Add honey to keg for sweetness?

I brewed a Belgian Wit a couple of weeks ago...it's sitting in secondary right now. Tastes great but it came in with a slightly lower OG than the recipe specified (only my 3rd all grain batch so I'm still not as efficient as I'd like to be...I think I was at about 70% for this one).

Anyway...the beer tastes great but it's not as sweet as I had hoped. To remedy this, I've been thinking about adding some honey when I keg.

My theory is that the honey will boost the sweetness and bring the flavor to where I want it...and it will be too cold in the kegerator (38 degrees F) for the yeast to ferment the added honey (I do NOT want the honey to ferment).

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated...thanks.

I understand your theory, it kind of makes sense in principle, but I'm not sure that some of the yeasties still wouldn't wake up an attempt to ferment the fresh food...

For the Noobs looking in, that's the thing with people adding honey to beer, you really AREN'T getting much honey flavor in yourr beer, because it is fermenting away to alcohol, like mead. Which unless you kill fermentation and back sweeten with honey that won't ferment, really doesn't have that much of a sweet honey flavor. (To get a real honey flavor, use the darkest you can find, with the most concentration of flavor, or even better, use Gambrinus honey malt ProBrewer Interactive - View Single Post - Honey Malt)

Now in your case, I don't know if simply having the beer cold would be enough to keep them from processing the food...and what's going to happen if the glass of beer gets up to 55 degrees, is it going to start fermenting on the spot?

I dunno...

How bout using lactose instead? Boil up some lactose in a couple cups of water and add THAT to the keg....we know that that is unfermentable.

Just a thought.

ditto on lactose. It's a good backsweetener.

lactose +1

There's no way I would put fermentable sugars in there for the purpose of sweetening.

I'd go with "the beer tastes great" and leave it at that. Sometimes, well almost always when you tinker with something great you wind up with something not so great.

samc said:

I'd go with "the beer tastes great" and leave it at that. Sometimes, well almost always when you tinker with something great you wind up with something not so great.

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Yeah, that's a good point.

THat tends to be my philosophy as well....after the beer is bottle, or kegged, it's done...and if it's good enough, enjoy it...and fiddle with the recipe for the next time you brew it.

There's a lot of batches on the horizion....

A glass of beer in front of me wouldn't last long enough to start fermenting, but I wouldn't add honey to a keg. The only reason I can see for using honey in beer is to lighten the body and increase ABV...

You are almost correct. The yeast won't ferment the honey quickly, but they will ferment it, even at 38F.

More to the point, it is tough to judge a Wit before it is carbonated.

Revvy said:

Now in your case, I don't know if simply having the beer cold would be enough to keep them from processing the food...and what's going to happen if the glass of beer gets up to 55 degrees, is it going to start fermenting on the spot?

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Revvy, please, please, PLEASE tell me that you are not serious. You're just kidding around with the guy, right? RIGHT?

Hey, OP, the idea of it spontaneously launching into fermentation in the glass as you drink it is, well, I mean, that HAS to be a joke. Sweeten with honey if you want, or use lactose if you have it or are worried about spontaneous fermentation in your glass...but if you want to use honey, it's not going to hurt anything.

david_42 said:

You are almost correct. The yeast won't ferment the honey quickly, but they will ferment it, even at 38F.

More to the point, it is tough to judge a Wit before it is carbonated.

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You sure about that? I've never seen an ale yeast ferment at 38...

Evan! said:

Revvy, please, please, PLEASE tell me that you are not serious. You're just kidding around with the guy, right? RIGHT?

Hey, OP, the idea of it spontaneously launching into fermentation in the glass as you drink it is, well, I mean, that HAS to be a joke. Sweeten with honey if you want, or use lactose if you have it or are worried about spontaneous fermentation in your glass...but if you want to use honey, it's not going to hurt anything.

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I said it was just conjecture....but you don't think dormant yeast COULD wake up when it gets warm? It happens in every other phase of the process...Cold crashing and letting the yeast warm back up does it...why couldn't conceivably it start to ferment in the glass?

The point of my post was that if the OP wants something sweeter, then he should use something non-fermentable that actually does sweeten.

Of course he could also camden the beer, kill the yeast off and sweeten with honey, but that seems even more "f-ing" with it than just adding some boiled lactose.

Evan! said:

You sure about that? I've never seen an ale yeast ferment at 38...

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Guess if David has the same idea I'm still full of ****, eh?

I figured it was joke...no harm done

Evan! said:

Revvy, please, please, PLEASE tell me that you are not serious. You're just kidding around with the guy, right? RIGHT?

Hey, OP, the idea of it spontaneously launching into fermentation in the glass as you drink it is, well, I mean, that HAS to be a joke. Sweeten with honey if you want, or use lactose if you have it or are worried about spontaneous fermentation in your glass...but if you want to use honey, it's not going to hurt anything.

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I figured it was joke...no harm done

Evan! said:

You sure about that? I've never seen an ale yeast ferment at 38...

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Yeah, that was my point too. I've only been at this for a couple of years and I still consider myself relatively 'green'...but it's an ale yeast...and it seems like 38 degrees would slow its metabolism enough for me to drink the keg without much fermentation of the honey.

I don't know...I've never used lactose but it sounds like a safe bet if it unfermentable. I'm not talking about adding a sh*tload of sugar anyway...just a little bit so it's not as dry as it is currently.

I'm getting ready to try this to sweeten up a porter (bit dry now). Thinking about using 1 cup for 5 gallons. Thoughts????

streek_21 said:

I'm getting ready to try this to sweeten up a porter (bit dry now). Thinking about using 1 cup for 5 gallons. Thoughts????

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By "this", do you mean honey or lactose?

I know that lactose is sometimes used to sweeten stouts--specifically a "milk stout" (lactose is derived from milk hence the name). Being that a porter has a roasted taste similar to a stout, I'd think lactose would be appropriate.

I remember this particular batch; I went with lactose becuase I didn't want to risk a secondary fermentation in my keg by using honey--even though it was in the fridge. Sorry, I don't remember the proportions I used.

It turned out alright...I seem to remember a kind of "milky" sweetness. The milkiness was subtle though; not bad, the beer was good. For a porter, I think it'd be even better. Good luck.

Here's my notes from Beersmith.

Adding 1/2 cup of honey and 1/4 cup of brown sugar to keg to raise sweetness for 3 gallons in keg. Bottling 2 gallons with 3 tablespooons of honey, 2 tablespoons of brown sugar.

So far the keg is DELISH!!! We'll see how the bottles turned out, I cranked the temp down to about 34 before racking.

streek_21 said:

Here's my notes from Beersmith.

Adding 1/2 cup of honey and 1/4 cup of brown sugar to keg to raise sweetness for 3 gallons in keg. Bottling 2 gallons with 3 tablespooons of honey, 2 tablespoons of brown sugar.

So far the keg is DELISH!!! We'll see how the bottles turned out, I cranked the temp down to about 34 before racking.

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Sounds like you're using the honey and brown sugar to prime your bottles? As long as you used the right amount, you should be fine though I'm not sure what that amount might be. Worst case, the bottles will start exploding from being over carbonated if you added too much...so just keep an eye on them. After a couple of days, crack one open and measure the carbonation (read: drink the beer!). Do this periodically until you don't notice a change from one bottle to the next. You'll also want to keep your bottles at around 60-70 degrees to prime correctly--but I'm sure you knew that

I'm pretty sure honey is close to 100% fermentable. Brown sugar, I don't know.

Glad the keg tastes good...assuming you'll drink it within a reasonable amount of time, I'd say 34 degrees will slow the yeast from metabolizing the sugar.

Just to add a note that might not be quite on topic, I just primed a Nut brown using the darkest honey I could find, in this case it was avocado honey.

We had a split batch so we can directly taste the difference in the non-honey vs. the honey primed (used dextrose for the non-honey).

There is a definite taste of honey in the ones where we primed that way, I think the key is to make sure you find the darkest honey possible if you want that flavor to come through.

I'm adding a pound of honey (which I added to 150° water and cooled) to my keg when I rack it tomorrow. Should put a nice hit of honey flavor in my beer with little chance of fermentation.

I did this in my last Belgian Wheat. It did add a lot of honey sweetness, but be warned that it can also clog the dip tube. Basically the beer was chilled when I added straight honey (not yet dissolved) it sat at the bottom and hardened around the dip tube. It took a couple of glasses that had a restricted flow before it seemed to break loose.

I did like the flavor it added though.

This thread popped up in my email again... just in time to get started on my honey lager! BKL63.... let me know how that turns out for ya

Raising this from the dead - so is the jury still out on how much honey or other sugars ferment while in a chilled keg? I know the science says that it will ferment some, but what do you observe in the real world? What kind of difference did you see from beginning to the end of the keg?

This is just for those who added sweetener for a flavor boost, not to prime.

davekippen said:

Raising this from the dead - so is the jury still out on how much honey or other sugars ferment while in a chilled keg? I know the science says that it will ferment some, but what do you observe in the real world? What kind of difference did you see from beginning to the end of the keg?

This is just for those who added sweetener for a flavor boost, not to prime.

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I ended up using lactose which is a non-fermentable sugar. It was...ok. Not bad but not great.

Dang. I really want to hear from someone who has actually put honey or some other simple syrup in a keg just to sweeten LOL

davekippen said:

Dang. I really want to hear from someone who has actually put honey or some other simple syrup in a keg just to sweeten LOL

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You should just do it...what's the worst that could happen? If it ferments a little bit, you can relieve the pressure with the valve on the keg...just don't let the keg warm up for any extended period and you'll probably be good.

davekippen said:

Dang. I really want to hear from someone who has actually put honey or some other simple syrup in a keg just to sweeten LOL

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I added a couple of cans of frozen cranberry concentration to a keg of apple cider for my wife and her friends.

Tasted great for about a week but within a few weeks all the sweetness was gone and all that was left was the tartness of the cranberry. It actually ended up being a dumper.

Keezer is set to 1 degree Fahrenheit.

Why not dump some campden and k sorbate in the keg to kill the yeast when adding the honey?

I had the same problem. After kegging and carbonating, I wanted a little more honey flavor and sweetness.
This was my solution.
Step 1: Clean & sanitize the top of the keg.
Step 2: Boil 2 cups of water then dissolve 1 cup of honey into the water (allow to cool)
Step 3: Release pressure from keg and open the lid. Add your honey solution.
Step 4: Stir well with sanitized mash paddle ( or auto- siphon tube) don't worry if it foams all over the place.
Step 5: Reseal the lid & re-carbonate the keg at serving temp.
Friends say it was the BEST Honey Wheat I ever made. That keg never made it past the weekend.

jpseaton said:

I had the same problem. After kegging and carbonating, I wanted a little more honey flavor and sweetness.
This was my solution.
Step 1: Clean & sanitize the top of the keg.
Step 2: Boil 2 cups of water then dissolve 1 cup of honey into the water (allow to cool)
Step 3: Release pressure from keg and open the lid. Add your honey solution.
Step 4: Stir well with sanitized mash paddle ( or auto- siphon tube) don't worry if it foams all over the place.
Step 5: Reseal the lid & re-carbonate the keg at serving temp.
Friends say it was the BEST Honey Wheat I ever made. That keg never made it past the weekend.

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That would work great if you drink it fast. If you plan on keeping the keg around for a while I would definitely want to kill the yeast. I've had ale yeast keep fermenting in the fridge as low as 36F, although it took a few months.

Maybe just add honey to the glass before you pour a beer and let it dissolve? Don't tell your friends. Just bring in some pints of beer already poured lol.

I have backsweetened graff using cherry/white grape juice. I just dumped it in the keg. After carbing it up and finding it to be too tart. I doubt if there is much fermentation going on at my serving temp of 38 degrees, everything is crystal clear.