Lemon and honey help

[Whoisbeau]

First time post and would like to get some feed back on a beer I'm attempting this week. Here's the details:
I have a summit pale ale kit I purchased at my local brew shop. It includes a 7lb light malt extract. 1lb crystal 10L grain mix. It originally had a 2oz cascade hops packet but I switched it out for a 2 oz citra pack. I also have a wyeast liquid yeast starter pack.
Here is my basic plan I'm ready to complete. The citra hops are going in at 1/2oz @ 60, 1/2oz @ 20 and dry hop the last 1 oz 7 days. I understand that these hops have a much higher alpha acid and thus the lower amounts in the boil and the dry hop. What I'm struggling with and looking for experience on is the addition of lemon and honey. I thought a small amount of berry or orange blossom honey honey at the end of the boil, what is a good amount to add to this kit and is that the best time to add? The second question is lemon, my thought is to add the zest of up to 4 lemons and have it only include the zest and no pith. I would infuse this into a vodka and add it in the carboy after transferring from primary fermentation at about week 2.
So why am I modifying a kit on my second ever brew? Easy, I've been a hobby chef for over 20 years and love to screw around with recipes. I have been reading up on brewing for over 6months and learning from others mistakes and victories. That and my wife demanded a lemon beer or I couldn't start looking at a stout next. Haha. Any input would be greatly appreciated, and I look forward to reading around on the site.

 

[kev211]

Alright... Heres what I would do if it were me...

First off, change the 2oz hop addition at 20 mins to 1 oz and do 2oz dry hop. It will result in more of a true APA.

Second. Honey. How much honey flavor do you want? Honey land lemon may be a bit much with a pale ale (so again, if it were me, I would ditch the honey and just try the lemon, but thats the joy of Home Brewing, you can try different things ), but who knows. In my honey blonde (which I really want the honey to shine I put 1.25lbs of honey in a 5 gal batch at flameout). So maybe 1/2-3/4lb honey at flameout will give you a hint o' honey?

Third. Lemon. Good call on the tincture. However, are you bottling or kegging? Either way... Ditch the secondary. No need for it in this case. Only adds potential for oxidation or infection. If bottling... add the tincture to your bottling bucket with priming sugar. If kegging... add straight to the keg/kegged beer.

That being said... Good luck with it! Sounds like an interesting beer!

Oh and welcome by the way!

 

[Whoisbeau]

Thanks for the reply!!!!
I was looking to do only a total of 2 oz of citra hops for a 5 gallon batch, the wife isn't a huge hop fan.
I was looking at my post and it may be confusing how I stated it. Here is what I was thinking:
1/2oz @ 60 min, 1/2oz @ 20min and dry hop the last 1 oz at 7 days during the secondary for dry hop.
Only reason for a secondary is for a dry hop and the lemon at the end for a day.
Honey was only there to help emulate a Shanty with a bit more honey flavor on the tongue. I will go with your recommendation of 3/4 lbs of a orange blossom honey.
I am kegging the beer, in a 5 gallon party keg FYI.
Is the zest of 4 lemons too much or not enough do you think?
I've been in the medical field for some time and some of my paranoia of infection has translated into brewing. It's all CLEAN! [emoji40] haha. I was wondering about the dry hop. How do I sterilize the hops prior to the addition for the dry hop? Or am I being overly concerned?
Thanks again Kev for the info!!!

 

[kev211]

Ok gotcha on the shanty. And I should have read those hop additions as .5oz. Dont know how I missed that.

That being said. I still dont find the need to secondary (and 1 day in secondary is more or less useless). Even on DIPA's with 6-8oz of dry hops I still go straight from primary to keg. If you dont disturb it much, you wont get many hops in the keg, and those that do will settle out at the bottom and come out in the first 2-3 pints. There shouldnt be muchh lemon zest going in to the beer as it infuses the vodka with lemon flavor and then you add the vodka. The beauty of using a tincture is that you can taste it before and get an idea for its potency. A little tip, the benefit of kegging is that you can always add more tincture. So start with less and add more if needed. You can always add more, but not subtract. 4 lemons should be fine. Itll just boost the lemony-ness of the tincture.

Hops have natural occuring anti-microbial properties so you can just dump them right in without sanitizing (always a safe bet to sanitize the scissors and stuff that may come in contact with them though)

 

[Whoisbeau]

Any other advise in brew land?