Substituting White Sugar With Honey

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WriterWriter

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Hi all,

Got me a Cooper's Stout kit. I was thinking of adding some cocoa powder to get a chocolate flavor going and possibly some cinnamon. Then I saw that the kit wants me to add 1kg white sugar.

Would I be able to substitute that with honey? I've got a huge jar and thought it might go well with the chocolate flavor -- kind of a Christmas thing.

Only other problem is that the jar is from a farmer with no measurements on it. This problem again! So I'm not really sure what a kilogram of honey looks like in measuring cups. But I found a Web site with a cake recipe on it suggesting that 1kg of honey is about 2-2/3 cups [650 mL]. I'd be really happy if anyone could confirm that.

I think it's really time to buy a scale...

WW
 
The key is really specific gravity. Specific gravity is a measure of the density of a liquid, and an indicator of the amount of sugars dissolved in wort. In "Designing Great Beers", Ray Daniels introduces Gravity Units (GU) as a way of calculating how much of a particular sugar source you need to hit a target specific gravity. A GU = ((Specific Gravity - 1) * 1000) * Total Volume. 1 lb of white sugar in 1 gal of water has a specific gravity of 1.046. 2.2 lbs, i.e. 1kg, in 1 gal is about 1.100 or 100GU. 1lb of honey in 1 gal of water gives somewhere between 32GU and 38GU. To get 100GU you'd need a little less than 3lbs of honey or about 4 cups, based on the weight and volume of the honey I have in my fridge.

You'll need to consider the impact of adding 100GU of honey to this beer. The Coopers kit contains 1.7kg of liquid malt extract. This yields about 142GU. So the additional sugar will be about 40% of your total fermentables. In this BYO article they suggest that anything more than 30% honey and you are into braggot territory. Not that braggot is a bad thing, just that it's probably not what you're expecting.

Good Luck and happy brewing.
 
Honey is great, I use it a lot but it will thin out the taste of the beer a little, and it will slow down your fermentation just a little.
Two pounds of honey should get you close without impacting the taste too much, but once you go over that you will see the a thinner tasting, more of braggot / mead drink.
 
That was a very cool article. Thank you. Using a Cooper's can, how long do you figure I need to safely boil the honey along with the rest of the mix?

OK so just to clarify Kauai (I had to look up braggot!) then two pounds of honey as a substitute will probably work out OK? Maybe it would be better to just add a portion of honey and then top it up with dextrose? I definitely don't want it to turn into braggot!

WW
 
That was a very cool article. Thank you. Using a Cooper's can, how long do you figure I need to safely boil the honey along with the rest of the mix?

OK so just to clarify Kauai (I had to look up braggot!) then two pounds of honey as a substitute will probably work out OK? Maybe it would be better to just add a portion of honey and then top it up with dextrose? I definitely don't want it to turn into braggot!

WW

Don't boil the honey.

With this being a Stout you will not have to worry about the honey flavor coming through.

There are different takes on when to add the honey. There is no need to boil the honey. People will add the honey when the mixture up at 170 - 180 degrees F as they are cooling down the wort. Some will add it after the mixture is cooled down when they are trying to aerate the wort before pitching the yeast. And then others will add it when they have turned the flame off and are just starting to cool the wort.

When I make meads I use the no heat method.
 

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