3 Pounds of Honey? When / Where?

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CallMeZoot

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I'd like to brew up a Sam Adams Honey Porter clone, and I found this recipe. (Also reproduced below).

It calls for 3 pounds of honey but does not specify when to add it. Should I assume, then, that the honey is for priming? If so, isn't 3 pounds an awful lot for priming?

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks,
chris.



Ingredients:

* 1/2 lb. black patent malt crushed
* 1/2 lb. chocolate malt crushed
* 1 lb. medium crystal malt crushed
* 6 lbs. amber malt syrup
* 3 lbs. light honey
* 1 oz. Perles - boiling (60 minutes)
* 1/2 oz. Fuggles - boiling (30 minutes)
* 1/2 oz. Fuggles - finishing (5 minutes)
* Wyeast 1084 "Irish Ale"

Procedure:
Steep the crushed specialty grains from cold up to 160-170F and remove. Bring water to boil, turn off the heat before adding the malt extract to avoid scorching. Bring back to a boil and add boiling hops, after 30 minutes add the flavor hops, and at 55 minutes the finishing hops. Optionally add 1 tsp. Irish Moss at 45 minutes into the boil to help the break. Remove from heat, cool to 70F, transfer to carboy topping up to 5 gallons, and pitch yeast.
Specifics:

* O.G. - 1.062
* F.G. - 1.016
* Primary: 1 week
* Secondary: 4 weeks
 
Ok, and should I turn off the heat before adding it, as I would with an extract (to avoid scorching)? I don't usually like to stop the boil so late in the game.

chris.
 
z987k said:
or add it to primary after cooling the wort.

You might have some sanitation concerns there. While microbes cannot grow in honey, due to insufficient water activity, they may hang around on the surface.

I've never made a mead, but the meadmakers I know pasteurize their . . . whatever it's called. :)


TL
 
If you want the aroma from the honey, add it as late as possible. I would add it while it is boiling to sanitize it. I've made a few meads already where I have added a couple of pounds of honey over the course of 2 weeks, about 23# in all (came close to 20%) w/o boiling-just heated it up in a bit of water and added some yeast nutrients. I think that if you don't turn off the heat, stir it constantly to avoid scorching.
 
TexLaw said:
You might have some sanitation concerns there. While microbes cannot grow in honey, due to insufficient water activity, they may hang around on the surface.

I've never made a mead, but the meadmakers I know pasteurize their . . . whatever it's called. :)


TL

I did this to my honey wheat... 3lbs to the 5.5 gallons after the fermentation had taken a good hold.

In our 8 gallons of mead we have going no there was no heating of any sort. Honey is usually pasteurized anyways and any further heating only destroys the flavor and aroma (especially boiling temps). I truly vote for no heat to the honey at all.
 
I made a honey ale a while back and added my 3 lbs at flameout. And when it was time to bottle, I primed with 4.7 oz of honey added to a cup of boiling water with the flame out and then brought back to a boil. It turned out nicely. Fermentation took a lot longer, but it was worth it.
 
z987k said:
I Honey is usually pasteurized anyways and any further heating only destroys the flavor and aroma (especially boiling temps). I truly vote for no heat to the honey at all.

Store bought honey may be pasteurized, But the old guy at the farmer's market may not do anything with his.
 
I just made a honey porter as well, and ours came out super sweet (even though we ended at 1.015) We added the honey at 15 minutes with the extract, but since it was a darker wildflower honey, I was confident the flavor would still be fairly robust, even after the boil. The honey character really mixed well with the beer, and I think helped to hide some of that extract twang that we seem to be getting. However it is extensively sweet. Anyone do much blending? This beer is drinkable, but it's almost like a dessert beer, not one you'd have two of. I'm thinking of blending a more dry, roasty porter with it to get something interesting. Thoughts?

mike
 
psycdad, your right, it may not be, but even the honey we get from the guy at the local apiary pasteurizes his.

MLynchLtd, what yeast did you use, what was the OG? If you had enough fermentables that the yeast couldn't eat everything, it's going to be really sweet. But you're looking at a 12+ beer there.
 
Winter Buzz Honey Porter
Yield: 5 Gal
Boil: 3.5 Gal
OG: 1.055
FG: 1.016

1 lb. American crystal 40L
.5 lb. American chocolate
.5 lb. American black patent

Steeped for 45 minutes at 155 degrees

6 lb. Amber dry malt extract
2.5 lb. Honey

Added in last 15 minutes of the boil

1 oz. Perle (8% AA, 60 min.)
.5 oz. Fuggles (4.75% AA, 30 min.)
.5 oz. Fuggles (aroma)

2 smack packs of Wyeast 1084 Irish Ale

I don't know what happened here, I've had honey in brews before and it fermented out almost completely dry, eating up all the honey. The only thing I can think of is that I left this at my friends house to ferment, and he said there was a really vigourous ferment in the first few days, and there was a blowoff. He said he was cleaning up krauzen from the basement walls, so maybe the beer fermented to 1.015 in that time and the yeast simply was rocketed out of the beer, and therefore the ferment stopped and left all that honey alone. Its the only explaination I can come up with.

mike
 
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