Honey flavoured beer

[21Maff]

Hi all, this may be a tricky one but please don't hate, i am a can brewer (only been brewing for a bit over a year). I was recently given about 5.4kg (12lb) of honey from a relative who wants me to brew a beer with his honey, obviously he also wants to taste his honey in it.
I have read a lot of forum pieces saying yeast eats the honey flavour so simply adding it to the brew is pointless. How do i brew a beer so the flavour of the honey is the hero? What brew/extract can, yeast and hops etc. What temp to ferment also. I can control my temp well..

 

[NoIguanaForZ]

Hi all, this may be a tricky one but please don't hate, i am a can brewer (only been brewing for a bit over a year). I was recently given about 5.4kg (12lb) of honey from a relative who wants me to brew a beer with his honey, obviously he also wants to taste his honey in it.
I have read a lot of forum pieces saying yeast eats the honey flavour so simply adding it to the brew is pointless. How do i brew a beer so the flavour of the honey is the hero? What brew/extract can, yeast and hops etc. What temp to ferment also. I can control my temp well..

There's a thing you can do with honey that I forget the name of, but starts with a b. It's like caramelizing it; you do it in a pan on the stove, and depending on how dark you get it you preserve a fair amount of honey flavor by rendering some of it unfermentable.

You can also use Honey Malt, as most of the beers with "honey" in the name with which I'm familiar do, but I'm told that's "a cop-out."

 

[TheBigLebrewsk1]

Honey malt and if you add some raw honey in later fermentation, some of the aromatics come through, albeit very subtle.

 

[HarborTownBrewing]

Yep, use honey malt (it doesn't take much) and add honey to the fermenter after fermentation dies down.

The yeast will eat up the sugars and boost your abv, so I would take that into account when you add the honey (12 lbs of honey would be way too much for a 5 gallon batch).

 

[bransona]

You'll kinda be making braggot, so search around the forum for braggot related stuff. +1 to honey malt, but that's not *his* honey, so...it just seems wrong. You could ask if he wants mead?

 

[TasunkaWitko]

I've had good results using honey as a priming sugar when bottling. Also there were a couple of times when I added honey at the end of the boil (1/4 cup per gallon of beer), and I noticed a nice difference; not from the sugar in the honey, but from the flavor of it.

My experience is that here is definitely a character in these beers that comes from the honey and is unique compared to when I use other priming sugars; you're mileage may vary.

 

[Newsman]

There's a thing you can do with honey that I forget the name of, but starts with a b. It's like caramelizing it; you do it in a pan on the stove, and depending on how dark you get it you preserve a fair amount of honey flavor by rendering some of it unfermentable.

You can also use Honey Malt, as most of the beers with "honey" in the name with which I'm familiar do, but I'm told that's "a cop-out."

Bochet