Changing a recipie to remove honey addition.

[tamoore]

I'm going to be brewing a beer this weekend, for which the recipe I have asks for an addition of 1 pound of honey. I know from my past experience that I'm never totally happy with my beers (especially lightly hopped beers) that have a large raw sugar addition to the boil.

When reformulating the recipe to remove the honey, is there an accepted strategy I should follow to somehow replicate the intent of the honey, or just modify the base grain to make up for the difference in OG that removing the honey would have?

I'm guessing that since Honey is so darn fermentable and leaves behind so little residual flavor, that the base grain addition would be alright. Th ofe other question would be, by adding this additional base grain, does it throw out-of-whack the effect my specialty grains will have, and should I increase their percentages as well as the base grain?

Thanks for any help you can give.

 

[KAMMEE]

Just bump up your base malt, it should be fine without adjusting your specialty grains if you're only talking 1 lb of honey.

 

[statseeker]

You can try adding 1/2 lb or so of honey malt to the specialty malts. It's still pretty fermentable and definitely shows in the flavor. When I used it in my IPA it definitely showed through much more than I thought it would in a very good way.

 

[cactusgarrett]

IMO, actual honey actually gives LESS honey flavor than honey itself, most likely due to the nearly complete fermetability of the honey in the first place. I would just change out the honey for base malt as KAMMEE said.

 

[MrAverage]

Just something to think about.....


Honey adds little flavor when boiled, but increases lightness, 'dryness" and alcohol when feremented. Malt will add flavor and mouthfeel but not as much alcohol, so switching it for the honey is not going produce the same result. The beer will taste more malty and 'thicker" - which may be exactly what you're looking for. It will also throw off the hop/malt balance, so you may find that the beer tastes a little less bitter than it is with the honey (more correctly, it will taste sweeter).

As the others have said, you're probably OK just subbing the malt for the honey, but you might want to think about what you're trying to achieve, flavor - wise first.

 

[dcp27]

I know from my past experience that I'm never totally happy with my beers (especially lightly hopped beers) that have a large raw sugar addition to the boil.

out of curiosity, what is it that is making those ones less appealing?

 

[edb23]

I've read that every pound of honey adds about .07 to the OG, so a beer thats 1050 will be 1057 with a pound of honey. Just add enough extra base malt to make up for that .07 in gravity and nothing should be different, because hops utilization and all that is determined by the gravity of the wort you're boiling, not what made the gravity that way. and your specialty grains should be fine

 

[MrAverage]

I've read that every pound of honey adds about .07 to the OG, so a beer thats 1050 will be 1057 with a pound of honey. Just add enough extra base malt to make up for that .07 in gravity and nothing should be different,

That's true for 5 gallons (honey yields about 35 gravity points per pound per gallon. Hel'll have to adjust accordingly if he's not brewing a 5 gallon batch

...because hops utilization and all that is determined by the gravity of the wort you're boiling, not what made the gravity that way. and your specialty grains should be fine

yes that's also true - the IBU's will be the same because the wort gravity will be the same. What will be different however is the taste perception of the bitterness because malt contributes a sweet malty flavor whereas honey contributes very little sweetness. Extreme illustration: After fermentation, the perceived bitterness of 35 IBU's in a 1.050 wort made up of 100% malt is going to be very different than that of 35 IBU's in a 1.050 wort made up of 100% honey or other sugars even though the gravities and IBU's are the same because the unfermentables and other flavors in the malt wort will balance against the hop bitterness whereas in the sugar wort, it's almost totally converted to alcohol with very little flavor to balance the hops.

However, at the quantities we're talking about it may not be that big a deal. Still, it's something to think about.

 

[tamoore]

Thanks everyone. I just went in with a bit more base malt until the gravity hit what I was after.

dcp27: I've made two beers that were mid level alcohol beers (OG of ~1.060) and lightly hopped, both using sugars to get the last ~10 points. I found both of them to have a harsh alcohol flavor that overpowered everything else. I actually poured one out after a few weeks on tap, and gave the other one away to a guy who would basically drink anything...

I suppose for beers over 1.070, adding sugar would be a good way to ramp up the alcohol if required, but for these smaller beers, I'd rather go in with all grain based on my experience.

Thanks again!