Honey double ipa

[HollisBT]

Hello all, I'm putting together a recipe for a big old honey double IPA and just wanted to run my grain bill past some of you and see what you thought about it. Any suggestions or feedback would be greatly appreciated!!

13# Marris otter
3# aromatic
3# pale wheat malt
3# 2 row
2# rice hulls
3# honey

I have added the pale wheat for some head retention, the 2 row for some relatively flavorless sugar boost, and I have been contemplating replacing the 2 row with some carapils. Any thoughts on this?

 

[HollisBT]

This is for a 5 gallon batch, target OG is 1.105, will be pitched onto a yeast cake of white labs California ale V.

 

[a6ladd]

What is your target FG? And what temperature will you be mashing at? The honey will certainly dry it out while the wheat and possible carapils will help give it some body. If you are going to add the carapils I wouldn't replace all #3 of 2-row, maybe #1 carapils #2 2-row.

 

[TyTanium]

That's a ton of rice hulls! I find a handful or two to be sufficient on wheat heavy beers.

Skip the Carapils - the wheat will take care of it.

3# aromatic also seems like a lot to me, but I rarely use it. I just know I don't like more than 1/2lb of melanoidin which is somewhat similar. The MO will give you plenty of flavor.

Considered Gambrinus honey malt?

 

[TheZymurgist]

Do you have any experience using honey? The first time I tried it, I used a fairly similar recipe, and found the honey actually destroyed the hop aroma. I used two pounds of honey, dry-hopped the crap out of it, and ended up with a honey cider. It wasn't bad, I thought it was a pretty good beer, but it wasn't at all what I thought it would be. I found that using Honey Malt gave it the honey flavor and aroma I was looking for. If anything, try carbonating with the honey instead, that way you won't get the cider-y taste and you'll get a ton of aroma.

 

[Gtrman13]

My experiences with honey have also been negative. If the flavor is what you're after, I'd replace the honey with a pound or two of honey malt. To boost the ABV just add a pound or two of sucrose. It's a pretty common practice in giant IPAs like this one! And I'll also echo the previous comment about that being a lot of rice hulls. If you need them at all, 1# would be sufficient.

BTW I'm moving to Greenville in a few weeks. Good to see there are some other brewers around!

 

[Poobah58]

Hello all, I'm putting together a recipe for a big old honey double IPA and just wanted to run my grain bill past some of you and see what you thought about it. Any suggestions or feedback would be greatly appreciated!!

13# Marris otter
3# aromatic
3# pale wheat malt
3# 2 row
2# rice hulls
3# honey

I have added the pale wheat for some head retention, the 2 row for some relatively flavorless sugar boost, and I have been contemplating replacing the 2 row with some carapils. Any thoughts on this?

Looks like you like IIPA's malty without residual sweetness (no crystal malts). I think 3# of Aromatic with 13# M.O. might be a bit too much but YMMV. I like the honey to dry it out a bit and balance the malt. You won't get any flavor out of it but it will give the yeast something to munch on right away. Add the honey at flameout. Don't fear it. It's like adding sugar. It won't give you any off flavors. The wheat and large grain bill will give you body and head retention. If you use 3# of honey why on earth would you add Cara-Pils? What would be the purpose? In addition, the 3# of 2-row won't even be noticed. It's OK to leave it but why not go with more M.O. (maybe even a little Victory or Honey Malt) and cut back the Aromatic a bit? Let's see the hop schedule!!!:cross:

 

[HollisBT]

What is your target FG? And what temperature will you be mashing at? The honey will certainly dry it out while the wheat and possible carapils will help give it some body. If you are going to add the carapils I wouldn't replace all #3 of 2-row, maybe #1 carapils #2 2-row.

Estimated FG will be somewhere between 1.022-1.026. I've honestly never made a big beer before, so I am not entirely certain, but my usual attenuation rate is anywhere between 75%-82%, and since I'm not adding any unfermentable grains to the mash, I am expecting a pretty dry finish with it. Mash temp will be low, likely 149 or 150, again so that I can get some good fermentables and make the yeasts job as easy as possible.

Thanks for the input on the carapils, I will take that into consideration

 

[HollisBT]

That's a ton of rice hulls! I find a handful or two to be sufficient on wheat heavy beers.

Skip the Carapils - the wheat will take care of it.

3# aromatic also seems like a lot to me, but I rarely use it. I just know I don't like more than 1/2lb of melanoidin which is somewhat similar. The MO will give you plenty of flavor.

Considered Gambrinus honey malt?

I added extra rice hulls because of the large amount of grains in the recipe. In all honesty, I probably don't necessarily need them, but they are cheap and better safe than sorry. I might tone it down on them a tad though .

It seems like a lot of aromatic, but again, it's a pretty heavy grain bill. I had originally put honey malt in the recipe, but I think that will just add too much cloying sweetness to the end result, and I should get enough honey flavor from the honey being added. I substituted the aromatic for the honey malt to give it a little more depth to the flavor profile.

 

[HollisBT]

Do you have any experience using honey? The first time I tried it, I used a fairly similar recipe, and found the honey actually destroyed the hop aroma. I used two pounds of honey, dry-hopped the crap out of it, and ended up with a honey cider. It wasn't bad, I thought it was a pretty good beer, but it wasn't at all what I thought it would be. I found that using Honey Malt gave it the honey flavor and aroma I was looking for. If anything, try carbonating with the honey instead, that way you won't get the cider-y taste and you'll get a ton of aroma.

Hmmm, do you think that there is too much honey in my recipe? Should I maybe tone it back a tad and substitute some dextrose instead of an all honey addition? I want the beer to finish fairly dry, and want some honey flavor present, but not overwhelming.

As far as carbonating goes, I am not sure whether or not I am going to bottle or keg this beer... Originally I thought I wanted to bottle it because I don't know that I really need. 10+% beer on draft . But I'm not completely sure that the yeast will still be viable enough in that much alcohol to fully carbonate the brew...

Fwiw, to balance out the honey I am considering using an all nugget hop bill. Or maybe some Amarillo as well.

 

[HollisBT]

My experiences with honey have also been negative. If the flavor is what you're after, I'd replace the honey with a pound or two of honey malt. To boost the ABV just add a pound or two of sucrose. It's a pretty common practice in giant IPAs like this one! And I'll also echo the previous comment about that being a lot of rice hulls. If you need them at all, 1# would be sufficient.

BTW I'm moving to Greenville in a few weeks. Good to see there are some other brewers around!

Shoot me a message when you move here! What brings you to the area? And also if you don't mind me asking, what area are you moving to? There are lots of brewers out here, and a pretty solid homebrew community.

 

[HollisBT]

Looks like you like IIPA's malty without residual sweetness (no crystal malts). I think 3# of Aromatic with 13# M.O. might be a bit too much but YMMV. I like the honey to dry it out a bit and balance the malt. You won't get any flavor out of it but it will give the yeast something to munch on right away. Add the honey at flameout. Don't fear it. It's like adding sugar. It won't give you any off flavors. The wheat and large grain bill will give you body and head retention. If you use 3# of honey why on earth would you add Cara-Pils? What would be the purpose? In addition, the 3# of 2-row won't even be noticed. It's OK to leave it but why not go with more M.O. (maybe even a little Victory or Honey Malt) and cut back the Aromatic a bit? Let's see the hop schedule!!!:cross:

The carapils was added to help with some head retention, along with the wheat. The 2 row was used to add some sugar without interfering with other flavors, I kind of want it to not be noticed haha. I don't really want to add any sweet malts like honey as I think it will make the final product too sweet on the palate.

As for hops, as mentioned previously, I am considering a single hop or a very simple hop bill... The previously planned hop bill had a plethora of yummyness in it as well though, including northern brewer, zythos hop blend, and cascade. The plan is to be 100+ ibu.

 

[TheZymurgist]

Hmmm, do you think that there is too much honey in my recipe? Should I maybe tone it back a tad and substitute some dextrose instead of an all honey addition? I want the beer to finish fairly dry, and want some honey flavor present, but not overwhelming.

As far as carbonating goes, I am not sure whether or not I am going to bottle or keg this beer... Originally I thought I wanted to bottle it because I don't know that I really need. 10+% beer on draft . But I'm not completely sure that the yeast will still be viable enough in that much alcohol to fully carbonate the brew...

Fwiw, to balance out the honey I am considering using an all nugget hop bill. Or maybe some Amarillo as well.

From my experience, you won't get much flavor or aroma from adding to the boil. Even when I added just at flame out, I still tasted more when I carbonated with it. I think with your recipe, you'll end up with a very dry cider, with a slight honey flavor, and very muted hop flavor. I had the best experience when I left the honey out of the boil and added it after the beer was done fermenting. Opening a bottle smelled like opening a jar of honey, but it still had great hop aroma and taste as well.

I made the mistake of hitting hard with my honey additions the first time around. After a couple fails, I decided to start with the beer, tweak the base recipe to what I wanted, and then begin adding honey after I knew I had a good starting point. It took a few batches, but now I have something that I really love, and is exactly what I set out to make in the first place.

I'm sure there are others with more experience than me that could weigh in as well, but this was just my experience. There certainly isn't anything wrong with trying a recipe, whether it turns out how you expected or not.

Also, I used only cascade and amarillo in mine, and I absolutely love the slight citrus and floral aroma of the hops along with the honey. Oh, and I used orange blossom honey, as well. That stuff's my favorite!!!!

 

[Poobah58]

From my experience, you won't get much flavor or aroma from adding to the boil. Even when I added just at flame out, I still tasted more when I carbonated with it. I think with your recipe, you'll end up with a very dry cider, with a slight honey flavor, and very muted hop flavor. I had the best experience when I left the honey out of the boil and added it after the beer was done fermenting. Opening a bottle smelled like opening a jar of honey, but it still had great hop aroma and taste as well.

I made the mistake of hitting hard with my honey additions the first time around. After a couple fails, I decided to start with the beer, tweak the base recipe to what I wanted, and then begin adding honey after I knew I had a good starting point. It took a few batches, but now I have something that I really love, and is exactly what I set out to make in the first place.

I'm sure there are others with more experience than me that could weigh in as well, but this was just my experience. There certainly isn't anything wrong with trying a recipe, whether it turns out how you expected or not.

Also, I used only cascade and amarillo in mine, and I absolutely love the slight citrus and floral aroma of the hops along with the honey. Oh, and I used orange blossom honey, as well. That stuff's my favorite!!!!

Dude, you are confusing me. How can you get a cider taste from 3# of honey in a 5-gal batch? This is beer, not apple juice. The honey will ferment out completely and leave little or no flavor in such a small quantity. You need to add a boat load of honey to be able to detect it in a beer IMO.

 

[Golddiggie]

Drop the actual honey in the brew and use up to 10% honey malt. Even if you use 3# of honey malt, you don't need the amount of rice hulls you have listed. I would reduce that to either 6oz or 8oz of rice hulls. 6oz will fill a 6 cup container (it's what I typically transport mine in).

If you're going to bottle carbonate this batch, then look into using honey for the priming sugar. Just be sure to NOT heat it above 100-110F. Otherwise, you'll start blowing off the flavors and aromas that makes honey great. I'd also use a honey type that compliments the brew.

IME, priming with honey gives you a solid hint of the honey flavors. Using honey malt will give you the sweetness you desire (most likely) while not drying out the brew.

Run the recipe through software (BeerSmith) and adjust the mash temp to hit about where you want the FG to be. Personally, I'd mash in the 150-152F range for something where you want honey character to come through. I'd also probably trim down the grain bill to be less varieties of malt. I have a honey ale that's going to be kegged this weekend that was just [87.5%]Maris Otter and [12.5%] honey malt (for the grist). Can hardly wait to get it carbonated and on tap. With 16# of grain, I simply used 4oz of rice hulls. No issue (at all) with the mash.

 

[HollisBT]

Drop the actual honey in the brew and use up to 10% honey malt. Even if you use 3# of honey malt, you don't need the amount of rice hulls you have listed. I would reduce that to either 6oz or 8oz of rice hulls. 6oz will fill a 6 cup container (it's what I typically transport mine in).

If you're going to bottle carbonate this batch, then look into using honey for the priming sugar. Just be sure to NOT heat it above 100-110F. Otherwise, you'll start blowing off the flavors and aromas that makes honey great. I'd also use a honey type that compliments the brew.

IME, priming with honey gives you a solid hint of the honey flavors. Using honey malt will give you the sweetness you desire (most likely) while not drying out the brew.

Run the recipe through software (BeerSmith) and adjust the mash temp to hit about where you want the FG to be. Personally, I'd mash in the 150-152F range for something where you want honey character to come through. I'd also probably trim down the grain bill to be less varieties of malt. I have a honey ale that's going to be kegged this weekend that was just [87.5%]Maris Otter and [12.5%] honey malt (for the grist). Can hardly wait to get it carbonated and on tap. With 16# of grain, I simply used 4oz of rice hulls. No issue (at all) with the mash.

I have stated several reasons previously as to why I purposely did not use honey malt... And furthermore, the rice hulls are for the wheat, not hey are not needed at all with brumalt, and even then, why does it matter if I use more than is needed? They are $.60 per pound, and if they help a sparge or even just give a brewer a little piece of mind, what does it matter if they are overkill or not?

As for trimming down the grain bill, as stated earlier, each grain was chosen for a specific reason and a specific flavor addition to the end result of the brew. That's great that you made a beer using only two malts, but I want something with more depth and complexity to it.

 

[HollisBT]

What do you guys think about maybe cutting the honey in the brew to just 2 pounds added at flameout? Then I could taste once fermentation is complete, and add either more honey or some dextrose when I rack into a secondary fermenter.

That might help set a baseline for honey flavor and dryness, and which one needs to be adjusted.

 

[a6ladd]

What do you guys think about maybe cutting the honey in the brew to just 2 pounds added at flameout? Then I could taste once fermentation is complete, and add either more honey or some dextrose when I rack into a secondary fermenter.

That might help set a baseline for honey flavor and dryness, and which one needs to be adjusted.

The only concern I'd have with that is making sure the honey is pasteurized. A 15 minute addition would ensure this but you could potentially lose quite a bit of honey flavor. You can certainly try a later addition, 10-5 minutes, but I probably wouldn't go any lower than that. Hope this helps!

 

[TyTanium]

I disagree. Honey at flameout is fine. Honey post-chilling is fine, better even. There's so little moisture in there infection isn't a concern with honey, IMO.

 

[Golddiggie]

The only concern I'd have with that is making sure the honey is pasteurized. A 15 minute addition would ensure this but you could potentially lose quite a bit of honey flavor. You can certainly try a later addition, 10-5 minutes, but I probably wouldn't go any lower than that. Hope this helps!

Pasteurization is NOT needed with honey. I wouldn't add it when the wort was above 110F.

As for the OPs previous comments about my earlier post.
Two POUNDS of rice hulls is a HUGE amount. Its going to take up a large volume in the mash tun.
As for the recipe, WHY even ask for feedback if your already dead set against changes??
I've had better honey flavors come from honey malt than adding it to the kettle.
Do what you want, since you will anyway. Just don't complain about the results later when going against other's advice.

 

[gwdraper4]

I brew with honey quite a bit and I always add the addition at flameout. I've only added honey at bottling/kegging once and really did'nt care for the results. The kegged version had a residual sweetness that balanced out the drying effect of the fermented honey, which is not what I was going for. The bottle version had a nice honey flavor and arome, but the carbonation was off due to the sugar levels in the actual honey. As far as the grain bill, the Marris Otter is going to give you a ton of flavor, so I"m not sure you need a lot of other malts in there. I do enjoy a blend of base malts so I would consider using the Marris Otter at 60%, Pale Malt at 30%, and the last 10% could be used for the honey and wheat malt. I would not make it too much more complicated in that since this is going to be an IIPA that should have a definite hop focus. Cheers and best of luck!

 

[HollisBT]

I disagree. Honey at flameout is fine. Honey post-chilling is fine, better even. There's so little moisture in there infection isn't a concern with honey, IMO.

Plus, I have heard several times before that honey has lots of natural anti-bacterial and anti-microbial components to it. But I do believe that is one of many fairly heavily debated topics amongst brewers...

 

[HollisBT]

Pasteurization is NOT needed with honey. I wouldn't add it when the wort was above 110F.

As for the OPs previous comments about my earlier post.
Two POUNDS of rice hulls is a HUGE amount. Its going to take up a large volume in the mash tun.
As for the recipe, WHY even ask for feedback if your already dead set against changes??
I've had better honey flavors come from honey malt than adding it to the kettle.
Do what you want, since you will anyway. Just don't complain about the results later when going against other's advice.

I'm not dead set against changes, I have been taking all suggestions in this thread into consideration... However, if you had actually read the thread before putting in your opinions, you would have seen that literally every suggestion you made had already been discussed and given feedback on. Don't get mad just because I'm not going to use your suggestions, and perhaps you should consider the fact that you might not always be right. I know this is the Internet and it is easy for everyone to be an expert on everything and never be wrong, but this is a simple discussion about a recipe, and it's not even your recipe, so there really isn't a need to get your feelings hurt over it.

 

[HollisBT]

So I brewed this recipe as it was posted, adding two pounds of honey to the BK just after flame out. Pitched it directly onto a yeast cake of wlp051, had active fermentation within 30 minutes!! I was shocked, I hadn't even gotten everything cleaned up from the brew day yet haha.

Tomorrow I am going to rack it into secondary, and possibly add another pound of honey (gonna test gravity and taste it first). My question now is this, if I add the additional honey, is there any way to calculate out the amount of alcohol in the finished brew? Or will it more or less come down to a guessing game? I am ok with saying that the beer is 10-11-ish%, but it's always fun to know more precisely.

Also, when adding the honey, are there any special preparations needed? I know that it is a lively debate about heating the honey or not heating it, but with the beer already having a healthy dose of alcohol in it, I don't feel overly concerned with that, I was thinking just sanitize a stainless bowl, heat it slightly with a double boiler (to reduce viscosity), pitch it into my fermenting bucket and then stir with a sanitized spoon. Is this a safe method?

 

[bigbeergeek]

My thoughts:

The beer is way too big. At 65% efficiency I'm getting an OG around 1.120. An OG of 1.090 will give you a huge beer that actually has hopes of attenuating.

This recipe doesn't need any rice hulls. 14% wheat malt is all but negligible. I would personally dial the wheat down to around 5%, skip the 2 row and let the MO shine. Too much aromatic/specialty grain -- this beer is going to be sweet and grainy without that much specialty grain. I'd go 5-8% crystal malt. Skip the honey and use 2 lb table sugar.


I know your post is about grainbill, but I'm curious what your hop schedule looks like?

 

[HollisBT]

My thoughts:

The beer is way too big. At 65% efficiency I'm getting an OG around 1.120. An OG of 1.090 will give you a huge beer that actually has hopes of attenuating.

This recipe doesn't need any rice hulls. 14% wheat malt is all but negligible. I would personally dial the wheat down to around 5%, skip the 2 row and let the MO shine. Too much aromatic/specialty grain -- this beer is going to be sweet and grainy without that much specialty grain. I'd go 5-8% crystal malt. Skip the honey and use 2 lb table sugar.

I know your post is about grainbill, but I'm curious what your hop schedule looks like?

I generally plan on a 5.5 gallon batch size to net about 5 gallons after all is said and done. That being said, after the brew day was over I ended up at 67% efficiency and a gravity of 1.095, a beer that took of like a rocket and had a particularly crazy and active fermentation. I ended up losing quite a bit to blow off, and I used a water bath and towel to keep everything cooled down. The mash was nice and low and there aren't any really roasted malts in it, and combined with the honey that was used I think it should finish in an acceptable range, I am expecting somewhere around a 1.020 finish, which would net me plenty of alcohol to offset any sweetness.

As for hops, it was all nugget hops used in the boil, 9oz of pellets used to net somewhere in the range of 102 ibu.

 

[HollisBT]

So I brewed this recipe as it was posted, adding two pounds of honey to the BK just after flame out. Pitched it directly onto a yeast cake of wlp051, had active fermentation within 30 minutes!! I was shocked, I hadn't even gotten everything cleaned up from the brew day yet haha.

Tomorrow I am going to rack it into secondary, and possibly add another pound of honey (gonna test gravity and taste it first). My question now is this, if I add the additional honey, is there any way to calculate out the amount of alcohol in the finished brew? Or will it more or less come down to a guessing game? I am ok with saying that the beer is 10-11-ish%, but it's always fun to know more precisely.

Also, when adding the honey, are there any special preparations needed? I know that it is a lively debate about heating the honey or not heating it, but with the beer already having a healthy dose of alcohol in it, I don't feel overly concerned with that, I was thinking just sanitize a stainless bowl, heat it slightly with a double boiler (to reduce viscosity), pitch it into my fermenting bucket and then stir with a sanitized spoon. Is this a safe method?

Anyone?

 

[TheZymurgist]

Anyone?

If you're adding the honey after transferring to the secondary, I would think it'd be difficult to calculate final ABV. It all depends on how much yeast is left that's able to ferment the additional sugars. I would take a gravity reading before you add the honey, after the honey is added and mixed well, and again before bottling.

That will at least give you the numbers you need, but I'm not sure how you would go about calculating it.

 

[HollisBT]

If you're adding the honey after transferring to the secondary, I would think it'd be difficult to calculate final ABV. It all depends on how much yeast is left that's able to ferment the additional sugars. I would take a gravity reading before you add the honey, after the honey is added and mixed well, and again before bottling.

That will at least give you the numbers you need, but I'm not sure how you would go about calculating it.

Hmmm, I guess I will just take a reading at transfer, calculate how many gravity points the honey should have added, and take another measurement when I keg it...

I didn't think there would be a really accurate way to measure it, but figured I would ask. As far as having enough yeast, they are still moving and doing their job fairly actively in the primary at the moment, I think it is still moving a fair bit, and adding a bit more honey ought to stir them up and revigorate them to finish the job!

 

[TheZymurgist]

Hmmm, I guess I will just take a reading at transfer, calculate how many gravity points the honey should have added, and take another measurement when I keg it...

I didn't think there would be a really accurate way to measure it, but figured I would ask. As far as having enough yeast, they are still moving and doing their job fairly actively in the primary at the moment, I think it is still moving a fair bit, and adding a bit more honey ought to stir them up and revigorate them to finish the job!

Don't get me wrong, I think there is an accurate way to measure, I just don't know what it is. Do a search and see what you can come up with.

As far as waking the yeast up when you add the honey, my only concern would be the amount of yeast left after you transfer to the secondary. If you add the honey before transfer and let it sit, it's more likely to ferment out than if you add after the transfer, since there is more yeast in the primary.