Honey At Bottling?? And Priming Sugar

I have a Wheat Beer that I would like to add some honey into prior to bottling. I am not certain if I can add the honey and the full amount of priming sugar, or if this combo will become a bottle bomb. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
I was planning on adding one of the bear honey containers from the grocery to 5gal batch to help give and idea of the amount I was thinking of adding.

Well by no means am I an expert on this, but I would assume that if you added some honey into it nothing bad would happen, and the honey is pretty sugary so I would also guess that you would either need a lot less priming sugar or none at all.

But like I said, I've never tried doing this, and am a beginner brewer myself

Just as a warning, adding honey will not give you sweetness, because it will all ferment out. I have heard of people using honey malt in order to get an unfermented honey flavor, but have no experience with it myself. A forum search would get you more information on that.

In answer to your question, you definitely want to use honey as your priming sugar, not along with it. If you add honey and priming sugar your bottles will most likely explode. If you choose to use honey, you should find a guideline or get some advice from someone else on how much to use for proper carbonation levels.

EDIT: I wasn't as clear as I wanted to be: don't use honey and other priming sugar. Use one or the other. Either way, you probably won't notice much of a difference. MAYBE using a stronger flavored honey varietal e.g. buckwheat would give you an appreciable amount of flavor. Maybe not though.

- That will be too much priming sugar
- The honey will ferment out and add very little flavor
- Your bottles have a very good chance of exploding
- A forum search will give you hundreds of threads on the topic of using honey as priming sugar

+1 to slowbie. A lot of people that get into mead making find themselves regretting it because it isnt what they expect. Honey, during fermentation, loses a lot of sweetness and actually makes the beer drier - like wine.

However, if you insist on doing it, I found that proper carbonation of mead is one gallon of honey to 5 gallons of water. Id imagine there is a math formula you can run to find out how much honey and sugar will give you proper carbonation given the info I just gave you.

do not add both the honey and the priming sugar the bottles will explode. the honey will leave a residual flavor/sweetness because it is not 100% fermentable like corn sugar. i suggest calculating how much honey you need instead of just dumping some amount in.


corn sugar is 92% solids has an extract yield of 42 and is 100% fermentable.
honey is 80% solids has an extract yield of 38 and is 95% fermentable.

go here to figure out how much corn sugar you need for your batch.

now comes the math.

say the above calculator tells you to use 4oz. of corn sugar.

(4oz)*(42)*(100%) = (X)*(38)*(95%)

solve for X

((4oz)*(42)*(100%))/((38)*(95%)) = X = 4.65oz honey.

Sorry folks for the confusion, but I was simply looking for a little sweetnes/flavor from the honey. I love ShinerBock Heffe Weizzen and I am trying to create a similar brew on my own. They state that they use honey at/around bottling, but I like the through of Honey Malt (Never hear of it before so it is very interesting to me).
Thanks'

If you want just the sweetness and heffe flavor then I would suggest using specific malt extracts for it. I brewed a Bavarian Heffeweizen a few months ago, I forget the exact LME I used, it was just some beer kit, but it had a fruity more malty flavor to it then a standard ale would.

If it's sweetness you want, just look for LME's or DME's to flavor it, and use less hops or less bitter hops. There's a few, I can't remember off the top of my head, that are good for heffe's. I think I used liberty hops for it...

MarcJWaters said:

+1 to slowbie. A lot of people that get into mead making find themselves regretting it because it isnt what they expect. Honey, during fermentation, loses a lot of sweetness and actually makes the beer drier - like wine.

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mead making is one of the few ways to really capture the honey in a fermented beverage, however a lot of that comes from the aroma, rather than true flavor. and its the sweeter meads that really pull this off (which is why I don't make dry meads )

nothing wrong with honey for priming, but it really does end up being the same as corn or table sugar in terms of flavor.

I wanted a honey flavored beer so I brewed a batch with 6 lbs of light lme, and steeped 1/2 lb of honey malt and 1/2 lb of carapils (now Im doing AG so I would probably substitute about 9 lbs of pale malt for the lme). I used 1 oz of cascades for bittering for 60 min and 1 oz EK Goldings for aroma. I think I used coopers dry ale yeast on it. I used 5 oz corn sugar to prime though because I worry about using honey to prime because it's fermentable levels can vary from batch to batch.
It came out quite nice IMHO.

mix 4 oz or 1/2 cup (it is the same) of honey, per 5 gallon batch, instead of priming sugar.

I use pure, spun from the honeycomb and bottled honey. :rockin:

I am planning to use honey exclusively for bottling my beers....all of them...as long as I am bottling....

When adding to wort I sub 1 cup for 1 lbs of grain at boil flame out... if this ratio is a bit off I do not care.....

Some notes on honey:

Honey does not need to be pasteurized because it never goes bad. The sugars will crystallize as it ages but if it is heated it will "melt back" and is still good.

Honey in the store may be pasteurized and/or diluted "up to" 20% with water and still carry the "pure honey" on the label.

Honey sauce is NOT honey....

I know this is an old thread but thought I would add in some info for anyone that may stumble upon this .

I use honey at the end of the boil for some added flavor . The sugar will ferment away but the flavor of the honey remains . Think Honey brown Ale . I am thinking that next time around , as I just added in my honey , I will wait until the wort coos off and then pour into fermenter and stir in honey then so it does not fall out during the cooling of the boil and end up in the trub left behind .
I also am thinking of using honey for the priming as I am brewing honey brown ale . Keep in mind that cheap honey has not the flavor for this . use a very good honey with a strong flavor . The honey sold by Northern Brewers for their honey brown is very good for this .

Bottling with honey will give you a subtle upfront flavor and aroma. I only bottle with honey and it's always there. I use three tablespoons per gallon. Honey is 100% fermentable but that does not mean that it ferments out 100%. Even beer smith puts it at 90% and I've seen other sources put it at around 85 when used for carbing

It also depends on the honey you use, orange blossom really comes through well but clover is basically useless. I am drinking a home brew right now and I can tell you it's there. Don't listen to these people, try it for yourself. Just warm it up a little in water and bottle away. To me it's just enough that I don't even use honey malt anymore

Calichusetts said:

Bottling with honey will give you a subtle upfront flavor and aroma. I only bottle with honey and it's always there. I use three tablespoons per gallon. Honey is 100% fermentable but that does not mean that it ferments out 100%. Even beer smith puts it at 90% and I've seen other sources put it at around 85 when used for carbing

It also depends on the honey you use, orange blossom really comes through well but clover is basically useless. I am drinking a home brew right now and I can tell you it's there. Don't listen to these people, try it for yourself. Just warm it up a little in water and bottle away. To me it's just enough that I don't even use honey malt anymore

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I used honey in brown ale one time and used 2 pounds of Clover Valley from the Dollar General store . Put in at end of boil . It did about nothing . So lesson learned , do not use the cheap sweet honey .

I am brewing a honey brown from Northern Brewers right now . one pound of their honey which has a very nice strong flavor . should come out well . I was thinking of also bottling with honey .

thanks for the honey amount per gallon .

hbhudy said:

I have a Wheat Beer that I would like to add some honey into prior to bottling. I am not certain if I can add the honey and the full amount of priming sugar, or if this combo will become a bottle bomb. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
I was planning on adding one of the bear honey containers from the grocery to 5gal batch to help give and idea of the amount I was thinking of adding.

Click to expand...

i did prime a belgian beer with honey a month ago, it replaces the priming sugar, 0.2 ounces per 500 ml bottles is about what i did, i made the experience with molasse too, they both were insane beers, much better than my kegged version of this beer.
go bold, dont be scared, its alchemy for the alcoholics!!!

I use honey in most my wheat beers, just about a pound added after the boil, it makes for a nice added flavour that isn't there the few times i forgot to get honey and used sugar.