What Sort of Honey Should I Use?

[OppR2nist]

I'm going to be brewing an Irish Red. I am going to be throwing in some (about a half pound of) honey. I'm curious what variety of honey I should be using. and how it will affect the flavor. I've narrowed it down to either clover or wildflower. Clover seems like an obvious choice, since it won't impact the flavor too heavily, and clovers easily associate with Ireland. I'm considering wildflower because it's bolder and will add to the color, and it fits the feeling of untamed rolling fields of green, again referring to Ireland.

It is interesting to note that these styles of honey both have the ability to reflect the Irish countryside, but sit on opposite ends of the flavor spectrum. Any help here would be immense. Which of the two should I choose? Is there a better option?

Here's my recipe (not original, taken from beertools):
.5 lbs Crystal Malt 40°L
.5 lbs Belgian Biscuit
.15 lbs Belgian Special B
5 lbs Dry Light Extract
1 oz Goldings - 5.0 AA% pellets; boiled 50 min
1 oz Palisade or Perle - 8.2 AA% pellets; boiled 15 min
.5 lb honey
WYeast 1084 Irish Ale

Thanks all!

 

[bobby4]

I love honey so much that I decided to keep beehives. I cook with it, brew with it, etc. However, if I am I honest I must admit that it isn't easy to taste in a more flavourful beer. Either should work fine, but I am very curious if you will be able to detect it at all. If you put it in the boil I doubt you will. I would give serious consideration to heating it separately to sanitize it, then adding it post boil to the wort - this will help the flavours survive.

 

[Calder]

Add post fermentation if you are going to add it. Personally I think it is a waste of good honey as it will have little to no affect on the beer.

 

[eastoak]

honey malt is a better alternative than honey, guaranteed honey flavor.

 

[bobby4]

+1 to both of the last posts

 

[OppR2nist]

When I looked it up, I found this piece about how to choose honey for brewing. You can see where my ideas came from. After reading this, is there any particular insight anyone here can add?

Link

 

[eastoak]

When I looked it up, I found this piece about how to choose honey for brewing. You can see where my ideas came from. After reading this, is there any particular insight anyone here can add?

Link

that was from the honey board, nothing wrong with that but they are in the business of promoting the use of honey. one thing they said that makes sense is putting the honey in at the end of fermentation then stopping fermentation, cold crashing i suppose, that would probably preserve flavor and sweetness in the beer if it's kept cold for the duration.

 

[twleeper]

There are a lot of ways you can use honey though at any stage of brewing its really up to you when and how you want to use it. Try it and see how it turns out I know northern brewer has a pretty big selection of honey one that kind of caught my eye was an orange blossom honey I think it was I was going to use it to ferment with instead of priming sugar with a weizenbrier I'm brewing this weekend

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Home Brew mobile app

 

[Bigbeavk]

If you really want a good price on some honey just look for Smittybee on Ebay. They have large and small quantities. For example I got 30lb of raw Orange Blossom for $79.99 plus I think it was $27 for shipping = a little over $3 a lb. Plus it comes in a nice food grade 5gal bucket you can use.

+1 on using the Honey Malt though from what I've heard.

 

[Calichusetts]

Just make sure its real, raw honey. Half the stuff in stores isn't real honey. Google "fake honey" to see what I am talking about. The honey board is a pretty good source and many commercial breweries use real honey and get honey flavor from it. 1 pound seems to give a good contribution but the irish red might overpower the flavor. Honey works best in light beers.