Honey beer

[beer buzz]

I just made a 5 gallon batch of bfd's light honey ale

Ingredients:

2 tsp. gypsum
4 lbs. light dry malt extract
3 lbs. orange blossom honey
4 oz. Cascade hops (5.8% alpha)
Liquid ale yeast
3/4 cup dextrose

Step by Step:
Boil extract, honey, water crystals and 2 oz. Cascade hops in 1 gallon of water for 50
minutes. Add 1 oz. Cascade and boil 10 minutes more. Add 1 oz. Cascade hops after heat is cut off. Cool wort, bring to 5 gallons, and pitch yeast. Follow your typical fermentation procedure, priming with dextrose before bottling.

Variations:
Use dark extract for a light-bodied dark beer. Try a different type of honey. Substitute hop
varieties - perhaps Fuggles for first two additions and Goldings for dry hop.



Anyhow i am starting to bottle it and i sample some due to a siphon hose malfunction and it tasted like run of the mill beer very low key honey taste. I am making this for my wife cause she had a miller honey beer once ( i think it was millers) and she really loved it but it was a lot stronger in the honey taste than mine. Any suggestions on how to make it tase more honyish ( if thats a word) hehe

 

[david_42]

Get 8 ounces of Honey malt, steep it, strain it and add it in. Honey itself adds very little to an ale, other than raising the ABV.

By the way, with 40% of the fermentables from honey, you could call it a braggot.

 

[GoatFarmersInternational]

You might also want to add the honey at the very end of the boil; heating it just enough to pasturize it but not enough to drive off some of the more delicate honey flavors and aromas.
Flovor also depends on what kind of honey is used...

 

[XELA]

i think i might make this recipe, looks awesome!

what is gypsum and what it used for?

ta

edit: could i leave the gypsum out but keep the rest the same?? ta

.

 

[GoatFarmersInternational]

what is gypsum and what it used for?

edit: could i leave the gypsum out but keep the rest the same?? ta

.

Using gypsum adds calcium ions to the brewing water, increasing hardness... This is usually done if you live in an area that has soft water, or if you are trying to duplicate the flavors of a beer from a specific region, say for example your traditional Pale Ale

You can leave out the gypsum and keep the rest the same; plus you may already be using hard water.

 

[XELA]

i dont have a clue what water i have, but i will leave it out for simplicity

thanks!