Honey & Sugar Question

[bigemadrid]

Hey all,

First off the obligatory THANK YOU for all the awesome advice in these forums - I'm a 6+ months lurcher of these forums, 3 (technically 4) batches of my own brew deep, and first time poster. You all rock.

My question: brewed up my 3rd batch today, an extract batch IPA with 1.5 pounds of steeped grains (crystal 10 and honey malt) that I also added a pound of wildflower honey and a pound of sugar to up my alcohol over 7%. (for the record: used citra hop leaves for bittering and cascade leaves added every 20 minutes and with 5 minutes left for aroma; northwest ale wyeast). Its sitting in the fermenter now, and I can already see 1/2 to 1 inch of sediment at the bottom of the fermenter. It looks just like the yeast normally does after Doing its thing and Settling to the bottom. Obviously its not "dead yeast" yet ... I'm guessing this is maybe the sugar/honey/fermentables from my grain that aren't completely dissolved right now? Should I be worried, will the yeast get to those and do its thing?

I added the honey/sugar at same time as extract (off the heat source) and made sure it all dissolved before putting it back on the heat. Hope I didn't add all that for nothing!

Thanks in advance,
Erik

 

[Doomsday]

What kind of sugar did you use? Also how much, (a %) of the fermentables was each addition?

I add corn sugar to my brew to up the abv. Normally bump it up by .010 points

I added macadamean nut honey to my wit thats bottle conditioning right now.
But to keep the honey flavor I dissolved it in some warm water and added it after primary fermentation.

From what I understand, if you add it to the boil, you will lose a LOT of the honey flavor.

Anyways, if you added those to the boil, they they are no doubt in the wort, it wont "settle" out as you were thinking. The yeast will have no problem converting it.

Also just out of curiosity, why did you decide to add honey to an IPA? Not the first think I would think of I guess.

 

[bigemadrid]

Assuming by a% you mean spike in ABV? Per beer calculus the sugar jumped my estimated ABV by 1.3% and the honey boosted it .7%

Good to know on the honey boiling out most the flavor. Next time I'll try it in fermenter. I went for a little twist on an otherwise standard IPA recipe - I like my IPAs a little drier so I went with crystal 10 and honey malt - I really like what honey malt did for another beer I brewed already and when I got into trying to boost my ABV some honey sounded like a good fit! We'll see if it does anything to the flavor at all

UPDATE: the airlock is firing away already this AM, fastest bubble action I've had out of any of my brews to date. Still a considerable amount of sediment at the bottom but it appears the yeast is eating away at it, looks like there's a bit less than there was last night.

 

[Doomsday]

Well keep me updated. I like my IPAs dry as well.