How many gravity points would a pound of honey add?

I brewed my barley wine recipe yesterday and it ended up 24 points lower than my target. Target was 1.100 and it ended up at 1.076. I know that honey can be a common addition to the fermenter to bring the gravity up and also make the beer more fermentable and finish drier. I know that a pound added to the carboy won't bring it up to 1.100, but I just want to know how much it will bring it up for my final ABV calculations.

I'm not totally decided on adding the honey, just throwing the idea around. Anybody how how much the gravity would be brought up? Anyone think is a bad idea to add it at all?

Thanks!

honey has a ppg of 35 ... this means that 1 pound of honey in 1 gallon of liquid will at 35 points to it... so to figure out what your asking we need to know how many gallons of barley wine you have. just take 35 and divide by how much beer you have. keep in mind that the honey takes up space in the brew and will change the final volume you will use in the calculation.

Its probably close to 4.5 gallons. So it should add around 7 points?

That sounds about right...I added 1.5 pounds of honey to my 5.5 gal brew last night and it added about 10 gravity points.

For a 5 gallon batch, one pound of honey adds 7 gravity points. In a brew, it will pretty much ferment completely out, leaving just whatever flavor elements were within the honey behind.

I've used honey in a few beer's, and the 7 points in 5 gallons is about as accurate as you'll get.

I would just be careful about adding honey just for extra gravity points. IF it will work with your recipe, then go for it. I would recommend using some extra light DME to increase the OG as well. So a combination of both to boost the OG without negatively impacting the flavor and body of the brew.

BTW, what recipe did you go with?

I don't JUST want to add the honey to raise the gravity. I got the idea from the Brewing TV episode that Dawson does his Barley Wine and adds honey for a couple reasons. I'm not sure about adding it though. I think its going to be a great beer, just disappointed that it wasn't massively huge like I wanted.

The recipe was my first self-designed one actually. I based it off of other recipes around the internet. It had:

19 lbs Colorado Pale malt
1 lb CaraRed
1 lb crystal 20

Hop additions were something like
1oz chinook fwh
1oz chinook 60
1oz cascacde 45
1oz fuggle 30 (had these extra so threw them in)
1oz cascade 15

Collected 8 gallons and did a 90 minute very vigerous boil to get down to approx. 4.5 gal in the carboy

Lesson learned: don't take on a barley wine parti-gyle brew when you only have 3 AG brews under your belt and are still fine tuning everything, among various other things.

Both beers should be pretty awesome though. Small beer had an OG of 1.028

+1 to adding honey for points if it works well with the recipe.

At that high of an OG, all of the points coming from grain, any simple sugar (table/corn) addition will add the points you want without changing the flavor significantly. If you're looking for the points AND the flavor of honey, go for it...

FWIW, I did a Strong Scotch Ale way too early in my AG career (not that long ago) and missed my OG by about 15 points. When I went back and did the math, I was still about 68% efficient vice my assumed 75% (Beersmith default). I considered adding corn sugar to raise the ABV but decided not to bother since the ABV was still ~10%.

adding one pound of extra light DME and one pound of honey to the batch, should lift it by about 16 gravity points. If you use the 1/2 gallon of missing volume for that (use a little less to offset what you'll get from the honey, then you could do that. I would boil the DME and add the honey either at the very end of the boil, or once the flame is off of it and it's starting to cool down. If you don't want much of anything from the honey, then put it into the boil too. Adding another 1/2# of DME will gain you 20 gravity points.

Personally, I'd more more inclined to just let it ride as it is now... You'll still get something really good from the recipe, just not as high an ABV. I'd rather get something with better flavors than something with just high kick.

For your recipe, I'm assuming the pale malt is 2 row, yes? Not seeing any reference for carared in Beer Smith, so not really sure what that is. But at only 1# in the recipe, it shouldn't impact the OG that much. More likely a color/flavor element than anything else. I really wouldn't do more than the 1# each of extra light DME and honey in this... That will put you up to 1.092 for the OG.. Close enough to your original target, in my books...

I decided to just let it ride. I think its going to be a great beer, just not a barley wine.

What could I call it? An Imperial American Red? I don't know if it would fit into any category for competitions :-(

It really depends on where it finishes... The time I had poor efficiency on the mash, the brew finished with a lower FG than I had expected.

If your brew finishes around 1.016 (or lower) then it's in the barleywine ABV range. If not, then as long as it has the flavor and rest of the characteristics of a barleywine, then that's what it still is. I've seen some listed that were in the 6.5% ABV area, so you don't HAVE to be over 8% to be a barleywine, just most are.

I do think you'll need to age it for some time to get the bitterness to mellow in this one. At over ~110 IBU's it's going to be harsh. Unless you love IIPA's... Barleywines are supposed to be aged for a while before you drink them anyway, so letting it sit for 6-9 months isn't a bad thing (once carbonated/bottled)... Who knows, in a solid year this could be a thing of greatness.

I'm definitely planning on letting it age. That's why I brewed it now, so it will be ready for winter. Planning on a month in the primary then maybe 2-3 months in the secondary. Then a couple months in the bottles before starting to drink.

Have you thought about tossing some oak cubes in the 2-3 month rest? I would age it in a keg, so that you don't need to worry about light, or air, getting at it... If you're concerned about not having enough yeast left in suspension come bottling time, you can always hydrate some champagne yeast and put that in with the priming solution (so it mixed completely)... Although, you could have enough yeast left, or get it back into suspension by swirling the aging vessel before racking to the bottling bucket.

I do have some oak chips left from my Black IPA that I aged on them so that could be an option. What I would really like to do in that case is split the batch and age half of it on oak and leave the other half as is. I don't have enough carboys to make that happen however and I haven't moved to kegging yet. I think I'd go the route of adding yeast at bottling time.

You have at least a month to get some 3 gallon carboy's if you want to split the batch for aging... I oak aged my old ale for almost 6 weeks on 3/4oz of medium toast oak chips. You get just enough of the oak character in it to pick it up, without being over powering. I soaked my chips in hot water (boiled with the tea pot), covered, until it had cooled to a safe pitching temp. Then I tossed it all in, water and chips. I'm seriously thinking of using some oak cubes in my strong scotch ale that's about ready for it's next step. It's either that or bottle it up. I think it will really depend on what it's ABV is at this time. If it's where I want it to be, I'll probably put it on ~2oz of oak cubes for a month (maybe longer)... I have all medium toast oak on hand. Either French or Hungarian (no stinking American oak )...

With oak, I do think you need to be more careful with it. At least the first time, or few times, you use it. I realize that the chips give more of a single note to the brew, which is why I want to use the cubes in this one. Figuring that the larger amount of oak in this brew will lead to more flavors being extracted, I'll probably sample after about 2-3 weeks. If it's not what I'd consider ready at that point, I'll check it once a week until it is ready for bottles.

Fortunately, I have options for what I put this in. I'm leaning towards using one of the new Sanke kegs I picked up. Especially since I'm looking at it being in there for about 4-8 weeks...