Honey in lambic

[tpbc]

So, My Idea was to add some honey to the secondary of a lambic I made. Its been about 2 months in primary, and is starting to really show some promising flavors.

I've got a great local source of honey, and the stuff has phenomenal character compared to store bought garbage. I figure the honey will give some extra sugar to the variety of yeast in the yeast lambic package, while adding a bit of its own character to the beer....

However, I'm not really sure if I should pitch it in secondary as is and hope that the wild yeast it contains makes the beer even more complex... or if I'm taking a huge risk on a beer that is already starting to show potential and should bring the honey up to a temp to kill all the bacteria and yeast... (180 degree's I believe?)

Any thoughts on this would be much appreciated. Thanks.

 

[frankstoneline]

180 for a couple minutes should do well sanitizing the honey. As for how it will affect the beer, I cant shed any light on that, though it will add fermentables and a bit of character probably.

 

[tpbc]

So I'm assuming I just bring some water to 180 degrees and then put the contaner of honey in the water for a few minutes? or is there another (better) way of doing it?

 

[frankstoneline]

So I'm assuming I just bring some water to 180 degrees and then put the contaner of honey in the water for a few minutes? or is there another (better) way of doing it?

I would dissolve the honey in some water, then heat it to 180 degrees for several minutes before cooling and adding it to the fermenter.

 

[Calder]

I would dissolve the honey in the same amount of water and heat it.

You need to be at 145 F for 30 minutes or 160 F for 10 seconds to pasteurize it.

 

[ryane]

Ah, Im gonna go against the grain here and say DO NOT HEAT the honey

your brewing a sour aka wild beer, if its already been fermenting for a while now, adding honey isnt going to do anything to harm it from the standpoint of contamination. Your beer is already contaminated

Heating honey ruins the delicate floral aromas, dump it in and let it ferment out

 

[BryanThompson]

I agree with Ryan. I never heat the honey for my meads and they don't get any off flavors.

 

[BootsyFlanootsy]

agreed. do NOT heat the honey at all!!! Sacrilege!!!

 

[Accidic]

The only problem I've had with honey (unpasteurized) was with it breaking down residual starches further which concerns me slightly about bottle bombs. Someone told me it may be the amylase in the honey that's doing it but I really thought that needed to be a certain temp to be effective. Either way it was a very slow thing and it was a fairly large volume of honey (I went from 1.009 stable for well over a week to ~1.004 after 6mos after the 2lb honey addition). Either way in a sour I figure any additions will just add to it. Worst case scenario is it makes a rough batch since I added it in a secondary carboy anyway. Honestly I even tend to use it raw in my non-sours and just carb slightly less than I otherwise would have just in case.