Belgian golden stron ale

[snpr13]

I am attempting to make a Belgian strong ale as the title says.
12lbs pilsner malt
3oz. Czech saaz hops
2lbs light candy sugar
WLP545 Belgian strong ale yeast
I am going to mash as 148 for 60min
sparge at 168
2oz hops at 60min
1oz at 10min
I am going to add the candy sugar several days after fermentation has started.
Here is my question. I wanted to add honey as well to up the alcohol and a back ground flavor. How much honey would be too much? I was thinking of doing up to 5lbs. I know it is going to be higher in alcohol and I was planning to age for several months. Any and all ideas and suggestions are welcome. With 5lbs of honey it is expected to come in around 12 percent alcohol at a 75% efficiency. Would the honey be too much or would this also improve from an aging with chips as well.

 

[JakeO]

Careful about the amount of honey you add post boil. It has some anti-microbial properties that may impact your yeast.

 

[chickypad]

If you do 2 lbs candi plus 5 lbs honey, depending on your efficiency with the grain, you may be approaching 50% of the fermentables from sugar. I think you'd be better off just replacing the candi with an equivalent amount of honey. Or if you really want to make the beer that much bigger I'd adjust the whole recipe to keep the simple sugars in the 20% range.

 

[elkshadow]

I make 3 gallons batches and I make almost nothing other than Belgian Strongs. I use a 5 gallon cooler to mash in so I can only mash 10 pounds tops of grain. I've had really good luck lately using about 5% cane sugar and 5% wheat extract to get the ABV into the Belgian Strong realm.

My recipes pretty much go like this:

9lbs Pilsner
~12 oz. specialty grains (munich vienna aromatic biscuit for Golden Strong and Special B/cara-something for Dark Strong)
1/2 pound sugar
1/2 pound wheat extract

15-20 IBUs Styrian Goldings 60 minutes
5-10 IBUs Saaz 15 minutes
less than 5 IBUs Saaz 5 minutes

Wyeast 3711 is a monster!

That's for 3 gallons so scale it up if you want. I try to keep my sugar around 10% of the fermentables. People say you can go as high as 20% sugar but I never tried it and sticking to my 10% rule I'm very happy with the result.

I'd ditch the honey altogether. I've never seen a Golden Strong recipe with honey in it.

ETA: Honey is expensive. It introduces the possibilty of infection unless you pasteurize it which is a pain after the boil. There are easier and cheaper ways to add gravity points without losing anything honey would add. I'm in the "honey is for mead not beer" school. I just don't see what it brings to the table in beer for the added expense and hassle.

 

[snpr13]

thanks for the responses guys I will take it into consideration.

 

[Mindsculptor]

Careful about the amount of honey you add post boil. It has some anti-microbial properties that may impact your yeast.

Honey in and of itself contains no anti-microbial properties. When jarred the honey exerts a ton of diastatic pressure on microbes within the honey which prevents them from multiplying and forces them into a dormant state. Once the honey is diluted by liquid, the pressure is released and the microbes are allowed to multiply again. This is the true reason why people are told not to give honey, especially unpasteurized honey, to infants under one year of age.

 

[JakeO]

Cool, thanks for the info. Come to think of it if honey was able to negatively impact yeast I guess mead would be impossible.