Alternative Sugar Beer White House Honey Ale: 2nd Place, 2013 Chicago Cup

[Pappers_]

Recipe Type

All Grain

Yeast

Windsor

Yeast Starter

no

Additional Yeast or Yeast Starter

no

Batch Size (Gallons)

5.5

Original Gravity

1.053

Final Gravity

1.008

Boiling Time (Minutes)

60

IBU

38

Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp)

62F, 10ish days

Secondary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp)

none

Tasting Notes

Jasmine aroma and flavor from the honey, dry and easy to drink

Yesterday, our version of the White House Honey Ale took 2nd place in the specialty beer category at the 2013 Chicago Cup http://www.bossbeer.org/competition.html

This is an English-style pale ale with high-quality local honey added, which gives it a little more character in both the aroma and flavor, and make its a drier, easy-to-drink beer. This was one of those beers that satisfied both craft and non-craft drinkers alike.

8.5 lbs Pale Malt
1 lbs Munich Malt
1 lb. Wheat Malt
0.75 lb. Caramel Malt 20L
1 lb. Honey
1 oz. East Kent Goldings hops (7% aa) - 60 minutes
1 oz. East Kent Goldings hops - 20 minutes
1 oz. Challenger hops (5% aa) - 5 minutes
Irish Moss
Danstar Windsor Yeast

Mashed at 151F for 60 minutes, single infusion and batch sparge.

Added the honey towards the end, with five or ten minutes to go. Had the honey (which had crystalized) measured out in a large mixing bowl. Added a pitcher or two of hot wort from the boil kettle to the mixing bowl and stirred like crazy to melt the honey. Then poured the whole mixture into the boil kettle.

Fermented at 61F.

 

[CGVT]

Cool. Congrats!

How did you enter it? ESB as base style with honey added?

 

[cheesehed007]

Congrats!!

 

[Pappers_]

Cool. Congrats!

How did you enter it? ESB as base style with honey added?

I think I entered it as an English Pale Ale (base style) with honey (special ingredient). And thanks! I was surprised, because often the speciality beer category is dominated by big or over-the-top beers and this isn't that.

 

[forcabrew]

Did you get any honey flavor in the beer? If so does it fade with time? I was thinking of adding a touch of honey malt.

Did you use MO as your base? I'm thinking of brewing something similar. My inspiration is honey nut Cheerios. I know sounds weird!!!!

I'm thinking victory malt as well

 

[Pappers_]

Did you get any honey flavor in the beer? If so does it fade with time? I was thinking of adding a touch of honey malt.

Did you use MO as your base? I'm thinking of brewing something similar. My inspiration is honey nut Cheerios. I know sounds weird!!!!

I'm thinking victory malt as well

There was both honey aroma and flavor - with the honey I used (locally produced) it came across as a jasmine and floral aroma and flavor. It hadn't faded much in six months, but I don't know beyond that, I drank it all!

I used Gambrinus Organic Pale Malt as the base malt.

Unlike Honey Nut cheerios, which is sweet, this was a dry a beer, with a FG of 1.008. That dryness made it a very easy to drink beer.

 

[forcabrew]

Sounds excellent thanks for the inspiration and info

 

[raidershero]

New to the forums. I'm going to try your recipe this weekend for my 2nd ever AG brew. However, due to availabilty, I will have to substitute Perle for Challenger and WLP013 for the Danstar Windsor. Curious how this may alter the overall character of this beer. I also plan on using a Belgian Pale 2-row, well, just because

Any idea how these changes may alter the overall feel of this recipe? I'm still trying to get a grasp how different yeasts and hops affect flavor. It seems like a giant trial and error method, which I'm OK with because the end result is always beer

Thanks.

 

[Pappers_]

New to the forums. I'm going to try your recipe this weekend for my 2nd ever AG brew. However, due to availabilty, I will have to substitute Perle for Challenger and WLP013 for the Danstar Windsor. Curious how this may alter the overall character of this beer. I also plan on using a Belgian Pale 2-row, well, just because

Any idea how these changes may alter the overall feel of this recipe? I'm still trying to get a grasp how different yeasts and hops affect flavor. It seems like a giant trial and error method, which I'm OK with because the end result is always beer

Thanks.

London Ale yeast should be an interesting yeast for this beer, but I've not used it so can't comment from experience. I also think the Perle will be fine too, I might consider swapping it for the first East Kent Goldings hop addition, in other words using the Perle at 60 minutes and moving the EKG to the last addition.

Good luck with your second all-grain batch!

 

[raidershero]

Cool. I'll give that a shot. Thanks for the advice. I really dig friendly atmosphere here. One more question. I don't have the the capability to ferment at 61. The lowest I can keep it is between 64-66 degrees. Should I expect much ester production at that temp?

 

[Pappers_]

Cool. I'll give that a shot. Thanks for the advice. I really dig friendly atmosphere here. One more question. I don't have the the capability to ferment at 61. The lowest I can keep it is between 64-66 degrees. Should I expect much ester production at that temp?

That range should be fine for the London yeast.

 

[raidershero]

Cool. Thanks.

 

[Dfrr15]

Congrats on the 2nd place!

Id like to brew this but am not sure how to convert the recipe to extract. Anyone have any idea on what the malt/grain would be converted to an extract recipe?

 

[s4l]

Beersmith gave me the following using light dry extract as the base.

3.8 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 20L (20.0 SRM) Grain 1 2.8 %
3 lbs 9.8 oz Light Dry Extract (8.0 SRM) Dry Extract 2 42.4 %
7.0 oz Wheat Liquid Extract (8.0 SRM) Extract 3 5.1 %
3.7 oz Amber Liquid Extract (12.5 SRM) Extract 4 2.7 %
3 lbs 15.9 oz Honey (1.0 SRM)

Does that look close?

 

[raidershero]

You know, I forgot to ask... what it's the size of the boil and the sparge?? I'm still pretty new at this. I didn't seem to see it in the OP.

 

[Feldmann]

How long did you ferment for?

 

[raidershero]

How long did you ferment for?

Ah. Good question too.

 

[Pappers_]

How long did you ferment for?

A couple of weeks, no secondary.

 

[Pappers_]

Congrats on the 2nd place!

Id like to brew this but am not sure how to convert the recipe to extract. Anyone have any idea on what the malt/grain would be converted to an extract recipe?

The recipe released from the White House chefs was an extract recipe - you can find it here https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f14/white-house-beer-357936/

 

[raidershero]

Well I just finished brewing this recipe this morning. My God the honey aroma was amazing. The whole thing smelled just like honey wheat bread. My gravity after cooling the wort was a bit high though, about 1.065. My temps may have been off a bit during mash and sparge. We'll see what happens.

 

[forcabrew]

A couple of weeks, no secondary.

What was your OG and FG? Total IBUs? SRM?

Thanks I'm still in the planning stages. I'm thinking about using wy1968 or wy1084

 

[Pappers_]

What was your OG and FG? Total IBUs? SRM?

Thanks I'm still in the planning stages. I'm thinking about using wy1968 or wy1084

The numbers are in the first post, the recipe, in this thread. They are part of the form that you fill out when adding a recipe to the database.

OG 1.053
FG 1.008
IBU's (estimated) 38

 

[forcabrew]

Thanks. For some reason the numbers don't show up on my phone

 

[Pappers_]

Thanks. For some reason the numbers don't show up on my phone

Ahh, I see. Must be an app thing.

 

[cwdrake]

Pappers.... Do you think it would change the beer much other than a little higher gravity and maybe a little darker to increase the Pale Malt to 9lbs and the Caramel20 to 1lb? Just easier to buy in full pound increments.

Thanks,
-Craig

 

[Pappers_]

Pappers.... Do you think it would change the beer much other than a little higher gravity and maybe a little darker to increase the Pale Malt to 9lbs and the Caramel20 to 1lb? Just easier to buy in full pound increments.

Thanks,
-Craig

I think that would work fine, Craig. It would be a little sweeter because of the caramel, but not a lot and it is already a dry-ish beer because of the honey. My recipe is an adaptation from the extract recipe the White House chefs released.

 

[dahray02]

can anyone covert this to a partial mash recipe?

 

[itsme_timd]

I'm brewing this tomorrow and plugged the recipe into Beersmith and scaled to a 4 gallon batch. It's estimating my IBUs at only 18.2, and that's with me upping them to the same amounts used in the 5 gallon recipe. Any idea why that would happen?

I'm not a hop head but I'm concerned this beer wouldn't be very balanced at only 18 IBUs. I'm a newbie though so I reserve the right to have no idea what I'm talking about here.

 

[Pappers_]

I'm brewing this tomorrow and plugged the recipe into Beersmith and scaled to a 4 gallon batch. It's estimating my IBUs at only 18.2, and that's with me upping them to the same amounts used in the 5 gallon recipe. Any idea why that would happen?

I'm not a hop head but I'm concerned this beer wouldn't be very balanced at only 18 IBUs. I'm a newbie though so I reserve the right to have no idea what I'm talking about here.

My IBU estimate comes from Beersmith. When I'm able I'll double check Beersmith.

Edit: I checked Beersmith and it says 37.9 IBU for this recipe. 21.6 in the 60 minute addition, 13.1 IBU in the 20 minute addition, and 3.2 IBU in the 5 minute addition.

 

[itsme_timd]

My IBU estimate comes from Beersmith. When I'm able I'll double check Beersmith.

Edit: I checked Beersmith and it says 37.9 IBU for this recipe. 21.6 in the 60 minute addition, 13.1 IBU in the 20 minute addition, and 3.2 IBU in the 5 minute addition.

Thanks... after looking at your numbers I found it was a newbie user error. I had the equipment set to extract and when I changed it to mini BIAB I'm now at 37.8 IBU's in mine.

Thanks again for sharing the recipe, can't wait to try this one!