Priming with Honey

I've decided to prime my esb with honey, just wondering how much to use for a 5 gal batch and what i need to do ( boil it with water)?

I used 8 oz (as I believe I read in The Complete Joy of Homebrewing and that was WAY too much. My beer is way overcarbed. I can't tell you the exact right amount, as that's the only time I primed with honey, just don't get near 8 oz!

It depends on how much carbonation you want. A half cup of honey will give you pretty much the same amount of carbonation as 2/3 cup of cane sugar or 3/4 cup of corn sugar. You can adjust from there.

there's other similar calculators, but you can use this one for various sugars to use for priming

http://www.brewheads.com/priming.php

schubes24 said:

I've decided to prime my esb with honey, just wondering how much to use for a 5 gal batch and what i need to do ( boil it with water)?

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I'm intrigued. How much will you be able to taste the honey?

If you carb with honey, will some of the aroma or taste remain?

jjinx, you owe me a coke.

If you boil it, you'll largely (if not completely) lose the aroma and flavor.

40watt said:

jjinx, you owe me a coke.

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flabyboy said:

It depends on how much carbonation you want. A half cup of honey will give you pretty much the same amount of carbonation as 2/3 cup of cane sugar or 3/4 cup of corn sugar. You can adjust from there.

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NEVER measure priming sugars by volume...

Even on the brewheads site linked to earlier posts: "Volume (such as cups) is not an accurate way to measure priming sugar. You don't measure your hops in cups do you? Go buy a cheap scale. If you insist on using volume instead of mass, its suggested that 3/4 cup of corn sugar is about 4 ounces. That applies for corn sugar only. "

I've had reasonable success taking the carbonation calculations from Beer Smith, and using 1.25x that in weight of honey to prime with. I used honey for my first several batches, but have started using turbinado/dememera sugar for the past couple of batches. I have one that's been carbonating for about two weeks now, that I plan to check on soon (it's an old ale, so it could take a little longer to carbonate)...

It would be a real shame to carbonate too high, or low, with a batch that you made, just because you didn't spend a few dollars on a scale. You can easily find a good one for under $20 either at places like Bed Bath and Beyond or on Amazon.com...

aggiejay06 said:

If you boil it, you'll largely (if not completely) lose the aroma and flavor.

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I'd add it after killing the flame on the water. Honey doesn't really need to be sanitized and the brief time at the higher temps will do it enough either way.

you might get a little aroma, but most of the flavor will go cuz honey is nearly 100% fermentable regardless of boiling or not

dcp27 said:

but most of the flavor will go cuz honey is nearly 100% fermentable regardless of boiling or not

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So why use honey?

I use honey for my pizza dough. Yeasties love it.

Jacktar said:

So why use honey?

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I used it because I forgot to buy corn sugar at my LHBS when I made my ingredient run!

Jacktar said:

So why use honey?

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Why not?? If you use the right amount it primes a brew just fine. I used it initially because I also used honey in the brews. I've since shifted to using less extra sugars than what the grain will give me, so not using honey inside the batches. I'm using turbinado/dememera sugar mostly because I don't like to use super-processed sugars in anything I make. Since the turbinado/dememera sugars are a viable option, it's good to use. I am seeing that some calculators list them, and you can actually use less than the super-processed corn sugars for priming... Seems like a win/win to me...

A scale is not going to help with honey because it can have a wide range of moisture and non-fermentable from batch to batch. Personally I would recommend against it. It isn't going to add much flavor and makes it very likely you're going to get over or under carbonated beer. On top of that it drys out the final beer, but not in a good way in my experience. I've made 4 batches recently and probably 15 over the years and the batch I liked the least was the one I added Honey to. Personally I think it belongs in mead, not ale.

Or to look at it another way Sierra Nevada Brewery makes 13 different ales, stouts, porters, lagers, estate harvest ales, etc, etc, etc, all of them award winning quality, and none of them have honey in them. There's probably a good reason for that

unionrdr said:

I thought of using raw wildflower honey in wheat beer with zest or blueberries. The raw version is not only un-pasteurized,it isn't heated &/or in water to get more out of the comb. I used to work with bee keepers that told of these things.
So,the raw version should be of more consistent quality. Not to mention better utilized in fermentation,imo.

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Honey has natural antimicrobial qualities and doesn't really need to be heated, especially when added to something that already has an unfriendly bacterial environment like already fermented beer. It doesn't make it less fermentable to heat it, but it will drive off some of the aroma and flavor compounds. Similar to how we add flavor and aroma hops at the end of the boil and get very little to no flavor/aroma character from bittering additions at the start of the boil.

Randar said:

Honey has natural antimicrobial qualities and doesn't really need to be heated, especially when added to something that already has an unfriendly bacterial environment like already fermented beer. It doesn't make it less fermentable to heat it, but it will drive off some of the aroma and flavor compounds. Similar to how we add flavor and aroma hops at the end of the boil and get very little to no flavor/aroma character from bittering additions at the start of the boil.

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What I meant/was told was,after they cut one side of the comb rack with a hot knife to "open it",they let'em drain naturally to get the honey out. Then,the remaining wax comb will be heated in water to get the rest of the honey out. Then reduced in volume to get the proper consistency. That's how it gets pasteurized.
I just remember reading that some found the raw honey (read best quality,like "extra virgin"olive oil)seemed to give better residual flavor. Made sense to me,anyway. Haven't tried it in beer yet.

A scale is ALWAYS the best way to measure ANY priming sugar. I don't care what you're priming with.

As for referencing Sierra Nevada... WGAF?? I don't think I've had ONE of their brews that I actually cared for... At all. Many of us brew our own because we don't like what the commercial breweries are offering. Would you only brew what BMC makes, or what wins awards??

Using honey in just one batch and not liking, then blaming the honey for why you didn't like it seems more than a bit foolish to me. I've used honey in 4 out of 9 batches, and haven't had one that I didn't like.

I don't know what YOU'RE getting for honey, but what I've used has worked for priming, as well as in the brews while fermenting with solid results. Yes, it will ferment more complete than DME/LME, but if you factor that in when you build the recipe it's a zero issue. Just tossing it in for the hell of it without figuring out what it will do is more than foolish.

For priming, you're not going to get something any drier than if you primed with regular sugar, honey, cane sugar, etc. As long as it is a fermentable sugar, you can prime with it. You just need to figure out how much to use to get your goal. As for thinking honey is too unstable to prime with... You must have been using some real crappy honey. Or you have a very narrow CO2 volumes range that you like.

Personally, the first time I brew a recipe, I will aim more for the middle CO2 volume range for a style. The next time I brew it, I can adjust that off of the first brewing. That's all part of the process.

BTW, getting consistent results in priming by using cup measurements is far too unreliable. IF you go by weight, then you will be able to get the same level on a recipe time and again. Look at it this way, do the people brewing for a living use volume measurements for dry ingredients?? The ONLY thing I'll measure by volume in a batch is water. Even there, if I had a scale that went high enough, I'd go by weight.

In the end, I'm NOT going to tell the OP to not prime with honey. I will advise weighing it, and making sure you factor for it properly (the linked site put honey at roughly 1.25x the corn sugar amount).

Every time I've primed with honey, I would just mix in warm/heated water to get it to dissolve and mix it in. Solid results every time. Knowing HOW to handle different ingredients makes all the difference in the world...

unionrdr, thanks...

I think that giving an ingredient a chance, and not basing your opinion on an entire set of products off of just ONE batch is important. IF I had a batch that ended up just foul, I'd be looking to see why. I would probably end up making it at least a couple of times with the same recipe, getting other opinions on how it turned out (as long as it's not spoiled, taste can be subjective)...

Just like how some people love hop bombs, while others prefer something more balanced, or leaning more towards a more malty profile. I won't tell someone to NOT make a brew, or us an ingredient just because I don't like it, or didn't like how the ONE brew I made with it came out. Unless that was the only flavor element in the brew, which should be a red flag if there ever was one, who's to say why it didn't turn out to your liking...

For the OP... If you want to try something out, do it. The only way you'll really know if you like something is to brew it up and taste the end product. The amount of flavor you'll end up with in a bottle, when priming with raw honey, isn't all that much. You might not even notice it. Going off the calculation tools/sites to figure out how much to use (and using that amount) will help you get close enough to your carbonation goal. Keep in mind, we're working on a microscopic scale when compared with the big boys (even compared to micro breweries)...

Also, thinking about it a bit, the reason WHY some breweries don't use honey probably has more to do with ingredient cost than anything else. When you consider that really good honey runs at least $4/#, with great honey running upwards of $8-$10/# (or more) it doesn't make fiscal sense for them to use it. Where we can use just a pound or three in a 5 gallon batch, and not care so much about batch costs. They would be looking at hundreds of pounds in a batch, and need to charge a good amount more for that bottle than their other offerings. While they might make something that people will line up to purchase, getting those first few batches to actually SELL can be scary...

Also, DFH did brew with really, really, really raw honey... I've not looked to see how much they used in the actual production batch, but it couldn't have been a small amount. I've also not checked to see how much they charged for that brew. But, knowing that there ARE breweries out there using honey in brews, that are very well received makes me lean more towards the opinion that it's perfectly fine to use in brews. Keeping honey to only batches of mead is like public transportation back in the 50's/60's...

[/rant]

Golddiggie said:

A scale is ALWAYS the best way to measure ANY priming sugar. I don't care what you're priming with.

As for referencing Sierra Nevada... WGAF?? I don't think I've had ONE of their brews that I actually cared for... At all. Many of us brew our own because we don't like what the commercial breweries are offering. Would you only brew what BMC makes, or what wins awards??

Using honey in just one batch and not liking, then blaming the honey for why you didn't like it seems more than a bit foolish to me. I've used honey in 4 out of 9 batches, and haven't had one that I didn't like.

I don't know what YOU'RE getting for honey, but what I've used has worked for priming, as well as in the brews while fermenting with solid results. Yes, it will ferment more complete than DME/LME, but if you factor that in when you build the recipe it's a zero issue. Just tossing it in for the hell of it without figuring out what it will do is more than foolish.

For priming, you're not going to get something any drier than if you primed with regular sugar, honey, cane sugar, etc. As long as it is a fermentable sugar, you can prime with it. You just need to figure out how much to use to get your goal. As for thinking honey is too unstable to prime with... You must have been using some real crappy honey. Or you have a very narrow CO2 volumes range that you like.

Personally, the first time I brew a recipe, I will aim more for the middle CO2 volume range for a style. The next time I brew it, I can adjust that off of the first brewing. That's all part of the process.

BTW, getting consistent results in priming by using cup measurements is far too unreliable. IF you go by weight, then you will be able to get the same level on a recipe time and again. Look at it this way, do the people brewing for a living use volume measurements for dry ingredients?? The ONLY thing I'll measure by volume in a batch is water. Even there, if I had a scale that went high enough, I'd go by weight.

In the end, I'm NOT going to tell the OP to not prime with honey. I will advise weighing it, and making sure you factor for it properly (the linked site put honey at roughly 1.25x the corn sugar amount).

Every time I've primed with honey, I would just mix in warm/heated water to get it to dissolve and mix it in. Solid results every time. Knowing HOW to handle different ingredients makes all the difference in the world...

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Take it easy bro, if you like to prime with honey have at it.

John Palmer doesn't happen to agree that it can be weighed and then consistently used for priming:

Honey is difficult to prime with because there is no standard for concentration. The gravity of honey is different jar to jar. To use honey, you will need to dilute it and measure its gravity with a hydrometer. For all sugars in general, you want to add 2-3 gravity points per gallon of beer to prime.

I gave him my opinion (and I'm not alone) that new brewers always seem to become obscessed with honey and all they are doing with it is putting expensive sugar in their beers, not making them better, again my opinion.

And you may not like Sierra Nevada or ever found one of their beers you actually cared for at all, but that doesn't change the fact that they are one of the best breweries in the US and make consistently some of the best beers available. If you think you make home brew because you can't tolerate that mass produced crap like Hoptimum, Bigfoot or SN Porter you're fooling yourself, but again, if that's how you feel, more power to you.

http://thebrewingnetwork.com/shows/660