Honey Blond Recipe Help

I'm trying to put together a recipe from some leftover ingredients from my last batch (Centennial Blond) but wanted to try to add some honey flavor. Can anyone give their feedback on this recipe, such as the amount of honey malt to use (I plan on steeping the honey malt), what to add/remove, etc???? I have no idea what I'm doing when creating a recipe. This is a 5 gallon full boil recipe. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Batch Size: 5.00 gal
Boil Size: 6.50 gal
Estimated OG: 1.045 SG
Estimated Color: 4.9 SRM
Estimated IBU: 17.6 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: - %
Boil Time: 45 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amount Item Type % or IBU
5.00 lb Extra Light Dry Extract (3.0 SRM) Dry Extract 83.33 %
0.50 lb Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.0 SRM) Grain 8.33 %
0.50 lb Honey Malt (25.0 SRM) Grain 8.33 %
0.25 oz Centennial [8.90 %] (45 min) Hops 8.1 IBU
0.25 oz Centennial [10.00 %] (20 min) Hops 6.0 IBU
0.25 oz Cascade [6.40 %] (10 min) Hops 2.3 IBU
0.25 oz Cascade [6.40 %] (5 min) Hops 1.3 IBU
1.00 tsp Irish Moss (Boil 15.0 min) Misc
1 Pkgs Safale American (DCL Yeast #US-05) Yeast-Ale

Looks good to me. Are you thinking of adding any actual honey in addition to the honey malt? Honey malt will add some sweetness, but not the complex floral aromatics of honey.

give it a try, it looks OK.
It's pretty close to my blonde deception recipe for all grain that turned out great.

Oldsock said:

Looks good to me. Are you thinking of adding any actual honey in addition to the honey malt? Honey malt will add some sweetness, but not the complex floral aromatics of honey.

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I wasn't planning on it but that is because I didn't think honey really added much except to dry out the beer. If I add actual honey, do I change the amount of extract or hops? I want some sweetness but I wasn't sure how it would balance with the hops.

cincybrewer said:

I wasn't planning on it but that is because I didn't think honey really added much except to dry out the beer. If I add actual honey, do I change the amount of extract or hops? I want some sweetness but I wasn't sure how it would balance with the hops.

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Honey does ferment out, but if you use good quality honey and add it after fermentation it leaves a great aroma (adding pasteurized clover honey to the boil on the other hand won't get you much character).

You could back down on the extract if you wanted to keep the gravity/alcohol the same. It will dry the beer out which accentuates the hops, but you are pretty low there anyway.

I don't think I want it to dry out too much. How much honey would you recommend? Unfortunately I'm out of town this week so I don't have access to Beersmith but was hoping to put an order in to arrive by this weekend. How much would 1 lb of honey add to the OG?

I thought about altering the hop schedule a little to add some IBU's so it doesn't come out overly sweet but wasn't sure what a good balance would be.

Well I just went ahead and ordered it in hopes to get it by saturday. I didn't order any honey but I figure I can pick up some local honey somewhere and if I need to change my recipe I can always stop by the LHBS.

If you ordered a whole pound of honey malt, I might suggest putting all of it in if you want more residual sweetness. I just did a AG cream ale with 0.75 lb of honey malt with a slightly lower OG and slightly higher IBU's, and the flavor is still very subtle.

JJL said:

If you ordered a whole pound of honey malt, I might suggest putting all of it in if you want more residual sweetness. I just did a AG cream ale with 0.75 lb of honey malt with a slightly lower OG and slightly higher IBU's, and the flavor is still very subtle.

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I've always found the opposite, I get quite a bit of sweetness from pretty small additions of honey malt. Different people have different perceptions of sweetness though.

For the honey 1 lb will add ~.008 to the gravity. That is about the right amount for a subtle beer like this. Orange blossom is a great choice if you can get it.

Wouldn't you get more flavor/sweetness from mashing vs. steeping?

Adding .008 to the gravity doesn't seem to bad. The OG may be a little high for a blonde ale but fitting a style doesn't really concern me as long as it tastes good. I'll have to keep my eye out for some orange blossom honey.

So I got everything ready. Bought some raw honey, though I have no idea what kind it is. But a couple questions relating to adding honey.

1) I guess I'm just going to add it straight to the fermenter after racking the wort, do I mix it in, just dump it in, etc? Does it matter? Or should I wait until fermentation is over to add the honey?

2) If I add it to the fermenter, does it matter when I take my gravity reading? Should I do it before or after adding the honey?

Thanks!

I would wait until after most of the fermentation is over to add the honey. The less fermentation it sees the better since the CO2 produced will carry the aromatics out. You are probably fine just adding it, but you could stir it in.

I would just take an OG and then estimate the honey addition. If you want the real number, take and OG, then take a gravity before and after adding the honey. Take the different between the pre and post honey readings and add that to the OG.

Good luck!

Cool thanks for the help. I like the idea of adding honey post fermentation. Maybe I will just lightly stir to avoid oxidation.

I'll estimate the gravity, I don't need an exact, just an idea of what it is.

Well, I'm not sure if my scale is wrong or AHS under sold me on my hops, but what I thought was .5 oz of centennial and cascade turned out to be .37 oz. Not sure how much difference it will make. And I wanted to end up with 5.25 gallons and ended with about 4.95. I plan on adding honey after a few days of fermentation. We'll see how it turns out. My final recipe ended like this:


Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Batch Size: 4.95 gal
Boil Size: 6.0 gal
Estimated OG: 1.048 SG
Estimated Color: 5.1 SRM
Estimated IBU: 13.3 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: - %
Boil Time: 45 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amount Item Type % or IBU
5.00 lb Extra Light Dry Extract (3.0 SRM) Dry Extract 83.33 %
0.50 lb Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.0 SRM) Grain 8.33 %
0.50 lb Honey Malt (25.0 SRM) Grain 8.33 %
0.25 oz Centennial [8.90 %] (45 min) Hops 8.1 IBU
0.12 oz Centennial [10.00 %] (20 min) Hops 6.0 IBU
0.25 oz Cascade [6.40 %] (10 min) Hops 2.3 IBU
0.12 oz Cascade [6.40 %] (5 min) Hops 1.3 IBU
1.00 tsp Irish Moss (Boil 15.0 min) Misc
1 Pkgs Safale American (DCL Yeast #US-05) Yeast-Ale

Give the brew ~2 weeks on the yeast before you add the honey to it. I would also get as much honey in simply by pouring it into the fermenting wort, don't stir/mix it at all. To get the last bit out, use warm water to get it into solution. Keep the water as cool as possible, since you'll start to lose the stuff you want to keep once you cross 100-110F... I would then give the brew another week or two before taking a pair of SG's and tasting those samples.

I've been using .5-1# of honey malt in 5 gallon batches with solid results. How much honey flavors come from the honey malt has a good amount to do with what other malts you use.

I actually have a blonde ale that is in bottles now, made with honey malt. Pretty simple recipe of UK 2 row, 1# honey malt and .25# Victory malt. I ended up with ~24 IBU's in my batch, using 1/2oz Northdown (60 min), .5oz EKG (15 min) and .5oz EKG (5 min)... Next time I'm going to leave the victory malt out though.

I have another brew that used 1# of honey malt, along with other malts, and I've had people ask me how much, and what kind of, honey did I use... I just grin and tell them none... I explain honey malt to them to get the confused look off their faces. :rockin: That batch had 1-1/4# of crystal malts (three different kinds) along with the honey malt... Balanced out really well.

I would advise experimenting with honey malt in different amounts to see what it gives you. Just keep in mind that it's recommended to keep it to no more than 10% of the grist.

My experiences with honey malt could be different than someone brewing extract batches. I'm brewing all grain. So I could be getting more out of the honey malt via the actual mashing done with it.

Hmm...wait two weeks to add it? That's what I'll do.

I'm a bit worried about the low IBU's in my batch because even though it is a blonde I was hoping the hops would somewhat balance out the sweetness of the honey malt. But I've also read that with the honey drying out the beer, the hops would be accentuated more. I still think 13 IBU's is probably too low, but I guess we'll see. The wort sample tasted pretty good but I can never really tell from the sample. But I definitely couldn't taste an overpowering sweetness.

Okay, so I just got an idea and wanted to see what some of you all thought. I probably won't do it because it'd be more work, but who knows. I was planning to add honey to the aforementioned brew in the next day or so. I'm pretty sure fermentation is over. However, I picked up a 5 gallon carboy and the thought just popped into my head that it might be cool to transfer 1/2 of my brew to the carboy and add honey and transfer the other half to the keg without the honey. Just to compare the difference the honey addition makes compared to strictly the honey malt.

Are there any drawbacks to doing this? Possibly too much headspace in the carboy?

nevermind - i just went ahead and added all the honey to the fermenter.

Just to give an update, my recipe (post #14 above), was kegged last week and had a party this past weekend. IMO, the beer was good, not great. Probably a little on the sweet side and could have probably used some more bittering hops to balance it out. Definitely got the honey aroma but next time I may try a different honey.

However, everyone at the party loved it. I bought some Summer Shandy and Great Lakes Burning River just in case and not one bottle of those were consumed. I also had the centennial blond on tap but everyone wanted the honey blond. I'm hoping it gets better with time but it at least appeared to be good to others. Some others couldn't believe it was home brew.

Glad to hear you got close. Sounds like you've got a good handle on the tweaks for next time. Let us know when you dial it in.

Another belated update for anyone that cares. Though I still thought the beer was too sweet for my tastes, I've had people tell me how much they loved it. I even had someone share it with his friend who then asked if they could start buying it from me...so if you like sweeter beers, you may want to give this one a try.