I just brewed an american honey wheat this weekend and I handled the honey in the recipe by pasteurizing it and adding it to the primary after about 30 hours. As I was adding the honey/water mixture (via a funnel attached to my hose for my mash tun) air was getting in the line and bubbling through my fermenting beer. Has anyone else had this happen and did it affect your beer? I am hoping that since there is still very active fermentation that the yeast will be able to use up the oxygen that got added tonight and that it wont cause and off flavors or spoilage of my beer. Anyone have any experience with this?
soem aeration when adding honey
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Golddiggie
Well-Known Member
At only 30 hours in, there's enough yeast still active to take care of any stray oxygen/air you got into the fermenting beer...
I will ask why you thought you needed to pasteurize the honey. Here's a hint, you didn't... Not one little bit. You could have simply warmed the honey up a bit to get it to flow easier and added it without any extra water. I also would never heat honey above 100-110F when using it. Once you pass over those temperatures, you start to blow off a lot of what makes honey great. Like the flavors and aromas you're looking for. If you weren't looking to add anything like that to it, then you might as well just use a regular sugar.
It saddens me whenever someone heats honey up above 100-110F... I can almost hear the bee's screaming in agony over it.
BTW, I've added honey (heated to no more than 100-110F) after about a week of fermenting. Zero issues resulted.
I will ask why you thought you needed to pasteurize the honey. Here's a hint, you didn't... Not one little bit. You could have simply warmed the honey up a bit to get it to flow easier and added it without any extra water. I also would never heat honey above 100-110F when using it. Once you pass over those temperatures, you start to blow off a lot of what makes honey great. Like the flavors and aromas you're looking for. If you weren't looking to add anything like that to it, then you might as well just use a regular sugar.
It saddens me whenever someone heats honey up above 100-110F... I can almost hear the bee's screaming in agony over it.
BTW, I've added honey (heated to no more than 100-110F) after about a week of fermenting. Zero issues resulted.
Have you added raw honey to your brews? Everything I read online said that you would want to pasteurize it to kill off the native yeasts and bacteria that are in honey. Once the honey is diluted with water (or wort) that those bacteria and yeast can cause it to spoil. I'd like to hear your experience with honey as I might be using it in a few beers coming up.
