Priming with Honey and Maple Syrup

[branCHEs]

I brewed a IIPA. I love bitter beers, and this one is very very bitter. Maybe too bitter. I was thinking that if I primed it with maple syrup or honey, some of the sweetness left over would help balance out the bitterness...?

What do you think?

What are you experiences?

 

[branCHEs]

Has anyone out there added honey or maple syrup while kegging and force carbonating? Id like to hear your experiences.

 

[branCHEs]

Anyone?

 

[BridgewaterBrewer]

probably not worth it, because once they're done carbing there won't be any sweetness left. Lots of people prime with honey and molasses but the consensus is that any flavor difference is subtle. Also you have to be careful that you calculate the amount of sugar in the honey or molasses exactly or you could have bottle bombs. I've used brown sugar to carb and couldn't detect a flavor difference once it was done carbing. It might be a fun experiment to do half with white sugar and half with honey but I wouldn't expect a huge difference. Good luck!

 

[BridgewaterBrewer]

Sorry I was thinking about bottling. For kegging this might work but I assume you will lose the flavor over time.

 

[BigFloyd]

Sorry I was thinking about bottling. For kegging this might work but I assume you will lose the flavor over time.

And the time will be short if the yeast are at the temp where they can eat the sugars, leaving behind the sometimes unpleasant tasting unfermentables.

It's best to view priming agents as simple fuel for the yeast to use to produce the desired amount of CO2. Nothing more. The reason just about everyone uses corn sugar, table (cane) sugar or DME is that those things are easy to measure accurately by weight and we can calculate precisely how much CO2 they'll produce for the weight added. Liquids like honey, maple syrup, etc. are something of a crap shoot.