Honey Wheat Beer.

[DylanE]

Hi All,

 

I am about to embark on brew number 9 since the beginning of August this year. So far I have 3 variations of Pale Ale, A Sparkling Ale, A Old Speckled Hen Recipe (well sort of), An Apple Cider, A Newcastle Brown Ale and a European Lager bubbling away at the moment (lets hope it stays cold enough).

 

Most brews were pretty straight forward, can + enhancer pack and some crystal malt to a couple of the pale ales. The Speckled Hen and Sparkling did require a mini mash which was interesting, time consuming and fun.

 

For the Honey Wheat Beer I am looking at the following:

 

Thomas Coopers Wheat Beer Extract

500 g Rainforest Honey (Supermarket)

500 g of LDME

300 g of Dextrose

200 g of Maltodextrine

 

I have been doing a bit of research on this and other forums and it seems to suggest that most of the honey flavor is lost and conditions out in the bottle with time. The research also says that the use of Honey Malt can add some of these desirable honey flavors but alas it doesn't seem to be available in Adelaide or Australia for that matter. Some suggestions for alternatives suggest the use of Weyermann\xae Melanoidin or Weyermann\xae Carared. I was looking at probably adding 100 g of each and steeping or mashing for about 45 minutes. I would then remove the maltodextrine from the bill as the characteristics that it provides should come from the grains.

 

Here is the question:

Has anyone used these grains as specialty grains before and can comment on their characteristics? I realise that the grains will make the beer redder and I will lose the nice pale colour. [crying]

Am I wasting my time with the mash and should I just stick to the honey addition? [unsure]

Any other comments suggestions would be welcomed. I am looking to brew no and cellar this until Christmas time.

[Beerlust]

Hi DylanE.

 

You do have a few options open to you regarding the honey influence you are after in the brew.

 

If you are planning on adding honey into the brew, I would use it in place of any dextrose you may be planning on using. In the case of the recipe you listed, I'd remove the dextrose & up your LDM by say 250-300gms.

 

As another option, you can actually use a weight of the honey to bulk prime your brew as part of carbonating it (secondary fermentation).

 

Bulk Priming Ingredient Calculator

 

Also as a third option since you mentioned you can mash grain, you could certainly add in a good whack of the following grain that is said to impart a subtle honey flavour into the brew.

 

Golden Promise Malt

 

Each option & the amounts you use will obviously yield you different results & you will probably have to do a few brews until you find a balance & flavour you are happy with.

 

Good luck with the brew(s).

 

Cheers,

 

Anthony.

[Otto Von Blotto]

I've used Carared in my lager recipes but only in very small amounts (100g a batch), more just for a bit of color adjustment than anything else. I didn't brew one without it, so I have nothing to compare to really. So I don't really know what it does in larger amounts and therefore haven't really helped at all. [biggrin]

[PhilboBaggins]

Howdy Dylan, welcome to the forum.

 

I can't comment on honey, but thought I'd welcome a fellow northern suburbs brewer. [happy]

[LordEoin]

I'd replace the LDME with wheat DME, reduce the dextrose and replace the maltodextrin with a carapils steep, ferment and prime with the honey, swap the yeast out for wb06 and consider some lemon.

 

Kinda a completely different recipe, but...

TC Wheat Beer kit

1000kg of wheat DME

300g Honey

150g of carapils (steep)

Rinds (just the yellow bit) of 2 lemons - grated and boiled for 5 min

WB06 yeast

Prime with honey

 

Ferment at about 25C, no need for long primary as it'll be cloudy, ready to drink after 3 weeks in bottle.

 

[Hairy]

Also as a third option since you mentioned you can mash grain, you could certainly add in a good whack of the following grain that is said to impart a subtle honey flavour into the brew.

 

Golden Promise Malt

I wouldn't rely on Golden Promise for a honey replacement. I have used it a few times and it has a slight sweetness to it, but to me it isn't like honey.

 

Also, Eoin's recipe looks good.

[LordEoin]

I think i'll make it myself actually, and add some ground coriander seed to the boil

[DylanE]

Thanks for all of the top advice and comments.

 

I like the way that recipe looks too LordEoin. I might be giving something like that a whirl on the weekend but split the brew across two fermenters, one using the carapils and lemon and the other using just the golden promise. The only foreseeable problem I can see here is that I am bound to like one more than the other. If I had the spare bottles I would do two separate brews.

 

I am assuming that priming with honey would involve decanting the brew off the trub and bulk priming with the appropriate amount of honey dissolved in water (cooled to beer temp) and thoroughly mixed just prior to bottling.

 

Thanks again.

[Otto Von Blotto]

Just a quick point on the bulk priming, there is no need to cool the priming solution. Just dump it into the bottling bucket and rack the beer on top of it. 20 odd litres of beer at 20C (or colder if crash chilled) vs 200-300mL of hot priming solution: not gonna make an iota of difference to it. [biggrin]