Adding honey to a Cream Ale

Hey guys, quick question. I'm about to brew a NB Cream Ale extract kit. Two things I had planned on doing: After primary fermentation has slowed down a bit, I planned on adding 2 lbs of Honey to the fermentation to add a light flavor to the beer. Then I planned on racking to secondary (something I normally do not do) to add some sweet orange peel to the brew.

My questions for all of you would be recommended timing. Should I add the honey after primary fermentation has slowed down, or add it to the boil? How much sweet orange peel would you recommend? Any advice and info would be greatly appreciated.

Anybody know anything about this sort of thing?

Whenever I add honey to my beers, I do it after primary fermentation has been active for 3-4 days. I fold the honey into some pre-boiled, hot (170dg or so) water to thin it out some. In my experience, it doesn't do as much for a beer's flavor as it does for boosting the ABV and drying it out.

Depends on what you're going for with the sweet orange peel, but I'd probably start with 1/4-1/2 oz for the last 10 minutes of the boil, or you can just add it to the secondary as you planned.

Adding honey to any beer will both dry it out and thin it out as well so you need consider those effects and how the beer will be altered.

You can add the honey at flameout or in fermentation, your choice. At flame out you will still get residual honey flavor and aroma. In primary you will get a greater honey component. For the orange peel are you talking fresh or packaged? I would personally use fresh orange zest from 1 whole orange being careful to not get the white part as that imparts bitterness and secondary is fine.

Have you ever brewed this particular beer before? If not you might want to try it as designed first and see what you think first before altering it. In addition, when altering a beer it is best to add one component at a time and then judge your results, jut my .02

Don't heat the honey above 100-110F if you want any of the honey flavor/aroma to come through. Even then its going to be very subtle. You might not even detect it.

Above 110F you start to cook off the honey flavors and aromas. The more delicate are first to go. The higher you heat the more you lose.

you will not be sorry if you DON'T add honey to your cream ale because it will probably not have the intended effect.

if you havent made the NB cream ale yet then dont add ANYTHING. its a great extract brew. in fact probably one of my all time favorites in terms of extract beers. it was stellar out of the box.

adding honey in my exp. has not added a honey flavor like you may think, all i got was a thin high abv beer. but to each his own.

just my .02
have fun man! homebrew on!!

I think honey in a cream ale would dry it out too much and make the beer less enjoyable. If you want the honey flavor but want to keep the body profile the same or at least close, maybe add some dextrine malt to counteract the thinning effect of the honey.

As far as keeping the flavor of the honey goes, add the honey during fermentation. Heating the honey will only drive off flavor and aroma compounds.