Honey Brown Ale

I love Sleemans Honey Brown and designed this recipe to try to make something similar. I want a good honey flavor with some biscuit taste and a darker orange tint. I'm going to brew this in the next couple weeks, I wanna know what you guys think who have brewed something similar. Normally I would brew a single type of hop but I'm using up what I have left. I added a bit of honey to give it a couple more points and if people ask me if I use actual honey I can say yes:

8lb - 2-row pale malt
1lb - victory malt
8oz - caramel/crystal malt 120
8oz - honey malt
Mash @ 152°F

1oz - saaz hops (60 mins)
.5oz - mt. Hood hops (5 mins)
.5oz - hallertauer mittelfrueh (5 mins)
.5lb - honey (1 min)

Safale S-05

How did it go? And if I wanted to modify and not do an ALL-Grain what would you suggest for extract. I did a honey-irish red but put the honey in for a secondary.

So I finally brewed this and my recipe changed based on the hops I had, plus I upped the honey malt. Brew day went well, color looks good. I will post pictures and tasting notes once the beer is Kegged and in glass. I expect the ale to be thicker and more flavor than a sleeman's due to it not being a lager. Like I said I want a strong honey Graham cracker flavor. IBU was about 38.

8lb - 2-Row Pale Malt
1lb - Victory Malt
1lb - Honey Malt
8oz - Caramel/Crystal Malt 10
Mash @ 152F for 600 ins

.75oz Nugget (60 mins)
.50oz Mt. Hood (10 mins)
Splash of liquid honey (1 min)

Safale S-05

Drinking the beer as I speak. Nice color and the busicuit flavor comes threw with a sweeter after taste. It's diffinetly not as light as sleemans but turned out to be a nice ale

View attachment 1429934009496.jpg

Thanks for the share! Would you recommence this recipe? Anything you think might be altered after tasting it?

How much honey did you end up using?

Thanks!

I wouldn't use more than .5lb of honey, most of the flavor comes from the honey malt and you dont want to dry out your beer. I would recommend it, it's a very nice beer. It's got a lot more flavor than sleemans has due to them converting their recipe to a thin lager. If you end up making this let me know how it goes

Just brewed this beer and cracked the first bottle. Tastes great! My supplier and friends love it!

Glad your enjoying it! If anyone has brewed it lemme know how your results were

That picture looks great. I'd take a glass of that over Sleeman any day of the week.

ratinator said:

Drinking the beer as I speak. Nice color and the busicuit flavor comes threw with a sweeter after taste. It's diffinetly not as light as sleemans but turned out to be a nice ale

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I see the jumping jack in the background! great beer!

louis said:

I see the jumping jack in the background! great beer!

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I got about 20 of the pumpkin ales. Trying to collect them. Fort Gary happy jack pumpkin is by far the best I've had

Hate to be a newb and re bring this post up again! But... Just wondering if this a 5 gallon batch? Do you have how much water you started with and all that jazz? thanks in advance.

Yes its for 5gal batch. I usually use anywhere from 1.25-1.5gal/lb when mashing. Let me know how it turns out for you

Use 1.25qt of water for each poinds of grain the recipe calls for. Mash with that water and use more water to sparge, until you get 6.5gal of water in your kettle (depending on your setup)

thanks for the info fellas!!! Im guessing you were fermenting at 68 F? Did you use a whirlfloc tablet at all? Or is that for lighter ales only? Thanks in advance

Also.. what are you looking for specific gravity before and after fermentation??

Make sure to use 1.25-1.5 QUARTS (not gallons) of water to mash
Yes, 68F is ideal although you can go a few degrees higher or lower.
Whirfloc tablet is like Irish Moss. You can use it but not necessary (it only helps with beer clarity). I encourage you to search on this forum for this topic

I recommend you get a brewing software (BeerSmith, Brewer's friend, etc) for all the rest of the information that is specific to each recipe. You will be able to input ingredients and create a recipe, and the software will give you all you need to know to brew it (FG, OG, IBU, SRM, Quantity and temperature of mash water, mashout water, sparge water, etc etc etc. It will take you a moment to be completely familiarize yourself with it, but its an important tool for any homebrewer

Don't worry, we were once all new to the hobby. Cheers!

Jojacques.. Thanks for the info!! i have beer smith.. just havent played around with adding my own recipes yet.. thought it was a lot scarier then that!! I will play around with it! thanks again for the help guys!

Ya i just fermented at room temperature of my house. Its not super picky, s-05 is great. Only time you should worry about temp is if you want certain flavors from the yeast. I cant remember what my gravity readings are, if you use a desktop i think it will say at top of recipe. My abv was about 5%, if you plug the ingredients into beersmith it should give you all of that

I have a lb of brown malt that I'm not sure what to do with... what would you say about this recipe. Has anyone brewed anything close to this?

8# 2row
1# honey malt
1# brown malt

152 for 60mins

sytrian goldings @ 60mins (only hop i have on hand that would be mild)

us-05

Hinodriver said:

I have a lb of brown malt that I'm not sure what to do with... what would you say about this recipe. Has anyone brewed anything close to this?

8# 2row
1# honey malt
1# brown malt

152 for 60mins

sytrian goldings @ 60mins (only hop i have on hand that would be mild)

us-05

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That would be fine. Only ingredient i wouldnt exclude is the honey malt

Adding to my brew list, might split it into to 2.5 gallon batches and ferment one with US-05 and the second with 34/70 as a warm lager.

Finally got around to brewing this. Followed the recipe as is. Very nice and tasty.