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Adding honey to primary

arctic78

Grandmaster Brewer
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Tasmania, Australia
Hi,
    I have been doing some reading about adding honey into a brew as I want to give my next batch a bit of flavour from the honey. I have read about the honeys that you guys seem to use the most in the U.S. and obviously the honeys I have available are going to be very different flavour wise. I live in Tasmania , Australia.  From the bits I have found and read it seems that if I add the honey to the boil I will not get so much of the honey flavour and aroma but it will give a drier finish to the beer, this is not what I am looking for.
The other option seems to be to add the honey to the primary after the krausen has reached it's peak. This is the option I think I will go with and I will pasteurise the honey at 150 F in a water bath for around 15min. my main questions are these.

1. when I add the honey to the primary do I stir it in or just pour it in.

2. Once the honey has been added I guess there will be some more fermenting from the sugar so how long do I wait till I rack to my secondary?

Also I was playing around in the design of the beer and was curious , As I am new to using this, To know what the difference is when you add honey into to the recipe what effect it has on your brew if it is added as
1. sugar
2. extract
3. adjunct
4. grain

These are probably basic questions but any help would be greatly appreciated
Thanks.
 
I add honey to the fermentor when doing my honey ale.  It does help preserve the aroma and some flavor of the honey.

I add the honey just past when the krausen has peaked and is starting to fall.  What I recommend is to dilute the honey with some water, put it in a sealed jar (recommend a canning jar), and place it in water to boil on the stove.  When the honey has boiled for about 10 minutes, turn the heat off and allow it to cool somewhat.  I like to add it when it is still a bit on the warm side so that the viscosity is similar to that of the wort. 

If you try to add the honey straight, it will fall to the bottom of the fermentor and I was never sure if it truly fermented out.  Thinning it out with some water and adding it warm will help it disperse easier into the wort.

Pretty much it will ferment out completely, like most other sugars.  You will want to add it as a 'sugar'.  I have not added it labeled as anything other than that.
 
I don't know the amounts your contemplating but what about the idea of using your Pasteurized Honey as your bottling priming sugar in place of corn sugar at their equivalent strength volumes?
 
Thanks Oginme For the advice. Obviously you only add a very small amount of water to the honey to thin it.
I do have it in the recipe as a sugar as I was not sure what the other options do . Adding it to the primary does it have much affect on the alcohol % ???

Stillraining,
                I had seen a few things about using honey as a carbonation option I was just not sure of the sugar content of honey.
are all honeys the same sugar content??? I do not want to screw up the carbonation.

Thanks.
 
When I've used honey I added it towards the end of the boil, just to be sure any unwanted guests were killed by the heat.

Never noticed much of a honey taste.  What I did notice was a hint of clover (most commercial honey is clover honey).

Based upon that, I would suggest avoiding clover honey. Well, unless you enjoy the flavor of clover stem in your beer.  ;) There are a few people nearby who raise bees as a hobby and have honey available for sale. Next time I brew with honey, that's the honey I will use. 
 
arctic78 said:
Thanks Oginme For the advice. Obviously you only add a very small amount of water to the honey to thin it.
I do have it in the recipe as a sugar as I was not sure what the other options do . Adding it to the primary does it have much affect on the alcohol % ???

Stillraining,
                I had seen a few things about using honey as a carbonation option I was just not sure of the sugar content of honey.
are all honeys the same sugar content??? I do not want to screw up the carbonation.

Thanks.

Here's some stuff I dug up.

Honey is 82% sugar and the rest mostly being water. Of the 82% that is sugar, 43% is glucose and 50% is fructose. HFCS roughly contains 55% fructose and 42% glucose. Both then have small amounts of sucrose and other trace ingredients that complete the chemical makeup. This breakdown shows that honey and high fructose corn syrup both have similar chemical structures and are nutritionally the same.

D for Dextrose

Dextrose or D-glucose is the form of glucose found naturally in foods such as fruit and honey. It is also derived from plants, like corn, for use as a sweetener in foods. According to the Sugar Association, dextrose is crystalline glucose, and a majority of dextrose in foods is derived from cornstarch. If dextrose has been added to a food, it may be listed on the ingredients list as "rice sugar," "wheat sugar" or "corn sugar," depending on the plant source. Manufacturers may also list added dextrose or glucose as "glucose," "dextrose" or other terms containing the word "glucose" or "dextrose." Dextrose is added to many foods including desserts like cake mixes, cookies, custards and sherbets as well as in snack foods like crackers and pretzels.


From what I can tell it would be a direct cross over using either one for carbonation.  You wight have to use just a tad more honey as it does have water in it.

Give it a Go!...Take a couple cups of water add your honey warm it up  to pasteurization temp so it  both dissolves and purifies  and pitch it into your batch as you normally would your corn sugar prior to bottling.  That is if 3/4 cups or a tad more will give you the flavor your looking for.

 
The amount of sugar in honey varies greatly from supplier to supplier.  Check the nutritional data on the side of the container your honey came in for some idea of the sugar content. (grams sugar per serving / grams of serving = % sugar)

I've done a few split batches with honey vs sugar for carbonation.  The amount of sugar and honey added for carbonation was equivalent on a sugar to sugar basis.

The net result is that the honey did not add any flavor (too low concentration) and reached carbonation slower.  The sugar carbonated quicker.  I could detect no noticeable difference in flavor or carbonation levels
 
Stillraining:
WOW! that is some great information. Thanks for the effort. I have not had the time to look that much myself as we have a new born in the house so between work and that it is hard enough to squeeze in the time to brew a batch.

Oginme:
That is good to know also because as much as one can read up on things it is always great to hear what people have found through their own experience and the outcomes that they have had. Thanks.

Main homebrewer:
thanks for sharing what you have found from your experience with using honey. I Live in Tasmania , Australia and the honey we have here is going to be very different , Obviously. The honeys I am looking at using are all very dark and strong in flavour. They are from native Tasmanian trees/shrubs so I will have to learn by trail and error myself in regards to taste and amounts to use.

Again thanks for the help.
 
Many of the posters above could well be a reincarnation of Brad Smith given their experiences and this Beersmith article.  ;D

Can't say I'm a fan of the honey flavour in beer but I'm usually the odd one out (or at the very least, rather odd).
 
Thanks antiphile,
                          Very interesting read. After reading the article I think I may wait till my next beer until I experiment with the honey as I do not want to wait the extra 3-8 weeks for the fermentation to be complete. I am running short on beer to drink so need to get one brewed and then bottled ASAP ;D When I have a bit more time to let the fermentation run its course I will give it a go though.

Thanks everyone for all the advise.
 
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