry syrup/slurry, 6lbs wild flower honey, and 5 lbs 2-row malt. From what I've taste tested so far it is exquisite. Also the beer has a beautiful red/purple tint to it. Hopefully it will look pretty nice in the glass. Its worth mentioning I'm not a big fan of fruit flavored beers, but I have fallen in love with the braggot style.
Click to expand...

Damn man, your passion is making me want to try my hand at one.

You should be a braggot salesman!
 
rockfish42 said:
I like to do old ales with honey replacing the corn sugar. Something like this maybe.

9.5 lbs. English Maris Otter
0.5 lbs. UK Dark Crystal
0.25 lbs. UK Medium Crystal
0.25 lbs. Pale Chocolate Malt or some normal chocolate malt in a smaller addition for color
1 lbs. 2.4 oz Honey added in the last 10 minutes so as to avoid loss of aroma
2 oz. East Kent Goldings (60 min)
1 oz. East Kent Goldings (20 min)
1 oz. Styrian Goldings (0 min)

WPL 002 or Wyeast 1968

Should be ~ 1.064 but I don't have my copy of brewsmith handy.

If I remember right Radical Brewing has a bunch of honey added recipes.
Click to expand...

That actually looks pretty good. I might have to do this one for the portable beer engine I am thinking of building. It will run off of 5L mini kegs and be self contained so I can take it to friends houses and such.
 
Ok so what I did was take all the honey and do 5 gallons of sparkling mead. Fermented with champagne yeast, I bottled 3 gallons in champagne bottles carbed to about 4.0 vol

The other two gallons are in smaller gallon jugs under co2 and airlock waiting for me to decide what to do with them... fruit additions I think.

Cracked the first bottle @ Xmas -awesome! Great honey flavor and really fizzy.This is going to be great after aging a bit.
 

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