Honey Cream Ale Recipe

I'm making my first jump to a non-kit extract recipe and wanted to know what everyone thinks of this recipe. I found it in a brewing book, but want personal opinions from experienced brewers.

6.6 lbs of LME - Light Malt
1 oz. Cascade Pellets - 60 minute boil
2 lbs. of unpasteurized honey - add the last 10 minutes.
1/2 oz Hallertau pellets - add last 5 minutes
1 pack of ale yeast

I'm just a little concerned because I've never done a recipe that didn't involve at least SOME DME, but I'm also pretty new to brewing as well. Any help would be appreciated.

Sounds tasty. I say go for it. An ale is the smart way to start (simpler lager).
I have made a Honey Pale Ale but I steeped a honey malt grain for the honey taste instead of honey.
I generally use 6.6 lbs of LME for a 23 L kit. If you use that and the 2 lbs of honey, I think the alcohol level will be above 5% for a 23L recipe. For a 19L (5 gallons) it will be very malty and have a lot of honey taste as well as a high alcohol content.
Note that a cream ale is characterized with a mild hop profile so you don't taste the hops.
Where is the recipe from?

Sorry for the delay in response. It actually came from my Brew Kits book. I'll have to check the name of the book later, but it came in my Brewer's Best kit. It was a pretty decent starter book. I'm definitely interested in getting into a more in-depth book, but one step at a time, I guess. I'd like to brew a handful of recipes to see how they turn out first. The honey cream ale is the first recipe I'm trying from the book. Everything else has been kits. This one was super easy because I wasn't steeping any grains, making it much easier so I didn't have to watch the water temp as closely. I'll let you know the turnout in about 2 to 3 weeks.

Hi All,

I'm very new to brewing so excuse my noobness. I'm planning on doing a Honey Wheat for my next batch.

@DropJaw

How did your recipe come out?
Did the 2lbs of honey up the ABV, if so what was your ABV for this batch?

My 1st batch I've done is an American Wheat kit from More Beer which turned out nice, but wanted to tweak it here and there and also make into a Honey Wheat. Here is my planned recipe blending the American Wheat kit recipe, and DropJaw's, with a couple of tweaks myself.

Malt Extracts / Additions:
3 lbs Bavarian Wheat @60min
2 lbs Light DME @60min

Steeping Grain:
Added to water immediately. Remove 170F
Honey Malt

Hops:
1.5 oz Cascade bittering @60min
1 oz Cascade aroma @1min

2lbs. of honey

Here are my questions about this recipe.

1) Does this look any good?
2) I want the taste of honey to really come through. How much honey malt should I use, and any other steeping grain that I should be including that would compliment, if so and how much?
3) The American Wheat kit lack body in the final product so I thought that adding and extra oz of Cascade (1.5oz total) might do the trick. Would this be correct logic or will this not give it more body?
4) Would it be more wise to use pasteurized honey instead of unpasteurized honey?
5) I like beers with at least 5% ABV. The American Wheat kit only called for 5lbs of fermentables (3 lbs Bavarian Wheat, 2 lbs Light DME), and turned out to be only 3.7% ABV. Will the addition of 2lbs of honey be enough to up the ABV to at least 5% which is what I'm shooting for? Should I also add another 1lb of light DME (3lbs. total) to the recipe as well.

Cheers

I'm also curious to know how this batch came out.

Sir Hops,

While we await a response from DropJaw on the recipe outcome, how did the honey malt steeping work for your Pale Ale recipe? And how much did you use to steep? I do full boil batches (thus I steep with 6 gallons of water to start, removing grains after 30min or until 170, yielding 5 gallons after the 60min boil). I do want a farily strong honey taste to come through but not so overpowering that it ceases to be beer :cross:

Cheers

I used about 1 pound of Honey Malt. Here is the recipe I used. I'm cherishing every last bottle (I'm almost out!)

Manitoba Honey Pale Ale (6 gallons)
500 g (about 1#) Honey Malt steeped for 30 mins at 66 C (hot tap water at low heat)
3.2 kg (6.6#) light LME
30g (1 oz) Northern Brewer @ 60 mins
20g (3/4 oz) Perle @ 30 mins
14 (1/2 oz) Cascade @ 30 mins
1 tsp Irish moss @ 20 mins
20g (3/4 oz) Cascade @ 5 mins
DRY HOP 30g Cascade and 30g Liberty
Yeast: Nottingham

The Perle and Liberty were used because they were on hand. You could substitute something else as well.

Thx Sir Hops! I got my Honey Wheat planned for brewing on Nov. 3rd. I'll let ya know how it turns out around the beginning of December once its been bottle conditioned and ready to go.

Cheers!

Sorry guys. Been a bit busy. Anyway. The taste is great. Smooth, sweet and the perfect bitter. It's fairly light though.

The big problem is there is little carbonation. Not sure if I did seething wrong in bottling or what.

This was my first attempt at using a secondary fermenter.

I may also not have mixed the sugar in enough. (Truth be told I don't think I actually stirred at all)

Thoughts?

How long did you let it bottle condition for? And where did you keep them?

They've been conditioned for a month now and they were in my basement. Every other batch was just fine.

Hmmm, that is strange. I was thinking that if you were poppin'em open after a week, that would've been the reason. But what you have described seems to have been okay. When I added the corn sugar solution I boiled it in water for 5min then let it cool. Added it my bottling bucket. I racked from the primary right over top of the corn sugar solution. I didnt stir it at all, and my Hefe came out perfect. How much corn sugar did you use?

If you used dry malt extract the bottles take longer to carb.
How much dextrose or DME did you use? Some recipes ask for less if the style is supposed be to less fizzy.

No dme. 6.6 lbs of lme. The full recipe is up at the top.

Sorry, I mean how much priming sugar or DME did you use (added just before bottling). That will determine how much carbonation you get. The process is also slower with DME.

Though there's always slight adjusts depending on the style of ale, it's usually an oz of corn sugar (or equivalent) per gallon of beer, correct?

I think i have the same book as you. Did you have to steep any specialty grains prior to adding the LME or just add LME, bring to boil, and continue to add hops per schedule? Looking forward to trying this recipe. Total noob here BTW.

Talking to others, when you do honey in the wort, it is VERY fermentable and fermentsvout very dry, not sweet... If you are shooting for a sweet honey cream ale I would research using the honey as your priming sugar instead of dextrose or dme so you get some of the flavor... I would also tend strongly to orange blossom honey as it will give a light citrus punch to the cream ale and should compliment well...