Northern Brewer Irish Draught Ale and Honey

Next up for me is the Irish Draught Ale all-grain kit from northern brewer. Here is the recipe:

7.5 lbs Marris Otter (6.5 in kit + 1lb I'm adding)
1 lb Honey
.5 lb Caramalt
.25 lb golden naked oats
.25 lb chocolate malt

1 oz challenger 60 min

I'm planning to use safbrew s-33 to ferment it.
EDIT: on second thought I might just use some notty or s-04 and save the s-33 for something high gravity.

From the description...

As a bow to Ireland's meadmaking past, clover honey lightens the body and boosts the gravity of this recipe, while a small dose of oats adds creaminess to the mouthfeel and a hint of grain to the flavor.

Click to expand...

So now I'm debating if I actually want honey flavor/aroma in this beer. I have a feeling that the instructions would have me add the honey to the boil, and we all know that's just a shame, but it is supposed to lighten the body and add gravity without some of the "edgyness" of adding sugar. I'm thinking I do want the honey taste/aroma but I'm not completely decided.

I would do it. The kit only has bittering hops, so your flavor and aroma are going to come from the honey. If you dropped the honey, you will probably have to add some hops to balance this out.

Not sure you will get a lot of honey flavor from a pound considering it will ferment out. It would be best to add it late in the process or use honey malt for flavor.

Well the bad news first: I went to the LHBS today in search of some notty or s-04, but they had neither. The only yeast they had was munton's dry brewing yeast. Well the lady who works there really only knows about wine making but she said it's the yeast that comes in their boxed true brew kits and the munton's canned kits, and I figure most of those are styles that originate in the UK, so it can't be terrible.

Second bad news is that I ran out of propane 15 mins into the boil, but I ran out and got another tank and there was only 25 minutes without flame. Should be no harm done.

The good news: I got 92.7% brewhouse efficiency!! I've never even broken 80 before. I asked northern brewer to run my grain through the crusher twice and I guess I'll be doing that from now on (until I get my own crusher of course).

Did you use 2 packs of Munton's? I think they are 6 grams which is about half the size of Nottingham or Safale. It seems to be somewhat prone to not finishing out. Good Luck