Hopping a Braggot and honey vs malt proportion

[lwcm]

Aloha,

Planning on doing a Belgian Braggot with Wyeast 3787 and I'm looking for some basic braggot info:

When using hops what would be the target IBU?

What is a good ratio for honey vs. malt? In the little bit of research I've done I read 2 lbs of honey to 1/2 lb of malt.

 

[Hrahn1995]

yeah i would definitely go with the 2lb honey, .5 malt.

If you are going for the idea of a Belgian Strong ale, i would say that because a belgian dark strong ale is listed at about 20-35 IBU, an IBU of about 25-30 would be best, you want it to be a bit higher than the base style because of the alcohol sweetness contributed by the honey. what type of hop were you thinking? I have a Bavarian Wheat Braggot w/ sweet orange rind, and orange blossom honey, as well as an Oaked Alt-Style Braggot using 2lbs wildflower, and .5 ddme, and .25 wheat to help with head retention.

 

[lwcm]

I have two ounces of Styrian (3.8% alpha) Goldings in the fridge that I was thinking about using. Beer Smith puts that at 28.8 IBU if I use 10lbs honey and 3 lbs of extra light DME. Was thinking about maybe some Belgian Aromatic or Carapils as well for extra malty-ness and head retention.

 

[biochemedic]

If you're going to add some aromatic, you may want to consider doing a mini-mash so you actually get some fermentables from that grain. The Carapils, as you hinted will help with head retention, but will also give you some contribution to residual sweetness and body. I think the extra body may be important with such a high proportion of honey. I've only done one braggot, but I used much closer to a 50:50 ratio of honey:malt for fermentables, but that was just the recipe I had at the time; the BJCP style description leaves the ratio rather up to interpretation, saying only that there must be some identifiable honey and beer character, and that they must be "complementary and balanced, although not always evenly balanced."

What is your planned hop schedule? I'd assume you're planning on adding most of that 3.8 alpha hops early in order to get 28 IBU's...you may want to at least consider a late addition for some hop aroma as well

 

[lwcm]

You are correct; I was thinking 2 oz at 60 min and that would be it. Don't these tend to take 6 months or more to age? I thought aging that long would likely allow any hop aroma to fade?

I'll think about the mini mash idea. Has merit.

 

[JFK]

Hops aroma does fade with time but not entirely the higher alcohol content helps to preserve some of it. Fromy experiance the hops bill you have planned is going to leave you disapointed. You need some hops in there for less time for flavor and aroma. Without it your just getting a low bitter content with no flavor.

 

[Hrahn1995]

With the Malt Proportion, i've noticed with my Citrus Wheat braggot (I racked it yesterday and had a taste) the malt doesn't shine through very well as compared to the honey and the sweet orange. i think the other braggots turned out so well with that ration because I was using Dark DME which has a much stronger flavor to begin with. If using mainly Wheat Malt, increase it to maybe 1 lb Wheat Malt, and 1.5lb Honey. Thats gonna be alot closer to that 1:1 ratio Biochem was talking about. what specialty malts are you planning on using?

 

[lwcm]

For specialty grains I was thinking carapils for some body and head retention. I'm looking for easy this time around so I'm looking at honey and DME and hops. Not looking for a lot of hop presence but enough so that it's not super crazy sweet.