Adding honey to a dark ale, thoughts?

[scottyyyc]

I just fired up a batch of Cooper's Dark Ale, added 1 liter of Munton's brewer's syrup, and noticed OG was (what I interpret to be) a little low for a Dark Ale (1.042). I went down to the store and picked up some generic honey (pasteurized, 1KG), which brought the gravity up to about 1.054.

For darker ales I don't think adding honey was a sin, as this is supposed to be a very bold-flavored Ale. Any thoughts? Have I committed a sin?

 

[Bheher]

No you are fine, what was the og supposed to be?

 

[scottyyyc]

No you are fine, what was the og supposed to be?

Don't know, and can't seem to find that info, actually. Cooper's site only says 'bottle when FG is 1.009'. I've only been able to find generic recommendations for dark ales (eg 1.04 to 1.055). The Canadian in me likes my beers to be around 5% - 5.5%, so in order to reach that with an expected FG of 1.01 or thereabouts, I figured I needed to bump it up the 1.05 - 1.055 level.

 

[Calder]

2 lbs of honey is a lot of simple sugars. It will thin the taste out a bit, and you will probably not be able to taste the honey since it will completely ferment out and the fermentation will drive off the aromatics. Next time add a pound of extract.

If the recipe says 1.009 is the expected FG, then it was probably designed to have an OG of around 1.040. You can't expect more than 75% attenuation from malt sugars. The honey should completely ferment so you should still get close to the expected FG.