Honey Amber Ale....

brentt03

I'm looking at making a honey amber ale. Thinking bout using real honey or honey malt. Which do you guys think would be best???

Reno_eNVy

Real honey is almost completely composed of fermentable sugars. This, plus CO2 off-gassing during fermentation, will elimate most of the honey flavor.
Honey malt is amazing, in my opinion. It provides the honey flavor and even the honey sweetness since, like crystal malt, it has a lot of unfermentable sugars. Tread lightly, though. 0.5# - 1.0# usually does it for me.
Also, I'm pretty sure mashing is required to get the benefits of the flavors it adds.... so take note of that.

Golddiggie

I second using honey malt to get honey flavors with some of sweetness left. It's recommended to not go over 10% of the grist with honey malt...
I have a honey ale that's on deck with more in it though. I'm looking to use almost 13% honey malt.
You will want to mash the honey malt, or at least add some 2 row with it to get conversion. Even if you do a mini-BIAB with the honey malt and 2 row.
Also, do you have a target SRM for the brew? How about the rest of the recipe? I'm going to hop burst mine with EKG and Fuggles (all 15 minutes from boil end forward), coming out with 5oz of hops (pellet) total.

brentt03

My initial thoughts were to use the honey malt, but i ordered some orange blossom honey and was going to add it with 15min left in the boil. Just seems more full blooded to use real honey. Maybe a bit of both?
We will be brewing a 15gal batch and carbing with CO2

copyright1997

Honey will just ferment out. Use Honey Malt. I have some of this on tap and it is quite nice: /pic/e1mssugsngx which I converted to an all grain version. Note that you don't need to put a lot of honey malt in to get the flavor.

duboman

If you really want to use real honey add it at flame out to get the most retention out of it. IME in the boil you will boil out the aroma and flavor compounds. I usually use 3lbs at flame out and while the sugars all ferment out and raise ABV I still retain aroma and flavor with this method. Our honey Weiss is an annual summertime favorite throughout the neighborhood. BTW, we use no honey malt in the recipe

brentt03

What about adding some honey to the keg when carbing?? just a thought...
I am good with using honey malt, have had some good results with it in the past!

Golddiggie

I would add honey either during the chill stage, or after fermentation has slowed down. If during the chill, wait until you're under 110F before adding. Otherwise, you'll start losing a lot of what makes honey great.
Since you'll be using CO2 to carbonate, you could try a few things with the kegs. Assuming you'll be filling 5 gallon kegs. Tap one as you would normally, carbonate and enjoy. After that keg kicks, or before it kicks, put the second keg in to chill. Then add some of the honey you purchased to the chilled brew and carbonate it on gas. You could pull a little of the brew out of that keg, warm it slightly to get the honey into solution, and then add it back in after the keg has chilled. For the final keg, decide which of the other two you liked better and go with that method.

copyright1997

Never tried it (but then again, there's lots of things I have tried). I guess if you've already got the temperature down (to suspend fermentation), adding honey to the keg would work.

brentt03

Awesome! Thanks for all the help guys
With our setup, after the boil is complete, we pump the wort through a counterflow plate chiller and directly into the fermenter, so I am not sure how we would really add honey at the end. I guess we could just dump it in and then send it through the chiller, only problem is, not a direct way to calculate how much made it to the fermenter

Golddiggie

If you want to add some into the fermenter (keep in mind it will ferment almost completely, leaving very little behind) add it after a week, or so, from when you pitch the yeast. I would hold onto some for use in at least one of the chilled kegs too. 8 ounces in the keg (using the method I mentioned) should give you a solid taste to it. I would just be sure to NOT bottle from that keg, since you could get bottle bombs rather easily.

brentt03

Ok, here is my first shot at a recipe for a honey amber ale....what do you all think?

Batch Size: 3.5gal
Efficiency: 65%
Est. OG: 1.042
Est. FG: 1.009
Est. ABV: 6.5%
IBU's: 39.8
SRM: 17.6
Mash @ 153 degrees
Grains
2 Row - 5lbs (2.0 SRM)
CaraAmber - 1lbs (30.0 SRM)
Amber Malt - .35lbs (29 SRM)
Extra Special Malt - .75lbs (130SRM)
Hops
Citra - .25oz (60min)
Amarillo - .35oz (20min)
Zythos - .35oz (10min)
Yeast
WLP001
I also plan to add 1lb of Orange Blossom Honey, 1 week after fermentation to the fermenter, let it sit for 3-4 days, then keg.

Golddiggie

I think ~25% other malts is a bit much. Especially using two amber malts as well as a darker malt.
I thought you were going to brew a 15 gallon batch...
IMO, 1# of honey in 3 gallons of brew is going to be a high concentration. I would also plan on letting it go as long as it takes to taste right. Don't assume that you'll only need a few days for the honey to finish fermenting. I also wouldn't assume that the main brew will be otherwise ready after just a week. Even with a low OG, you're adding a high concentration of honey. It could seriously thin the beer out beyond what you expect.

brentt03

I will be doing a 15gal batch, i just always start out with 3.5gal then scale up.
Ok, so I think i will sub the CaraAmber for C40. My goal was to get a slightly roasted flavor to play well with the citrusy hops and sweetness from the honey.

brentt03

So my 15gal batch now looks like this:
Batch Size: 15gal
Efficiency: 65%
Est. OG: 1.040
Est. FG: 1.008
Est. ABV: 5.8%
IBU's: 39.1
SRM: 16.4
Mash @ 153 degrees
Grains
2 Row - 21lbs (2.0 SRM)
Crystal 40 - 3lbs (40.0 SRM)
Extra Special Malt - 2.25lbs (130SRM)
Amber Malt - 1.25lbs (29 SRM)
Hops
Citra - 1.0oz (60min)
Amarillo - 1.5oz (20min)
Zythos - 1.5oz (10min)
Yeast
WLP001

Golddiggie

I think C80 or C120 would get you the roasty edge you're looking for better than the C40 (will be more caramel sweet)... Go with C120 and you could probably drop the extra special malt.
Keep in mind, unless you add the honey when the yeast won't go to town on it (chilled low enough that fermentation won't happen, like in the keg in the fridge) then you'll only have a wisp of a trace of what it had to offer. The yeast will devour most of the sweetness you think you'll get. Unless you stop/kill the yeast before adding the honey that is (stabilizing it like some people do with mead)...

brentt03

Awesome!! Thanks for all your help!

Calichusetts

Natural carb your keg with it, you won't be dissapointed. Orange blossom is the way to go, I use to to prime my bottles in about 90% of my batches

Srdjan-Ostric

How did it turn out? What are your thoughts on honey malt versus honey?