Brewing with honey

[Dai]

Gidday,

I was wondering if anyone has brewed with honey before as I am keen to have a lash. I normally brew up around 20L batches using 4-4.5kg of grain, so was thinking that I would just drop 0.5-1kg of grains and add around 0.8kg of honey to the boil. I am not really after a sweet finish to the beer, but would like a bit of the honey flavour to come through, which is why I thought adding it to the boil would be a good idea (would also deal to those wild yeasts, etc??). I was thinking of keeping the recipe simple and just having a basic pale ale base with a bit of crystal chucked in for depth. Not sure about the hops though; I have have hallertau, goldings and a bit of saaz at the moment. I was thinking about relying on the hallertau and saaz, or may be getting a bit of cascade..?

Any suggestions would be appreciated, or if you have brewed with honey before, please let me know how it turned out.

Cheers.

[Reviled]

Smart ass :oP

[Nick]

I must say I have to agree Stu. It's friggin expensive and you do need quite a bit to add anything substantial to the beer.

I guess honey in your beer is a bit like hops on your toast.

It is funny that mead war. I imagine there are some colourful forums on the topic!

[Dan]

Ive used honey a few times, the last one was great, 2kg honey, not too sweet, and lots of honey flavour, and sharp hops.
The honey was $5 a kg so pretty cheap
Pasteurised in the oven and added to primary fermentor halfway through ferment, prior to this brew I added honey at end of boil and didnt get much flavour from it.
Been through central today and bought 5kg of cherries, gonna do a cherry ale probably tomorrow, ive never used them before anyone got some tips?
Im thinking pasteurise, squash, and add to fermentor halfway through, low mash temp, lager malt, dash of munich, attenuative yeast, a little hops. abv around 3.

[Stu McKinlay]

Sounds delicious Dan, you thread jacker. I've used morello cherries before. I added them to secondary (back in the day when I did secondary - and or that brew I did a tertiary). I purchased a tin that had been pre-pasteurised. I used a kilo but I'd love to try 5kg too!

I think your method sounds sound (as your local malt supplier might say).

[Dai]

"I guess honey in your beer is a bit like hops on your toast"

To continue with the breakfast food analogies- are you suggesting that there is no place for oatmeal in beer making?!

[Greig McGill]

Not sure what you mean about the Munich. *whistles innocently*. HAIL TO THE POPE! (Jamil, not the scary Brownshirt dude).