Honey Strong Ale Recipe; help please.

[tomaso]

My girlfriend's family have their own bee hives and for Christmas we want to brew a Holiday Ale using their Honey.

The idea is a strong, moderately sweet and only slightly hoppy beer. Either a brownish strong ale (maybe with more crystal malt) or a porter/stout.

Below is the recipe for the strong ale.
I'd be happy for feedback, especially since this is the first time I'm brewing with honey. The idea is to add the honey at flameout (1kg, i.e. 12% of the total bill).

Also, does adding honey to a beer mean that the fermentation time increases?

How much hops should I add to balance the it? I've chosen Chinook because the heavier spice aroma of Chinook would go well with the Dark and spice-fragrant honey they have.

Also, I've just recently stepped my game up to 5 gallons, so should I use two packets of rehydrated, dry Saf-05 instead of one since it is a strong beer?

Thanks for your help!

 

[Lefou]

Not to be peckish, but I'd think anything up to 20% honey would be fine. I recently brewed up a braggot and will bottle that tomorrow. I also used BJCP gudelines which defines a braggot as containing 20-50% honey as a fermentable ... so at your stated level of honey, I'd think a longer fermentation time wouldn't really matter.

Your idea and approach seems fairly sound. Honey is a great ingredient and ferments fairly quickly - it's great yeast food. If you're doing a darker ale, you might want to consider treating your water to adjust pH and hardness for hopping.
As for yeast pitching, I'd say one packet or sachet of S-05 yeast mixed in with a wort starter and pitched at room temperature would be just fine as long as your starting gravity isn't exceptionally high. My braggot is more akin to a pale ale and has a low ABV. Hopefully it's ready by Christmas!
Cheers.

Postscript: I also used a one packet S-05 yeast starter myself on a 3gallon batch of 1.200 gravity mead must fermented in the the low to mid 60F range and it turned out fine, but will need some aging.

 

[ChelisHubby]

I would use 2 packets of yeast and honey is a more complex sugar but at only 12% it should not be a problem. it should be fine either way. I like the Idea of a honey dark ale.

 

[tomaso]

Thanks guys! Much appreciate it.
Since it's not too expensive I´ll probably pitch 1.5 packets of dry yeast.

Any thoughts on my hop schedule? Not sure how brewing with honey changes the process.
As I mentioned, I'd like the beer to be just slightly bitter to balance any sweetness from the honey (not sure if I'll get any ) and get some aroma of the piny chinook that complements the honey aroma (that I´ll hopefully get with adding it at flame out).

 

[Double_D]

I'd change the special b to honey malt, add .25 kg C120. If the color isn't where You want after that, adjust with a small amount of black malt or add more chocolate. You might as well just dump the both packets of yeast in there rehydrated, of course.

Brewing with honey doesn't change the process at all, but it is completely fermentable. Even in a lighter beer it doesn't carry over much aroma or flavor after fermentation, and I've never noticed it when added to dark beers. That's my experience anyway. That's why I add honey malt too.

If you want the beer slightly bitter I'd shoot for .5 on your IBU/SG ratio. 34ibu isn't enough for what it sounds like you want.

What's the mash temp you're planning on using? That, in addition to malts that provide unfermentable sugar like crystal are a good way to get a malty flavor in beer, in addition to ibu ratio, it also helps with body of the beer.

That last part sounds jumbled to me but I haven't had my coffee for the morning and that's how it's coming out right now.. sorry.

 

[tomaso]

I don't want to add honey malt because the whole idea is to get the flavour/aroma of the honey itself.

.5 IBU/SG is quite bitter for my taste so unless the honey changes the perceived bitterness I'd go with less. Does it?

Plan to use 69C which will get me to 1.019 FG which I guess is a good place to be for such a big beer. Agree?

Thanks for your help

 

[tomaso]

Ok, it's almost brewday and the recipe has been modified somewhat. There is a bit less honey (afraid of overdoing it): 750g at flameout i.e. 9,7% of total bill; Longer boil of 90mins for kettle caramelization. 250g Carapils for some more sweetness and head; To balance the sweetness of these three I have 35IBUs (don't want the beer to be bitter, just balanced), the high crystal and chocolate malt and an ABV around 9%. Do you think this is a good balance?

 

[dmtaylor]

See my response in your duplicate thread.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=595960