Honey Wheat Beer - Any Advice?

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tgolanos

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I've currently got an American-style lager fermenting away and I'm starting to plan my next brew - a honey wheat beer. Here's the recipe I have so far (more or less):

3kg Wheat LME
1kg Light DME
11.5g Safbrew WB-06 Yeast
57g Perle hops (all 57g at 0 minutes)
22g Saaz hops (14g at 40 minutes, 8g at 58 minutes)
500g Honey

I've done this brew before without the honey and it came out great. The biggest question I have now is how much honey to add and when to add it. I don't want my final product to be overly sweet, I'd like it to just have subtle honey tones. From everything I've read, my best bet is to add the honey after the boil while the wort is still hot. Any advice or suggestions would be much appreciated!

Weiterbrauen! - Brew on!
 
The honey will just ferment completely, boosting ABV and drying out your beer. If you want the taste of honey then use honey malt. Steep maybe a quarter pound.

Edit: Sorry, I see you're in Aussie, I don't think we can get honey malt locally down here (I've brought it back from the US a few times).
 
Probably could add some honey at kegging time if you keg.... shouldn't ferment at fridge temps.
 
the later you add the honey in the brewing process the more the flavour will come through.

As mentioned it dries the beer out and drives up the ABV. If you add it at flameout or during fermentation you should get nice aromas (but not sweetness) coming through.

I think if you add the honey to the boil more than 15 minutes before flameout you won't notice the honey. The beer will just be drier.
 
I like to add honey 2-3 days into fermentation to preserve the aromatics and stress the yeast less due to a lower initial OG
 
You will have sweetness on the back of your tongue with a lb of honey. I can pick it out at half that amount in my honey Kolsch beers. But it is present more in the aftertaste than the upfront taste. You wouldn't want it sweet anyway in a wheat. I think you will like 500g just fine
 
Thanks for the advice, all. It's much appreciated. I'm going to brew it this weekend. I think I'll add the 500g at/just after flame-out and see how it goes.
 
Brewed today and the process couldn't have gone smoother. Had to switch to Northern Brewer hops because my home brew shop didn't have the Perles I wanted, but no big deal. Expected an OG of 1.061 and ended up with 1.060 so I'm quite satisfied.

Fermenter's sealed and airlock's in. Now we wait...
 
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