Slightly Burn't Honey instead of Malt?

[vevenson]

Has anybody ever tried to burn their honey a bit (like when making a brochet) and brew a beer-ish thing with it using hops and beer yeast? If so how did it go? If not how do you think it will go?

 

[bernardsmith]

Hi vevenson - and welcome. Apologies if this post appears a little pedantic but
1. You never want to "burn" your honey. Burnt honey tastes bitter in a bad way. Bochet is a term used today for caramelizing the sugars in honey. That is not the same as burning honey. You might gently cook the honey for 30 minutes - perhaps 60 minutes but you don't want the temperature of the honey to rise above about 350 F. MAXIMUM.
2. All yeast highlight, mask, and perhaps introduce flavors; perform best at particular temperatures and produce acid profiles and esters associated with the particular variety of the yeast. You are not going to get any "beer" profile simply by using an ale yeast. To achieve that you need to include some grains (either whole or extract into this project. That is called a braggot - and there are recipes online and on this forum. I recently made a braggot with caramelized honey. It was de-licious! - used chocolate malt for the "grain" and EKG for the hops (boiled 15 minutes). Used a wine yeast DV10 because of the mouthfeel it produces and added some home made chocolate extract and lemon extract before bottling)
3. Adding hops can make for a delicious mead. You need to decide whether you are boiling the hops or dry hopping and if boiling how long to boil for - Mead ain't beer and yeast - any yeast CAN ferment the mead bone dry. Boil your hops to extract maximum acidity and there is no sweetness in the mead to balance that acidity. Also you need to boil the malt so you boil hops WITH the malt. Boil honey and you destroy flavor and aroma. With hopped meads - despite what you might read on Youtube etc you boil the hops in slightly acidic water (add some lemon juice) and use the hopped tea to mix with the honey.
Good luck.

 

[vevenson]

Thanks for replying! I didn't plan on actually burning the honey, I had just heard that term used in some youtube videos. As for yeast, I'm going to use ale yeast mostly because I'm curious as to what it will make of the honey. My goal isn't to make a braggot (though I'd like to in the near future). My plan at the moment is as follows

• 1.5lb Caramelized Honey
• 1 Gallon of Water
• East Kent Goldings Hops (not sure how much to use, I don't make beer)
• Lemon Juice
  
• Crossmyloof Real Ale yeast
• Yeast Nutrient 1 tsp
• Yeast Energizer 1/2 tsp

Caramelize honey for 15 - 20 minutes, mix with water, set aside to cool. Mix lemon juice with water, bring to a boil, add hops and let boil for 10 minutes? Cool the hops "tea" down, and add to the caramelized honey in a one gallon fermenter. Add nutrient and energizer, let cool to room temp, pitch yeast.

What do you make of it? Open to suggestions.

 

[bernardsmith]

Others may have a different idea but I would argue that 1/2 oz (ie .5 oz) is enough for 1 gallon. Regarding the lemon juice I would add no more than a scant teaspoon of the LJ. Regarding water: You want the total volume to be a scant gallon - this will give you a starting gravity of about 1.050 (+/-) and so a potential ABV of about 6.5%. That is a heavy beer.(wines are about 12% ABV and session beers are more like 4%).
Last point - honey at 350 F is scalding. I mean scalding. So be very careful. Allowing the honey to cool unaided allows it to cook for hours... I would in this case use your boiling hopped tea to cool the honey. Use the pot or slow cooker lid as a shield (cover all exposed skin - seriously. Honey will stick to your skin and at this temperature it can hurt you - seriously hurt you) and carefully pour the boiling or near boiling tea into the caramelizing honey. This will drop the temperature low enough to stop the continued cooking of the honey and then when safe enough stir to further mix and allow this to cool.

 

[vevenson]

Thanks for the great advice, I appreciate it. You've answered pretty much all my questions. Just one last thing, should I leave the hops in for the fermentation or filter them out?

 

[growlrr]

Just to reinforce what bernardsmith was saying about adding hot water (or tea in this case) to the honey, the water/tea MUST be near boiling or at a full boil. Water boils @ 212F (100C), so even though it is hot, honey will exceed 300F when near boiling so you are talking about introducing a liquid that is more than 100F cooler into a hot syrup. It WILL splash and spit and react and if you get splashed with it, it will NOT wash off quickly or easily. You could easily end up in a burn unit in a hospital. Also - eye protection. Good, protective glasses or goggles (like from an auto parts or hardware store) are an absolute must. Honey is natures napalm.

 

[vevenson]

Yeah, I'm thinking that I'll give the whole pot a bath in some hot water in the sink.

 

[bernardsmith]

Thanks for the great advice, I appreciate it. You've answered pretty much all my questions. Just one last thing, should I leave the hops in for the fermentation or filter them out?

I remove the hops from the tea after the time I have allowed them to brew. If ten minutes - then I remove the hops then. Allowing hops to sit and stew for a couple of weeks or more in the primary is asking for vegetative flavors to be extracted by the alcohol and you don't really want that. Dry hopping for more than 7 -10 days also brings out the grassy flavors and not the aromas you want. So if it is flavor - after the end of the boil chuck 'em. If it's aroma. Rack off the hops after 7 days ...