Hop Bursted Pale Ale

[igliashon]

I get mine from Whole Foods, but it seems quite common...you can even get it at farm stands out in the country here. It has a deeper, maltier, earthier flavor than regular honey. FWIW, there's really no such thing as "regular honey". The stuff you buy in the store that's generically labeled "honey" is usually heavily-filtered and heat-processed homogenized honey from many sources, basically a sugar syrup that's pretty worthless for brewing. Go out and find a health food store or a farm stand or whatever and get some RAW, UNFILTERED, GRADE B honey from a varietal source (or wildflowers, wildflower honey can be quite good depending on the flowers the bees are foraging at). Order online if you must! It's expensive but it adds so much to the brew. All kinds of floral, earthy, herbal, spicy, or fruity flavors, depending on the variety (hmm...where have I heard those kind of descriptive words before? Some other beer ingredient, perhaps? ).

 

[thanantos]

I'll ask the local bee keeper at the farmer's market about it.

The only thing I have ever seen there is the classic, yellow honey, but I'll give it a shot.

Beyond that I guess it is the local health food store/internet for me since we don't have a whole foods within 100 miles of here.

 

[igliashon]

I cracked another bottle today, after about 10 days of conditioning. Gotta say, it's a bit too dry for my liking. I would keep the honey where it was in the original posted recipe (I brewed it with mloster's suggested lower amount) and maybe add a bit of candi syrup and maybe a little molasses (just a LITTLE).

 

[remman4]

Bottled my take on this recipe last night and the samples are promising!

I used chinook, centennial, and cascade along with DH of simcoe and galaxy

Gravity readings indicate this will be ~7% and definitely in the IPA range for IBUs

 

[mloster]

I'd have to agree with igliashon. Some candi syrup to prevent it from drying out would be fantastic. Perhaps, you could keep the recipe exactly as is and add some candi syrup to bump it into the IPA range for both IBUs and the ABV.

 

[rlbois1]

Bottled my take on this recipe last night and the samples are promising!

I used chinook, centennial, and cascade along with DH of simcoe and galaxy

Gravity readings indicate this will be ~7% and definitely in the IPA range for IBUs

At 7%ABV you must have "bumped" something up. Care to share your version of the recipe?

 

[remman4]

When I get home I will pull my recipe out of qbrew

 

[remman4]

It turns out I had entered my ingredients incorrectly! The ABV is actually ~6.5% so still IPA range, but not the 7.5% I had thought previously

6.6 lbs white sorghum syrup
2 lbs rice syrup solids
1 lb dark belgian candy sugar

2 lbs rice syrup and ~2 lbs sorghum for 60 minute boil, the rest at flameout

1 oz Chinook 60 min
1 oz Chinook 10 min
1 oz Centennial 5 min
1 oz Cascade flameout
1 oz galaxy DH 8 days
1 oz simcoe DH 8 days

US-05 Ale Yeast

Fermentation time total 4 weeks including DH

 

[igliashon]

Wow, that looks delicious!

 

[thanantos]

So, I just ordered a bunch of this syrup from High Gravity, and it arrived *actively fermenting*! One of the buckets had popped open, and leaked syrup all over the inside of the shipping box. I resealed it and the next day it had popped open again and leaked more onto my floor (which was a B**** to clean up). When I opened the buckets, the syrup was bubbly and smelled yeasty. I've e-mailed them but they haven't gotten back to me yet. I'm hoping they'll send replacement syrup post-haste, but man...what kind of yeast can live in BRS??

Just to follow up on this. I ordered two 6 gallon buckets from high gravity recently and they arrived fully intact with no damage and still sealed.

Brewing to commence shortly

 

[igliashon]

@thanatos, good to know! They did tell me they have updated their packaging and storage of BRS, and I'm glad to hear it works!

 

[remman4]

I forgot the 4oz of maltodextrin...

 

[rlbois1]

Okay friends, I am "fiending" to brew a batch of beer today... Below is my take on mloster's HBPA. I am concerned that without any sorghum, it will turn out like my blonde ale, which while tasty, has the body of a can of sprite or a glass of champagne, very light with lots of bubbles but no head... Will the buckwheat honey along with copious amounts of maltodextrin help? Also, any other feedback is welcome...

Time - Additions
60 - 6lb. Rice Syrup, 1lb. Invert sugar, 12oz. Buckwheat Honey, 4oz. Blackstrap Molasses, .5oz Magnum, 8oz. Maltodextrin, 1oz. Gypsum
20 - .75oz. Cascade, .75oz. Amarillo
15 - 1tsp Irish Moss, .5 tsp Yeast Nutrient
10 - .75oz. Cascade, .75oz. Amarillo
0 - 1oz. Amarillo
DH - 1oz. Cascade, .5oz Amarillo

Brewtarget says:
OG - 1.058
FG - 1.014
ABV - 5.6
IBU - 61.8
SRM - 5.4

 

[richbrew99]

Okay friends, I am "fiending" to brew a batch of beer today... Below is my take on mloster's HBPA. I am concerned that without any sorghum, it will turn out like my blonde ale, which while tasty, has the body of a can of sprite or a glass of champagne, very light with lots of bubbles but no head... Will the buckwheat honey along with copious amounts of maltodextrin help? Also, any other feedback is welcome...

Time - Additions
60 - 6lb. Rice Syrup, 1lb. Invert sugar, 12oz. Buckwheat Honey, 4oz. Blackstrap Molasses, .5oz Magnum, 8oz. Maltodextrin, 1oz. Gypsum
20 - .75oz. Cascade, .75oz. Amarillo
15 - 1tsp Irish Moss, .5 tsp Yeast Nutrient
10 - .75oz. Cascade, .75oz. Amarillo
0 - 1oz. Amarillo
DH - 1oz. Cascade, .5oz Amarillo

Brewtarget says:
OG - 1.058
FG - 1.014
ABV - 5.6
IBU - 61.8
SRM - 5.4

How is this turning out?

 

[rlbois1]

How is this turning out?

Well... I don't know yet. I've been ignoring it. It spent 2 weeks in the primary and now 2 weeks in the secondary; gonna bottle it this weekend.

I have however, changed my batch's name from Hop Bursted Pale Ale to "Bag Bursted Brown Ale"... I was using two 3lb bags (bag in a box) of rice syrup, and while cutting one of the bags open, I ended up pouring most of it all over my kitchen (very messy). I estimate I got about 4lbs of the rice syrup into the boil. So, in a panic to bump up the fermentables, I added 2 more ounces of molasses and a 1lb bag of dark candy crystalized sugar (like a belgium rock candi?) to the boil.

I would be hilarious if this turned out to be my best effort yet. We'll see.

 

[richbrew99]

Well... I don't know yet. I've been ignoring it. It spent 2 weeks in the primary and now 2 weeks in the secondary; gonna bottle it this weekend.

I have however, changed my batch's name from Hop Bursted Pale Ale to "Bag Bursted Brown Ale"... I was using two 3lb bags (bag in a box) of rice syrup, and while cutting one of the bags open, I ended up pouring most of it all over my kitchen (very messy). I estimate I got about 4lbs of the rice syrup into the boil. So, in a panic to bump up the fermentables, I added 2 more ounces of molasses and a 1lb bag of dark candy crystalized sugar (like a belgium rock candi?) to the boil.

I would be hilarious if this turned out to be my best effort yet. We'll see.

Sounds like something I would do. Let us know how it turns out. Think I'll be making a GF for friends next week. I'm on the fence about cutting the sorghum with rice syrup and buckwheat honey or just not using sorghum.

 

[ChasidicCalvinist]

Sorghum really isn't that bad, you just have to play to its strengths.

 

[mtbskier]

Bottled a version o this last night....used the same recipe but added just a touch of molasses and 8 oz of maltdextrin

Excited to try a beer without sorghum

Will report back once it's carbed