Any Advice on Amount of Honey to Add!!!!!!!

Hey everyone!!!!

Just purchased a Nut Brown through Northern Brewer and decided I want to make it a Honey Nut Brown...

Any advice on when to add the honey to the brew?

...also...it what quantity should I add to get a subtle honey flavor?

This will be more first time adding my own flavor ingredients outside of what the kit supplied me with...so all advice will be helpful.

Thanks

So, if you're looking for a honey flavor, unfortunately adding honey isn't going to get it for you. I read this, I knew this, but I still even tried it myself about a month ago. You'll boost the alcohol and lighten the body up a bit, but no flavor to be found in my (and others') case. I'll never do it again because I didn't like how the body turned out.

Honey malt can add a honey flavor in a small amount if your partial mashing or doing AG, but it sounds like you're doing an extract kit (correct me if I'm wrong).

That being said, if you still want to add honey, I'd add it at flameout. The flavor would certainly rapidly boil out if you added it during the boil, but you still need to sterilize it. I stirred it in at flameout and let it sit for 15 minutes before cooling (microbes die past about 165F or so, so even though it's not boiling at this point, it's plenty hot to kill bugs). I added about a pound for a 6% ABV brew.

Again though...I'll never use it again. Hope that helps.

Do NOT heat honey above 100F... If you do, most of the flavor will be gone from it. There's zero reason/need to heat honey to pasteurize it.

I've had the best results when adding honey during cool-down (under 110-100F) and after fermenting for a week or two.

Get honey that you enjoy the flavor of.

Be aware, you'll get a hint of honey flavor with a pound this way (under 100F or after 1-2 weeks of fermentation). You'll get pretty much nothing if you do it above 110F...

Honey malt WILL give you more honey flavor, or honey type flavor. But it won't be a specific type of honey. If you use a mild flavored honey, chances are it will get lost among the other flavor elements. Use something stronger, and you'll get more flavor.

Best thing would be to add it after 2 weeks on the yeast. Give it 4-7 days, then taste the brew. If you can't taste the honey (at all), then you need to decide if you should add more (not always a good thing) or just go with it as is. I would also sample the brew BEFORE you add the honey so that you can compare the flavor later. Otherwise you won't have any frame of reference.

BTW, heating honey is a carry-over from the dark ages (of brewing), or methods from 10-20 years ago. With the very nature of honey being antibacterial, there's no reason/need to heat it up at all. I only go to ~100F to help it to go into solution faster. I have a batch of hard lemonade that was mixed with zero heating. The honey was actually on the bottom of the carboy (4# in a 3 gallon batch) until about a day ago (so just over a week in)... Since the carboy, and funnel used were sanitized, I have no fear of any 'bugs' being in the must.

I really do wish people would get more up to date on current methods for using honey. It's a shame when you have some good honey to use, but you give it the same weak flavor of the cheap stuff since you heated it up.

Guess Charlie Papazian needs to get out of the dark ages because I do believe I took the need to pasteurize it from Complete Joy of Homebrewing.

I agree with everything that Golddiggie says except this:

Golddiggie said:

With the very nature of honey being antibacterial

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From what I've read, honey isn't antibacterial, it's just such a concentrated sugar that nothing can propagate in it.

That said, I've also had great success adding between 2 and 3 pounds of honey per 5-gallon batch during cooling (below 100 degrees).

I get my honey from a local NJ apiary that has great pricing, great variety, and it arrives the day after I order it. Here's a link

Ask the White House.

Papazian does need to update his method... Or the book, since it's almost a decade old now.

Honey has been used to treat wounds that could not be stitched up, to prevent infections. Bees actually make it so that is a wasteland for bacteria and such. Otherwise, you wouldn't have 50 year old honey being used today. I believe much older honey has been found in tombs that was still good.

Go to got mead's site and ask people there if they heat/cook their honey when making their must... I would say that except for the people brand new to making mead, you won't find more than a few that even think about heating it up. I needed to on my first batches only because it was a solid mass. I needed some heat in order to get it out of the bucket, and try and get it into solution. Next time I won't heat it up at all. I'll use honey that is still fluid and just mix it to get it into solution. Warm water is one thing, but keep it under 100F...

BendBrewer said:

Ask the White House.

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Why???

Golddiggie said:

Papazian does need to update his method... Or the book, since it's almost a decade old now.

Honey has been used to treat wounds that could not be stitched up, to prevent infections. Bees actually make it so that is a wasteland for bacteria and such. Otherwise, you wouldn't have 50 year old honey being used today. I believe much older honey has been found in tombs that was still good.

Go to got mead's site and ask people there if they heat/cook their honey when making their must... I would say that except for the people brand new to making mead, you won't find more than a few that even think about heating it up. I needed to on my first batches only because it was a solid mass. I needed some heat in order to get it out of the bucket, and try and get it into solution. Next time I won't heat it up at all. I'll use honey that is still fluid and just mix it to get it into solution. Warm water is one thing, but keep it under 100F...

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Wish I could have read this a month ago, hah.

aggiejay06 said:

Wish I could have read this a month ago, hah.

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It's not the first time I've posted this info here... Probably won't be the last either...

well ****.. i guess ill find out soon enough on the taste test this weekend.. i added honey to the fermenter but i do believe the wort was over 100 degrees. . well if it doesnt do anything mayb the next one..

I agree with Golddiggie that heating honey too much will most likely destroy some of the great honey flavors that bees add to the honey but it is by far from without risk. Honey can contain botulism and can cause paralysis if small children/babies ingest it but the spores are mostly harmless to adults.

I would expect that pitching a good enough starter will give you a high enough population of yeast to kill/inactivate the clostridium. Also, mash pH might be low enough not to activate the spores.

And besides, those mead guys are doing just fine and they use all kinds of natural honey. Just keep the honey out of the babies.
-Jefe-

dcarroll86 said:

well ****.. i guess ill find out soon enough on the taste test this weekend.. i added honey to the fermenter but i do believe the wort was over 100 degrees. . well if it doesnt do anything mayb the next one..

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Was this during cool-down? I use the 100F line because that's what the quality apiaries use for a max temperature when handling/processing their honey. It's not a rigid line, but I wouldn't want the honey at 145 for 20 minutes.

I think it's easiest to add honey after 1-2 weeks of fermentation. That way your OG isn't too high, and the yeast are still awake enough (and healthy enough) to quickly process the new sugars.

I guess us mazers are a bit touchy when it comes to how people treat honey... I can almost hear the bee's scream when people boil their honey, or heat it on the stove too high and for too long (thinking they must)...

You can always add another pound of honey now that things are going you know... Just be sure to taste it before you do... Probably a good idea to get a hydrometer reading on it too. 1# of honey will increase your OG (of a 5 gallon batch) by 7 points (as a general rule)...

Looking over everyone's comments, it looks like it would be best to add Pure Honey to the secondary fermenter (appox. 1 lb) for my Nut Brown Ale. Take a hydrometer reading before and after, and add more or less honey based on taste from there.

Would everyone agree on this? Or, how would you handle it?

I wouldn't rack to secondary, just put it in primary about 1-2 weeks after fermentation goes active...

<Sigh>...still on the 'don't heat honey' kick...I agree it's not necessary, and in the case of the OP's problem, I agree...don't add it at flame out, or even during cool down...add it as primary fermentation starts to slow down. The violence of primary can scrub out nearly as much volatile flavor compounds as a rolling boil... I suppose you could also add it to secondary, but if you're going to kick up fermentation again, that kind of defeats the purpose of secondary (I'll leave the debate over whether or not you even need to secondary for another thread....)

Still, when it comes to mead...there's good data to suggest that boiling honey for mead must isn't as horrible of a mortal sin that it's been suggested to be. In fact you can make damn good mead with boiling technique (I have...), and in some ways can even be better than no-boil (which I have also done, and which can also certainly make great mead).

I would imagine I could purchase good honey and if its already packaged I wouldnt have to worry about any bacteria that is in there correct...just add 1 lb into the primary after the fermentation has slowed down?

andoniu83 said:

I would imagine I could purchase good honey and if its already packaged I wouldnt have to worry about any bacteria that is in there correct...just add 1 lb into the primary after the fermentation has slowed down?

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That's what I do and have not had any problems whatsoever.

andoniu83 said:

I would imagine I could purchase good honey and if its already packaged I wouldnt have to worry about any bacteria that is in there correct...just add 1 lb into the primary after the fermentation has slowed down?

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Exactly what I do too. As long as the container is still sealed, you have nothing to worry about... Those that think you HAVE to cook everything to kill any possible microbe inside it are extremists... Keep in mind, the majority of honey you'll find on a grocery store shelf has been filtered, so there's zero additional particles in it.

I look at this the same way as I do with beef. There are those that won't even think about eating a steak, or burger, that's not well done (aka. char)... Personally, I think anything over medium is a crime against beef. I typically order steaks (and cook them at home) medium-rare. NOT full rare, because I don't care for it that way. But, if it's closer to rare, I won't send it back.

Every holiday roast I cook for the family is done to an internal temp of no more than 140F at the center. So it's pulled at 135F (you'll have 5F of carry-over cooking while you let it rest)... 99% of the time, there's nothing left of the roast at the end of the meal. Times any of us have gotten sick over the past 10+ years: 0...

Things are handled much better today than they were 20+ years ago. As long as you're getting stuff from a source that is clean, you have very little, if anything, to worry about. Most apiaries are very clean setups when it comes to the actual processing of their honey. They have to be.

As for the person claiming to get great mead when boiling his honey... Go right ahead and keep making more work for yourself. Do it as YOU think you need to. Personally, I'll go with the no heat method for mine. By the time my mead is finished, there's enough alcohol content in it to kill pretty much anything that cooking it would have. Just like very little can actually survive in beer (once it's fermenting/fermented)...

I was listening to an old Jamil show yesterday, they suggested the you add honey after fermentation has slowed to a crawl, and to keg it before it is completely fermented out (2-3 days after adding it). According to him, this will impart a subtle honey flavor. Be careful with bottling tho, could lead to bottle bombs, would probably do some gravity calcs and reduce priming sugar as necessary.

Or you could just let it finish fermenting the honey, and use some more for priming. Use 1.25x the weight of sugar you would have used, in honey. So, if you were going to use 4oz of sugar to prime with, use 5oz of honey.

Golddiggie said:

As for the person claiming to get great mead when boiling his honey... Go right ahead and keep making more work for yourself. Do it as YOU think you need to. Personally, I'll go with the no heat method for mine. By the time my mead is finished, there's enough alcohol content in it to kill pretty much anything that cooking it would have. Just like very little can actually survive in beer (once it's fermenting/fermented)...

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I'm finding it hard to hold my tongue, because you come across as *very* snide, and it sort of makes you look like a pompous a$$...I'd be more inclined to let it pass, but I'm calling you out because I think you need to be aware how people perceive your statements (as in this thread too...you literally chased a new forum member away....)

I think you mean well, and you have a lot of good advice to give, but perhaps you shouldn't be so dismissive of others. Did you even read the link that I posted? The data is there...a double blind taste test experiment proving that while there is a difference between the final product (boiling vs no-boil) there are actual benefits to the technique of boiling. One is not necessarily right vs wrong, they are different.

As I mentioned, I use both techniques depending on what I'm trying to achieve...It's not about sanitation or pasteurization...I agree that absolutely nothing pathologic can live in beer/mead. Boiling is necessary to achieve certain effects (such as my hop metheglin...you can't extract bitterness without a boil), and as shown by my link, you may have *less* aroma (not none), but can achieve a smoother, more full bodied mead with boiling (and the majority of the blinded testers actually preferred the boil mead...go figure...)

I put honey in nearly all of my beers. (my sister and her husband are commercial beekeepers, and I help them in the summers so I get all the incredible clover honey I can stand, nice perk eh? check 'em out at www.glaciercountyhoney.com)
I don't boil the honey, and join the suggestions of others that you don't either. That said, your beer won't flat out suck just because you boiled the honey. I've added at flameout, after cooling, and have also racked onto a honey-water solution in secondary with fine results. However, if you really want a little sweetness to go with the nice honey aroma, I suggest that you use a small amount of that Gambrinus Honey Malt when you steep your specialty grains. A little goes a long way and really helps to "trick" the drinker into really noticing the honey profile.

Thanks everyone...i didn't intend to have my original question start a war, but sometimes thats the way it goes...haha.

I think I will keep it simple and add 1 lb. of honey to the primary once the fermentation has slowed down and take it from there. I will also look into the Gambrinus Honey Malt to see what effects that will impart. I may not use it but its worth researching.

Thanks All, appreciate it!!!!!!

I have two brews in process right now that have honey malt in them... I'm doing this to see what flavor it will bring to the table. Just keep in mind, they recommend not using more than 10% of the grist as honey malt... My first brew has it as 8.16% and the second has it as 7.55%...

I do think that you'll be able to impart more specific honey flavors with actual honey of a set variety. Honey malt is described as: "Intensely sweet - adds a sweet malty flavor sometimes associated with honey. Also called Brumalt." So it's NOT the same as actual honey...

Experiment with both and see what you like... Ultimately, it really only matters if you like the result.

Would you still follow the do not heat above 100 deg method if you were using raw honey?

mikray said:

Would you still follow the do not heat above 100 deg method if you were using raw honey?

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Yes, I would, and I have. All the honey I've used has at least been filtered somewhat. No bee parts are in it.

Beekeepers can really be a little argumentative about what constitutes "raw" honey. I think the average person (myself included) would consider raw honey to be what you get when you crack open a super and stick your finger into a frame, complete with wax and bee parts and all that. Some consider honey that isn't superheated (major commercial honey companies get their honey up to 140-160 degrees as they process it) to be "raw". When I extract with GCHC we just get the honey warm enough for it to flow where we want it to go, separate and the wax and bee parts in a centrifuge, and that's it. "Warm enough" is the same or lower temperature as the bees themselves keep the honey during the summer months. My brother-in-law would consider it raw, but it is obviously minimally processed or it would still be in the frames.
Anyways, I agree that keeping the honey (just about any honey) under 100 degrees is a good idea.

The honey I typically get has been filtered, or at least the wax and bee parts have been separated out from it (however the apiary does it)...

You can get commercial honey in a 'raw' state (not cooked)... You just need to look for it. It won't have bee parts in it, since most American consumers wouldn't even think about buying something like that.

I hope to get some really good honey with the first harvest this season. There are a few apiaries that I'll be talking with as it gets closer to that time. If nothing else, so that I can make some more mead with it. :rockin:

Ray Daniels advised against using unpasteurized honey

his recommendation to minimize loss of honey flavor is:
The proper way to use honey with your beer is to pasteurize it without boiling it: If possible, mix the honey with water to dilute it to approximately the same gravity as the wort you are planning to add it to. Heat the honey to approximately 176 F (80 C) and hold it for 60-90 minutes. Then cool and add during high krausen.

perhaps a lot of the reason it adds little flavor is because it is so highly fermentable ?

I add honey into almost every beer I make, this does not make me a subject matter expert. It does thin the body and boost the ABV% a bit. I normally use 1 cup per 5-6 gallons. It can also be subbed out for priming sugar. In my experience honey will ferment in the bottle much longer than priming sugar. If you are planning a priming sugar sub I would use a 1/2 cup to 5 gallon ratio for any type of long storage/aging. I do not have any honey flavors that I can note in my beers nor have I had anyone ask me if there was honey in my beers...

I always add my honey @ flameout after cooling a bit. Honey is easy to scorch. I am a "does not need to be sterilized, pasteurized or boiled" crowd as well.

What honey do I use? From the Amish bee keepers, honey. Local honey will contain small amounts of pollen and other allergens, if you have pollen allergies this will help reduce the histamine reaction, much like a flu shot. SWMBO no longer needs Claritin/Benadryl, just another beer! YMMV

Another great reason to keep honey around is it is one of the best natural cough suppressants around. 1 TBL of honey, if allowed to melt and coat your throat, will suppress a cough VERY well.

The last things I will add is: honey in stores can contain up to 10% water and still be labeled as pure honey (READ THE LABEL). Honey Sauce is NOT honey.

I would heavily advise against using cup measurements for honey, in all cases... Best to use weight measurements for honey, as well as sugar when added.

If you factor 1.25x the amount of priming sugar (in weight) for the weight of honey you'll prime with, you should be good. Make sure you mix it in well though. I didn't do that in one batch and got uneven priming. I also tend to prime for a bit more modest CO2 volumes in my brews. Liking the results... If you're looking for high carbonation levels, then honey probably isn't a good choice for you.

Thanks for all the advice..i think I will add at the end of my boil and see what flavors partake from there........thanks again......

terrapinj said:

Ray Daniels advised against using unpasteurized honey

his recommendation to minimize loss of honey flavor is:
The proper way to use honey with your beer is to pasteurize it without boiling it: If possible, mix the honey with water to dilute it to approximately the same gravity as the wort you are planning to add it to. Heat the honey to approximately 176 F (80 C) and hold it for 60-90 minutes. Then cool and add during high krausen.

perhaps a lot of the reason it adds little flavor is because it is so highly fermentable ?

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I think the reason honey flavor is so hard to get across in beer is that you're talking about a relatively delicate flavor amongst a bunch of other very dominant items (an overwhelming quantity of malt fermentable, hops, etc.) I like Ray's technique of adding to primary...it's in essence what I've mentioned here before as my technique, although I generally wait until after things just start to slow down after high krausen.

Mead is a different animal altogether...you're talking about all (or almost all) of your fermentables from honey. Even when boiled, you will still carry through honey flavor and aroma to the end, and can make truly excellent mead. (The debate over which is "better" will continue, I suppose...)

For this application (adding to beer) I would NOT heat though...Yes, heating causes loss of aromatics. Yes, the violence of primary ferment causes loss of aromatics, and *both* of these phenomena compound the original issue noted above...you need all the help you can get to achieve any of that delicate honey flavor/aroma in the final beer!

FWIW, I believe that you do NOT have to heat/pasteurize honey for safety/sanitation. It doesn't matter whether your talking about raw, filtered, unfiltered, bee legs and wings or no bee wings and legs. The bottom line is this: nothing pathologic can live in beer! Yes, very rarely Clostridium spores can be found in/survive in honey (and you shouldn't give honey to infants/babies under 1 yr age...infant botulism is rare, but can be devastating, so why take the chance?), but once you're in the (acidic and alcoholic) beer environment, you're in the clear.