Adding Honey to a Pale Ale ??

Hello, I going to brew a Pale Ale / Blonde Ale on Sat. The recipe seems good, I pulled it from HBT. Can I add 1/2 - 1 pound of honey? I like the flavor and smoothness it gives a beer (my Brown Ales). I don't want to mess up the flavors, and I'm not trying to match any styles or anything. I'm trying to make a nice smooth, flavorful brew. Also, I'm not a hoppy person so I tweaked the additions a bit.
Ok, so here the recipe:

9.50 lbs Pale Malt
0.50 lbs Crystal 10
0.50 lbs Flaked Wheat
0.25 lbs Special B
0.50 lbs Corn Sugar

0.50 oz Centennial 30 min
0.50 oz Centennial 15 min
0.50 oz Centennial 10 min
0.50 oz Centennial 05 min

Nottingham Yeast

30.1 IBU OG: 1.056 FG:1.013 ABV: 5.56%

Thanks, Donnie

Honey is almost 100% fermentable, so it will decrease the perception of body in the finished beer. The corn sugar (dextrose) will do that also. Thus I recommend subbing honey for the dextrose.

Add the honey at flameout to pasteurize it, but don't boil it if you want honey flavor and aroma; they're even more volatile than hops aromatics, and boiling for any length of time will drive them off. Prowl the mead forums here at HBT for further insight into honey.

Bob

Adding 1lb of honey, in addition to the 0.5lb of corn sugar will raise the % of simple sugars to around 13%. IIRC, you want to keep the % of simple sugars to below 10% to avoid a watery, highly alcoholic brew (i.e. hooch).

If I were to do it, I'd be sure to keep the honey addition to less than 1lb. Even better, I would consider substituting a 0.5lb of honey for the 0.5lb of corn sugar in the existing recipe.

That being said, its your beer. If you want to try a beer that is getting up into the "hooch" range, throw in the 1lb of honey on top of the 0.5lb corn sugar and see what happens!

Also, I noticed your hop additions. Keep in mind with that hop schedule you probably won't have much bittering as those hop additions will impart more in the way of flavoring/aroma (assuming a 60' boil).

I know you aren't a hoppy person, but I would recommend at least some bittering hops that will be boiled for the full time.

Maybe:
0.5 oz 60min
0.5oz 15min
0.5oz 10min
0.5oz 5min

Definitely not in the pale ale range of things either way....

Ok, so I will drop the corn sugar and add 0.50 lbs of honey at flame-out. Also I will move 0.5 oz hops at 60 mins. Thanks, and I'm still open for more suggestions, Donnie

I just added 5 pounds of honey to an APA. It is kind of what i expected. Kind of like an imperial pale ale. it has a nice heavy feel to it that an imperial tends to lack.

it is a good sipping beer.

i should mention that this was not planned. I was drunk and had 5 pounds of honey.

madewithchicken said:

i should mention that this was not planned. I was drunk and had 5 pounds of honey.

Click to expand...

HAHAHAHAHHHA

I was searching for " adding honey to an IPA and found this. Freaking awesome!