Adding Honey?

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jpm5171988

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I want to try adding honey to my amber ale recipe. I brewed a 5 gal batch that has been in primary for 11 days now, and I plan on transfering it to secondary today. I want to add 1lb of honey. From what I understand, I need to mix it with a little bit of water and pasturize the honey/water mix before adding it to my 5 gal carboy, prior to racking. Is this the correct procedure? Won't this effect the accuracy of my ABV calculation, since the gravity will change after adding the honey? What can I do to get an accurate ABV calculation when the beer is finished? Any information/advice would be helpful.
 
Honey is not well documented. That is, there are so many varieties of honey, and a single variety will itself vary from harvest to harvest, that a 'rule of thumb' for the amount of fermentable sugars in a given volume does not really exist accurately. there is a large amount of non-fermentable sugar in honey, so be careful when adding it that you don't end up with something WAY too sweet.
 
Honey is not well documented. That is, there are so many varieties of honey, and a single variety will itself vary from harvest to harvest, that a 'rule of thumb' for the amount of fermentable sugars in a given volume does not really exist accurately. there is a large amount of non-fermentable sugar in honey, so be careful when adding it that you don't end up with something WAY too sweet.

That is 100% false unless you are using imported honey from China where you don't know if it's just corn syrup with yellow #5. Any honey from the US is going to be between 72 and 80 % pure fermentable sugar with the remainder being almost pure water.

Honey, when fermented fully, without intentionally halting the process, will 99% of the time end up fully fermented and very dry.
 
I want to try adding honey to my amber ale recipe. I brewed a 5 gal batch that has been in primary for 11 days now, and I plan on transfering it to secondary today. I want to add 1lb of honey. From what I understand, I need to mix it with a little bit of water and pasturize the honey/water mix before adding it to my 5 gal carboy, prior to racking. Is this the correct procedure? Won't this effect the accuracy of my ABV calculation, since the gravity will change after adding the honey? What can I do to get an accurate ABV calculation when the beer is finished? Any information/advice would be helpful.

www.gotmead.com has a calculator you can use to estimate honey additions and alcohol mixtures.

http://www.gotmead.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=745&Itemid=16

However, from prior experience, I can tell you 1 pound of honey in 5 gallons will give you about 6 gravity points. Think of it like LME if it's easier, which is usually 80% fermentable. So if you started with 1.050, then base your ABV calculation as if you started at 1.056

Also, you will need to boil the water but not the honey, unless you want to. Honey is naturally antiseptic. For one pound of honey, 1 cup of hot water (preboiled) water should be enough to make it thin enough to mix evenly into your secondary during the transfer.
 
With all due respect, this sounds like a spur-of-the-moment decision. My advice is to add it to your next batch, as part of a planned recipe. Your current recipe, which originally did not take honey into account, will end up stronger, drier, and thinner bodied, with little to no honey flavor left over. That may be what you want, maybe not.

Having said that, honey will add (iirc) about 45 gravity points to the mix. So for example, if you currently have 5 gallons at 1.050 (50 x 5 gravity points in the OG), and you add 1 pound of honey in 1 quart of honey/water mix, you get an effective OG of:
((50 x 5) + 45) / 5.25 = 56 or 1.056. You could then use that number, and the FG you eventually get, to calculate the ABV.
 
when I use honey in a recipe I typically add my honey in straight at the last 15 minutes or so of my boil. thats enough to kill any nasties and doesn't totally scrub the honey flavor from over boiling it.

One thing to remember though if using a lot of honey, you'll want to also add some yeast nutrient
 
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