A sticky situation

[shadyb]

So I was making a beer that called for copious amount of honey, but I was doing a thousand things at once and I entirely forgot to add the honey. Now the beer is sitting in the fermenter and i'm angry.

I was thinking that I'd rack the beer to a secondary and add some fruit. But I still want some honey in this ale. Is it impossible to add it now? What if added some honey to boiling water to dissolve it, let it cool and added it to the secondary with the fruit? Any suggestions?

 

[nallanrex]

You can add the honey to the fermenter. I don't know if it will be the same or not though. But i've seen recipes where you add more sugar later on in the game.

I would add it to the primary where you still have a lot of yeast though. Putting it in warm water to dissolve it sounds like a good idea. Im sure it will turn out awesome :rockin:




-Nick

 

[ChshreCat]

Yep. Add it to the primary. I do my sugar additions on my belgians right when the krausen is JUST starting to subside so most of the maltose has been eaten up by the yeast.

It won't be quite the same in that by not boiling the honey, you'll probably end up with a little bit more of the honey flavor coming through. Not a bad thing depending on the beer.

 

[Hammy71]

I added a pound of honey last year to a beer in the primary....as fermentation was just beginning. Big mistake for me. Way, way to much honey flavor. Ended up pouring half of the bottles out...even my drunk friends didn't want them. Mine might have been an isolated incident....but it turned me off for sure.

 

[JayInJersey]

FYI...if you stored the beers for about 6-10 months that honey flavor would have weakened quite a bit.

Found that out by mistake...but it still was a decent Hefe without the Honey taste I aimed for

 

[Cliff897]

You are in luck~!!!
Adding honey after your yeasts have gotten off to a good start means they will be in fine fettle to take on the honey.

Mead makers tend to have to pitch great huge amounts of yeast.

 

[SC_Ryan]

You could brew a second batch with twice as much honey than the recipe calls for then blend the two batches after fermentation. Just make sure you pitch the appropriate amount of healthy yeast.

 

[shadyb]

Thanks for the quick replies!

It seems that the flavor of the honey would be stronger if you add it later in the game? Might it be due to the fact that less of it gets fermented?

I figured that if I added the honey now, it wouldn't dissolve that well into the beer. Maybe that explains why you guys are reporting a strong honey taste after adding it later on?

If I do this, maybe I should add less than what the recipe calls for? Its calling for about 3.5 lbs of honey for 7 gallons of wort. Quite a significant amount (which is why I'm kicking myself for being so oblivious). Maybe I should only do about half of that....

 

[ChshreCat]

Actually, it's because when you heat honey it releases flavor and aroma compounds so they get lost so if you're going for honey flavor, boiling it defeats the purpose.

Adding the honey late in fermentation isn't for flavor, it's to help your yeast work with it. Yeast need different enzymes to digest different types of sugar. They can digest simpler forms of sugar easier than more complex ones. So if you have a simple sugar like corn sugar, table sugar or honey, adding it after most of the maltose has been fermented helps keep your ferment going. If you give them the easy to eat stuff first, they can lose steam before chewing up all the maltose and you get a stuck ferment.