Add honey, explosion.

[Aaron Beers]

Don't do what I did.

I'm brewing a honey wheat ale for the first time. I've brewed plenty of wheat beers before, but not an american style wheat ale with honey malt and honey added. I'm about 60 hours into fermentation, it's very active, I just dumped 3lbs of honey mixed with 1lb of water into the 12 gallon batch in the 14 gallon tank. Within seconds, there was a huge volume of foam pouring out the top of the tank. I freaked and closed the dry hopping port. Foam started shooting out of the blow off. I opened the dry hop port again and then, BOOM!, foam every-f'ing-where.

Don't do what I did. Pour slowly, in multiple additions if you need, especially if you're tank is almost full.

Time to get the mop, and the rags, and the hose.

 

[pshankstar]

Pics or it didn't happen!

Wow that's pretty crazy! Never added honey to the fermenter but I will make sure I don't do it like this if I ever do. Sorry to hear about the mess but thanks for sharing the story. Good luck with the clean up.

 

[Rob2010SS]

I agree with @pshankstar - pics or you're lying!!!

Isn't this how most people add honey, to the fermenter? Or do they add it in boil?

 

[walker111]

last 10 of boil for me

 

[pshankstar]

last 10 of boil for me

Same here, I always add it to the end of the boil.

 

[Comfort_Zone]

Nucleation sites, they're magical.

 

[blubrewbbq]

Last few minutes of boil. Especially with fresh honey.

 

[madscientist451]

Boiling honey drives of aromatics. From what I've heard, you should avoid heating honey above 100F. If the OP added the honey/water mixture slowly, there wouldn't have been a problem.

 

[paneubert]

I thought this was going to be one of those "I added boiling honey to another liquid and it exploded in my face since the boiling point of honey is so much higher than water" posts. Pleasantly surprised.