honey beer?

... how about: "Honey, get me another beer!"??

I used three pounds of blackberry honey with 7 pounds alexanders wheat malt extract to make an almost undrinkable beer. Once the sugar has been consumed by the yeast(I used a dry ale yeast, nottinghams) what's left over has a very sour, almost lemony taste. After a few months of aging it got to tasting a little better, but I would say the results were mixed. If I was to recreate this experiment I would only add one to 1.5 pounds of honey per five gallon batch and maybe some sort of strong fruit flavor like raspberry. Real light or no hopping would also be a good bet. BTW technically, a malted beverage made with honey is called a braggot, while pure fermented honey is a mead.

The stuff sure was strong though, around 11 percent.

from reading the posts this is what i have arrived at. i was trying to brew a light low alcohol beer by cutting back on the sugar, it only worked for one day so i added honey to keep it working. DR.FLOURIDE said honey will give a sour-lemon taste requiring months of ageing to mellow the brew... sure enough i tasted a sample and it was lemony YUCK!! .. this must be caused from bitter suspended proteins?? .... Denny said that freezing filtration increases the size of suspended proteins causing the cells to clump together and fall.

so after racking i placed my bucket in the freezer at 31F it has been 3 days now and has developed a thick layer of icy slush. i am ready to keg it, but i don`t want the beer to be to strong. (can i)-(or should i) replace the lost ice water with (boiled) tap water. can i add water to my keg then rack the beer into the keg.... ANY ADVICE ON ICE FILTRATION WOULD BE VARY VARY HELPFUL.................. THANK-YOU .......... John G

But by adding honey, you are just adding back en sugar you left out, and you won't get a lov alc. beer. If you didn't sterilise the honey, you would get a lot of wild yeast and some enzymes, that could be blamed for the sour taste..... I haven't had honey turn my beer sour

Cheers Kasper Denmark

John, I'm afraid you're so far off track I hardly know where to start! First, the ice filtration I described is very different from what you did..you basically used the European increase-the-alcohol method. Honey absolutely does not gib=ve a sour lemon flavor, and the bitterness you seem to be tasting is unlikely to be due to proteins from the honey. Let's see the whole recipe, including how long you fermented and at what temps, and see if there are any clues there. You can add water back to the keg to make the alcohol content lower, but you won't be doing the flavor any good by doing that.

---------->Denny

ok first of all let me why i am experimenting with honey and trying to change recipes,,,, its because my dad is borderline diabetic, so i am trying to brew with honey,,, my brother has been making honey meed,,, but meed is vary high in alcohol,, and it needs to age for months like wine (it takes months to work out the bitter off flavors) i made a standard batch of beer with CooperS Yeast and extra-light malt extract. but i cut back on the sugar(not a big deal) when it stopped working i tasted it it tasted ok GREEN but no off flavors.. i split 7lbs honey to

30Gallons of beer. i boiled the honey for 15-minuets in a small amount of water. th beer worked for about a week (and Yes the weather got a little warm) 90F the beer got as warm as 75F. that is why i posted about (ICE-BEER) ......................OK here is whare im at now.. i froze one 6gal bucket untel it turned to icy slush i racked it into a keg late last night(i didn`t add any water) it still has faint lemon tast to it ... bt it has improved.. i hope it will work out with age.... i have another bucket in the freezer ready to go (PS) i lose about 1/12 gallons of beer to ice i would like to cut back on the wast. but if its all suspend yeast and crap i can live without it

Not being an expert at mead making, or for that matter ever even tasting a good batch of mead, my honey beer experiment was deemed a failure. You say good mead beer, or braggart, has no sour lemonyish sort of taste? I kind of assumed it was the flavor of the honey after the yeast ate up all the sugar. Posthumously, I read that mead is better if the honey is added at the last five minutes of the boil, as honey is inherently, in itself, sanitary. With my experment I added three pounds blackberry honey at the same time as the seven pounds of alexanders liquid wheat malt and boiled the whole thing for an hour. Maybe this hour of boil time changed the chemical makeup of the wort in some manner resulting in the nasty lemony flavor. I fermented at about 67deg F(+ or- 2deg) for about two weeks and added 2oz. cascade boiling hops and another two at ten minutes left on the boil. Primed w/ corn sugar and bottled as usual. Three months later it was almost drinkable; holding your nose and using a beer bong ::}}

Say Denny, if you have a good braggart recipie that dosn't taste like crap I still have another three pound jar of honey sitting around, although I'm too impatient to wait the year for mead to mature. Post it up dude.

As to the ice filter thing I once, long ago, accidently made a batch of ice coffee. It turned to slush and I filtered out the ice, poured off the liquid actually, and sampled both the liquid and the ice. It seemed that a lot of the nasty flavor of the coffee became trapped in the ice, and the resulting liquid was delicous. Attempts of recreating this were never succesfully repeated, although I didn't try too hard. I used french roast, as I like my coffee dark.

To John G: if you want a low alcohol beer try just using three pounds or so of malt extract per five gallon batch. Adding sugar to the primary is for wine making, ale should only contain the converted starches from grain. The corn sugar is for priming only, 4 out of 5 ale purists agree. Unless, of course, your goal is a zima clone or hard lemonade or some other sickly sweet foofoo girly drink.::(

"I'm not above the law; I'm bey> >

Afraid I don't but braggot is 50% malt, 50% honey, lightly hopped, so that should get you in the ballpark. Don't add the honey until you turn off ther heat after the boil...I prefer to add it directly thoe secondary fermenter, though. The later you add it, the more honey character you'll retain.

-------------->Denny

Interesting tip...thanks! Were you aware that many wheat beer yeasts produce clove-like phenolics without actually adding cloves? I made a wit beer with Wyeast 3944 and was serving it to some friends last weekend. Nearly every one commented on the "clovey" aroma and taste, even though there were no cloves in the beer!

---------->Denny