Raspberry beer with honey? Thoughts and suggestions welcome.

[MikeBilly]

Edit 2: Here is the updated recipe on Hopville. It is different than the one I posted below. Suggestions still welcome.

I wanted to make a beer similar to Famboise but without going through the pains of the lambic process. So maybe what I'm aiming for is something like Founder's Blushing Monk? Anyway, here is the recipe I came up with for a 2.5 gallon batch:

• 4 lb Raspberries
• 2 lb Briess DME Golden Light
• 1.5 lb Sugar, Table
• 1 lb American Two-row Pale
• 1 lb American Crystal 20L
• .5 lb Flaked Barley

Hops:

• 60 mins .5 oz Amarillo pellet
• 15 mins .5 oz Cascade leaf
• 5 mins .5 oz Amarillo pellet

Wyeast Belgian Saison (3724)

I plan on doing a partial mash.

The raspberries would be added in secondary. Then I would do a "tertiary" fermentation to let it all clarify.

Then I got to thinking about how god awfully sour this would end up being. I could always back sweeten with lactose/maltodextrin.

Then again, why not honey? If I used honey instead of the table sugar would that provide some sweetness? I've never used honey in a beer and I've never brewed a mead so I have no idea.

For comparison, if I got rid of the table sugar and completely replaced it with honey I would need 2 lbs to reach the same ABV.

Any suggestions / thoughts / help would be greatly appreciated.

Edit: Forgot to list hops and yeast. Fixed!

 

[sfrisby]

Honey will ferment out and leave no residual sweetness. Lactose might be your best bet without mashing at a higher temp.

 

[teucer]

Frankly, I think one of the major ingredients here may actually distract from the overall effect. And it's the malt.

But no, honey only produces sweetness if you use so much of it the yeast doesn't metabolize all the alcohol. Like table sugar, it will increase your attenuation compared to just brewing with malt.

 

[MikeBilly]

Frankly, I think one of the major ingredients here may actually distract from the overall effect. And it's the malt.

But no, honey only produces sweetness if you use so much of it the yeast doesn't metabolize all the alcohol. Like table sugar, it will increase your attenuation compared to just brewing with malt.

Can you elaborate? Should I use less malt?

 

[teucer]

Can you elaborate? Should I use less malt?

When I think raspberries and honey, what comes to mind for me is mead rather than beer. Doing a beer with raspberries and honey isn't a bad thing, but I think two pounds of honey per 2.5 gallons (enough to ferment to 4% ABV on its own) is enough that the malt flavor will feel like it's fighting with the central honey character.

If you do make a honey beer, don't add the honey until flameout. Boiling it loses a lot of the tastiest aromatics it contains.

 

[Quaker]

Try Gambrinus Honey Malt for the flavor and sweetness instead of honey, which will dry it out as mentioned before.

 

[teucer]

Try Gambrinus Honey Malt for the flavor and sweetness instead of honey, which will dry it out as mentioned before.

That's a good suggestion. Consider also a higher mash temperature to drop the attenuation.

 

[MikeBilly]

Try Gambrinus Honey Malt for the flavor and sweetness instead of honey, which will dry it out as mentioned before.

That's a good suggestion. Consider also a higher mash temperature to drop the attenuation.

With the recipe I listed, would a pound be too much? I'll probably cut the crystal if I use honey malt.

 

[Quaker]

Depends how much sugar to expect from the raspberries, but I'd replace all the crystal with the honey malt. But that means you still need something to offset the original table sugar. I'd simply up your 2-row some. I'm not familiar with the Blushing Monk, but I think a pound of dark wheat might make it interesting.

 

[MikeBilly]

I've only had Blushing Monk once, but it's hard to describe the flavor profile. Really, it's mostly raspberries.

Also, I think I've decided to go the Belgian route and use Belgian Pilsner Malt instead of the two row. I think some sugar is fine in a Belgian, but maybe I'm using too much?

As far as the sugar content of the raspberries goes, right now I'm using the beer calculus estimates. I don't know how else to get a better number.

I'm also kind of afraid to use darker malts (though dark wheat isn't actually very dark) because I want the color of the raspberries to bleed through. I've never used dark wheat, either, so I'm not entirely sure what it would add.

 

[MikeBilly]

So I updated the original post with this link to my Hopville recipe. I think the new recipe is better. Thanks for the suggestions everyone.

Also, I'm wondering if 1lb (9%) of the Honey malt in a 2.5 gallon batch is too much? thoughts?