Adding Honey To Secondary Question

[jmhart]

So I've brewed up my first sour. It's been in the fermenter for about 2 weeks, and now I'm going to add about 1.5 lbs of honey.

I've never added honey before, so I have a question. Honey is quite viscous. How do you ensure it mixes well into the beer in secondary?

My thought was to boil some water, then cool it down to room temp and mix in the honey to reduce the viscosity, then add it to secondary and rack the beer on top.

Would this ensure a good mixture with the beer and also is there a better way?

 

[Oldsock]

Sounds like a good plan. You may also need to stir the honey into the beer depending on how well it mixes with racking. I did something similar for a sour beer a couple years ago (although I just poured the honey directly into the fermenter and stirred) and really enjoyed the results.

 

[jmhart]

Well, funny enough, I'm brewing your Honey Peach Sour.

Thanks for the response.

 

[Golddiggie]

When I've added honey to batches, once in the fermenter, I simply get it in via the original container (especially if it's a squeeze bottle) and then just use some warmer water to get the last of what's in the bottle into the carboy/fermenter.

You don't need to worry so much about it getting into solution quickly. Give the yeast a day, or two, and they will munch through it nicely.

Assuming you're going to add this to a 5 gallon batch, I really wouldn't worry about it. You have enough brew volume there to easily put the honey into solution quickly, without adding more waster. For getting the last bit of honey out of the jar, I would only use a couple of ounces to do that. You can always rinse it again if you really want to.

BTW, what's the reason you're looking to rack to another vessel?

 

[jmhart]

No real reason adding honey to secondary, but I'm moving to secondary for 18 months of aging. Figured adding a diluted honey solution then would be a good way to get it all mixed in.

However, since it sounds like adding honey as is will work, I'll probably add it to the primary and wait another couple of weeks before moving to secondary.

 

[jmhart]

For posterity's sake:

I added the honey straight into the primary by pouring it through a sanitized funnel. Just turned the honey jar upside down in the funnel and let it sit for a while. I then rinsed the jar and funnel with about a cup of boiled water.

Yeast took off. They loved the honey. This fermentation was even more vigorous than the original.

 

[zickefoose]

I used honey in my primary once and it dried it out way too much. That's why I'm going to be adding it to my secondary so there won't be so much yeast to eat the honey.

 

[Oldsock]

I used honey in my primary once and it dried it out way too much. That's why I'm going to be adding it to my secondary so there won't be so much yeast to eat the honey.

That won't change anything, as long as there are yeast they'll be happy to eat the simple sugars honey provides. If you want sweetness along with your honey aromatics I would boost your mash temp, use a less attenuative yeast strain, or add some honey/crystal malt.