Honey In Secondary (Per Mosher's Recipe)

[SevenSeaScourge]

i'm loosely following the heather ale recipe from mosher's "radical brewing" and he calls for a pound of honey added to secondary. i plan on dissolving the honey in a pint or so of 150F water, adding it to my secondary, and racking the beer on top of it. anyone see a problem with this?

would it help to add yeast nutrient to the honey/water mix to ensure a faster or more complete fermentation?

 

[hoppymonkey]

I not sure what to do about, but here is the issue I had. I did the same thing you are talking about and basically the honey would not mix well with the beer and created a layer of hardened honey/yeast on the bottom of the fermenter. When i bottled the beer, every beer tasted different than the last. Some were super sweet and some were super dry.

 

[GunnerMan]

Dissolving it in some water is a good idea, makes it easyer to handle and get it all in to the desired container. My Honeybuns Weizen has a pound of honey in it. About 10 mins left of boil I skimmed some wort into a saucepan added the honey and kept it hot untill I was chilling the beer. Then I just poured it back in.

Yeast nutrient I would guess is not mandatory but would probably help, if you have some use it, if you don't then don't go and buy any.

 

[SkewedBrewing]

If you were going to add it to the secondary, perhaps you should treat it like priming sugar?

Boil it for 15 minutes or so until it dissolves with a pint of water, let it cool and then add it to the secondary.

 

[chode720]

I wouldnt boil the honey, if you can avoid it. Boiling will drive off a lot of volitale flavor and arome compounds. I did a beer once with 1lb of honey, added at flamout, and there was no real flavor from the honey.

You could try dissolving it in water that is around 115-120 degrees (what I do when I make mead). Then, you could add that water/honey mix to the carboy and rack the beer ontop of it, that should mix it well. Hopefully that will work out

 

[GunnerMan]

Yeah if you boil the honey you might as well save your money and use corn sugar.

 

[SkewedBrewing]

Ok, perhaps boil wasn't the right word. I guess simmer around 150 then cool and add to the secondary.