Mead - from honey wine to honey beer

[zosolm]

O hai,

I've been making honey wine for a while now and was hoping to start making beer as I've got hold of two 12 litre PET containers. I was wondering if I could use the same recipe I use for my wine as for the beer with the addition of hops/which hops to use/when to add the hops/which yeast to use/anything else I ought to know. Here's the recipe I use for honey wine:

For 1 Gallon

Ingredients:

-2 tsp tea
-around 20-30 raisins
-Rind and juice of 1 lemon/lime
-1tsp super wine yeast (for boiling)
-Around 1250 grams honey
-under 1/2 tsp Llalvin D47
-1tsp DAP
-Fruit (if making melomel)

Method:

-Boil tea, raisins, juice & rind, super wine yeast and fruit for 10-20 minutes
-Let cool and add honey once warm and keep on very low heat for around 20 minutes (or I usually just add the honey when the mix is not boiling but hot to touch and let cool as this usually takes around 20 minutes anyway)
-Pitch into demijohn once near room temperature and add Llalvin D47 and DAP
-Allow to bubble for around 5 days
-Rack into new demijohn
- once no more bubbling, rack again, leave to settle for a day or so and bottle

I use the super wine yeast because I read somewhere that dead yeasts are good food for the Llalvin yeast and I use DAP because I read that honey doesn't have all the right bits (nitrogen, I think) that the yeast needs.

If I wanted to make a beer with this recipe, I suppose I would have to change the yeast I use (which is good because D47 takes ages to age...) and add hops but I've never brewed beer before so any input is appreciated.

Kthx

 

[Yooper]

I'm not sure what a hopped mead is- maybe gruit? But "beer" as we think of it is barley malt and hops, and that's what gives beer it's distinct "beer" taste.

Without malt, a hopped mead can probably still be a very nice beverage but it won't be anything like beer.

 

[zosolm]

That was quick

Okay, so both barley malt and hops are needed to be added to the recipe... Is there any beer yeast which is favoured by mead makers or which you would expect to do well with honey? would you recommend any particular variety of hops? just had a quick look at different malt types and found caramel malt which "adds a light honey-like sweetness and some body to the finished beer"(http://www.howtobrew.com/section2/chapter12-1.html)... I guess it would make sense to use this?

 

[rodwha]

No more than maybe 20% of crystal malt.

I've used honey in several beers and I find that too much honey makes for a strangely thin beer.

I use about 2 lbs in a 6 gal batch and it gives a nice honey flavor when added at flameout or after a week of fermentation.

There is a type of mead that uses barley and I think hops.

 

[zosolm]

So when you made your honey beer you used brewing sugar then added the honey after fermentation? I was thinking of substituting brewing sugar with honey and DAP

 

[Yooper]

So when you made your honey beer you used brewing sugar then added the honey after fermentation? I was thinking of substituting brewing sugar with honey and DAP

Generally, you don't use sugar when you use honey or in most beers- except for those junk "cooper's kits".

Normally, you'd make the beer and add a pound or two of honey in the wort and skip any simple sugars.

It depends on your goal, though. If you want to make a beer with honey, that'd be like 6 pounds of liquid malt extract and then a pound or two of honey. If you want to make a honey drink with a bit of beer-ish flavor, you'd do it much differently.

I make mead, wine, ciders, and beer- but I don't mix them together so I have no idea how to make something like I think you're describing.

 

[zosolm]

I think that 6 pounds malt extract with 2 pounds honey will make the kind of beer i'm after (I can play around with the honey to malt ratio, right?) How much beer would that amount of malt make?

 

[Yooper]

I think that 6 pounds malt extract with 2 pounds honey will make the kind of beer i'm after (I can play around with the honey to malt ratio, right?) How much beer would that amount of malt make?

5 gallons of beer.

You will also need some hops. 1- 2 oz or so, depending on what kind of style of beer you want to make.

 

[rodwha]

I have made honey wheats and blondes mostly, but I also tried making an ale that was something like an American lager, but in Bob fashion began with a small test batch that grew into something much larger, and so I used honey to help make up the simple sugar.

What spurred me was Blue Moon's Honey Wheat. It tasted like they poured some honey in the bottle. I've tried MANY things to achieve this same type of taste and have never quite got a handle on it.

I've used honey malts in small and large quantities, as well as honey in small and large quantities, and mixed them also.

Too little isn't enough, and too much isn't quite good, especially for honey malt.

Are you after beer with honey or honey with beer? I'd think it might be better to go with beer with honey… But I've not tried the other.

I've had mead and liked it, and intend on making some one of these days.

Many feel it best to add honey at flameout or thereabouts as it ensures no wild yeast can survive, but that it's not hot long enough to destroy the flavor of the honey.

What size batch do you intend on making?

 

[zosolm]

I'll be making a 15 litre batch.

for honey wine I used tea, raisins and citrus fruit to replace things yeast needs found in grapes but not honey (tannin and higher acidity levels), do I still need these for the beer? I thought maybe malt has enough tannin.

So here's the recipe I have planned:

-18lbs liquid malt extract
-6lbs honey
-3oz hops (bittering and finishing)
-beer yeast (any recommendations on yeast strain which works well with honey?)

-bring 1 gallon of water to boil and take off heat
-add malt extract, stir and dissolve
-add bittering hops, boil and stir for 45 mins-hour
-add finishing hops and stir for for 15 minutes further
-turn down heat to simmer and add honey, stir in for 15 minutes
-cool, add yeast
-boil rest of water and cool before adding to wort
-transfer to fermentation vessel
-bubble
-bottle
-drink

Does this seem right/am I missing any steps?

 

[jonmohno]

Maybe some yeast nutrient and energizer. I would use d47. Only so it would finish higher. If you were set on using beer yeast, Im not shure I used 05 in a plain mead before it pretty much fermeted out but my gravity was only 1.09 to start. Im not big on dry meads so far but that mead wasn't great, although it could have been because of the quality of honey I got that made it not so great. Ive heard of people using 04 and some Belgian yeasts. But I have no experience with other beer yeasts with mead however I would like to make a braggot most likely using D47. Also a braggot recipe is in the book the Complete meadmaker and uses D47.

 

[rodwha]

Running it through the Brewtoad calculator using 05 it came up as ~23% ABV. I'm not sure about beer yeast being able to handle that high of an alcohol content. I've been considering brewing up a barley wine that's ~12-14% ABV.

I'd use more than just a gallon of water. Get as close to a full boil as you can unless you appreciate using chilled top off water to help drop the temp.

I'd also use a portion of the extract in the beginning and the rest at the end. Will you be using liquid or dry? If liquid will it be in separate containers?

Adding the extract at the end helps keep it from darkening.

I'd also add the honey at flameout for more flavor. It will still be hot enough to pasteurize it and kill any wild yeasts that may be present.

 

[Renoun]

The Ethiopians make tej which is a combination of fermented grain and honey bittered with Gesho. Extreme Brewing has an extract based interpretation and there are plenty of Google hits for more traditional formulations.

I've had tej a couple of times in Ethiopian restaurants and enjoyed it but haven't gotten around to making any yet.

 

[zosolm]

@johnmoho - i do plan on making a mead with malt and d47 after this beer, if it goes well i'll post it up. I suppose 05 made a strong beer? I guess that would be what I'm after

@rodwha - I'd be using liquid malt

I'll do a couple of test batches in my wine demijohns playing with the malt/honey ratios

 

[fuelish]

Malt/honey ratio determines whether it's "honey beer" (malt with added honey) or "braggot" (honey with added malt). I've yet to try a braggot (although am concentrating on meadmaking, these days), but have made beer with honey in years past....honey is virtually fully fermentable, so it acts a lot like plain ol' sugar in a beer recipe (thins it out, reducing "mouthfeel" and bumping up abv). I prefer my beers without honey, and can't comment on braggots ... yet