Adding honey to a wit

[brewcrew2002]

I am going to brew a Carmel Wit beer soon, I was thinking of adding honey to the recipe for a nice subtle hint. My question is how much honey would you add to the 5 gallon mini mash recipe to achieve a nice honey note? I also was thinking about carbonating with honey instead of priming sugar. Any suggestion.

Thank you,

Brew Crew 2002

 

[Colorowdy]

Honey is completely fermentable it will leave little flavor if any. If you want a little honey flavor use 8 oz honey malt.

 

[hannibalmdq]

Honey is completely fermentable it will leave little flavor if any. If you want a little honey flavor use 8 oz honey malt.

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What Colorowdy said. I'm trying another go round of a honey hefe. I'm brewing it on Friday and after continually bumping the amount of honey and pushing the addition further back in the process (late boil, flameout, pitch, secondary) I'm just going to bump the honey malt and use cane sugar to dry it out a little more.

Really, all the honey did was dry it out. I was using Orange Blossom honey and with the hefe yeast I can't honestly say that any of the fruit aroma or taste was an artifact of the honey and not just the yeast profile.

Actually, thinking about it a little more: My last batch I held the temp down and got a ton of clove and spice (WLP380) and zero honey/fruit/orange notes despite using about 15 percent honey in the secondary and a small percent of honey malt. Take that for what you will.

 

[SudsyPaul]

I wouldn't use 8oz of honey malt in a wit. That's gonna be overpoweringly honey-flavored.

You can add honey to the secondary, or very late in the primary. You should retain a bit of honey aroma/flavor with that move.

You can definitely add honey malt, but for a wit, I would keep it about 3-4oz. It's better to have something that tastes a bit too little of honey than having something that tastes like you're licking a boozy honeycomb (granted, that does sound good, right now)

 

[hannibalmdq]

I wouldn't use 8oz of honey malt in a wit. That's gonna be overpoweringly honey-flavored.

You can add honey to the secondary, or very late in the primary. You should retain a bit of honey aroma/flavor with that move.

You can definitely add honey malt, but for a wit, I would keep it about 3-4oz. It's better to have something that tastes a bit too little of honey than having something that tastes like you're licking a boozy honeycomb (granted, that does sound good, right now)

I think honey malt falls into the crystal malt category in terms of personal taste. I dumped 4 oz in a 2.5 gallon batch and added a a over half a pound of honey in the carboy and got zero honey flavor or aroma. I didn't pick up any of the cloying taste people associate with small amounts of honey malt either. I mash my hefe's on the low end though, so I'm hesitant to really up the amount of honey without also raising the mash temp considerably. I like my hefe's dry, but not probably not that dry.

People seem to have drastically different tolerances for those types of grists so I might suggest trying a few brews with higher levels of those types to see what your personal tastes are. I've got one recipe that uses almost 30% Crystal 80 and I like it. Probably wouldn't have mass appeal though.

 

[progmac]

honey will add flavor. you just have to add it when the wort is 160F or below. if you add it to boiling wort, you might as well be adding corn syrup.

 

[passedpawn]

I made a honey wheat and 3 years later it still has clear flavor of honey in there. I added the honey at flameout. Unless you buy pasteurized honey, you still need to boil it to kill bacteria that is in there. ( Honey doesn't spoil, but it does nevertheless contain bacteria that could foul your beer.)

<-- My recipe pulldown has lots of info on that beer.

 

[progmac]

Fair enough! My points of comparison have been adding for 5 minutes versus adding around 160F. I think when I added it with 5 minutes, I didn't even have a wort chiller. All contributing to the loss of aromatics I'm sure.

 

[passedpawn]

Fair enough! My points of comparison have been adding for 5 minutes versus adding around 160F. I think when I added it with 5 minutes, I didn't even have a wort chiller. All contributing to the loss of aromatics I'm sure.

I had a plate chiller that would have knocked the temps down very quickly, so that's a good point you make.

I think using pasteurized honey and adding near the end of the initial fermentation would be the ideal way to add it, if you really wanted a lot of honey flavor and aroma.

I don't think I would add honey to a wit because a wit has a nice subtle Belgian character and dry finish that I want ( Wyeast 3944 FTW). But nobody asked me my opinion about that, so I'll keep it to myself

 

[rodwha]

I add my honey at flameout or to the fermentor a week after pitching the yeast, and I get honey flavor as well. But I also like to add 1/2 lb of honey malt these days.

If you are looking for a touch of honey try 12-16 oz at flameout for a 5 gal batch.

I've also used honey to prime, but as I used honey at flameout I don't think it made a difference. You're probably wasting honey unless, like me, wanted to make it an as honey as possible honey beer.

 

[progmac]

I don't think I would add honey to a wit because a wit has a nice subtle Belgian character and dry finish that I want ( Wyeast 3944 FTW). But nobody asked me my opinion about that, so I'll keep it to myself

(neither would i)