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

[Zamial]

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.

 

[Golddiggie]

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.

 

[andoniu83]

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......

 

[biochemedic]

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 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.