Muntons export help!

[Ajae]

Hey guys new brewer here, I kind of went backwards with brewing my first batch was a partial mash pumpkin ale from NB. My second was a all DME hefeweizen. I needed to get those out the way for the holiday season. Now I'm stuck with this LME pre-hopped Muntons export Pilsner kit (add corn sugar and your done). I wanted to try to add honey to it, I know all of the honey flavor will gone and dry it up. I wanted to add a honey wheat to it. Do I still add corn sugar? Some other ideas with honey are welcome.

Sorry for the mini essay, I'm trying to give some of my background!

 

[imrook]

Honey and dextrose both thin beer out and don't add much in the way of flavor. You can use both, but just don't make it a large percentage of the fermentables. What kind of beer/flavor are you going for here?

 

[Ajae]

I was looking to make a honey pilsner, not just all honey maybe a hint. Something people get taste of.

 

[imrook]

If you want to get a honey taste, use honey malt. You can steep it just like a crystal malt and just add the tea to the boil kettle. There's a good thread on using it here: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/using-honey-malt-46285/ Looks like you might want to start with about 4 oz of the stuff.

EDIT: Forgot to add that I know this because I brewed a Honey Sage Pale Ale this spring. I used real honey and sage. The sage came through, but not a trace of the honey. I came to HBT looking for info about getting honey flavor in beer.

 

[ChaosStout]

I was looking to make a honey pilsner, not just all honey maybe a hint. Something people get taste of.

Do you have an old fridge or chest freezer with a temp controller? Lagers need to be fermented at about 50F

 

[Ajae]

I do have an extra fridge. Thanks go the info guys, will it take longer fir honey to fermenit? Or will is be the same as corn sugar?

 

[imrook]

In my experience the honey didn't take any longer to ferment. Lagers take longer than ales to ferment and of course there's the lagering period as well. I'm curious if this kit you have came with yeast. If so, I doubt it's true lager yeast.

 

[Ajae]

Yes, the kit came with yeast, it's in a gold packet that has HBT on it. I was going to run to my homebrew store this week, I'm not sure I should get a different yeast, can I add the one from the kit and maybe another good dry yeast?

 

[imrook]

Well if it's dry, it's most likely ale yeast, not lager. You won't be making a true pilsner, so don't ferment in the fridge or the yeast will just go dormant. It's up to you what kind of yeast you want to use. I don't do lagers because i don't have a fridge to ferment in.

 

[Ajae]

Ahh I see, I'll got pick up a yeast from my LHBS. This is going to be my first pilsner/lager. Thanks for all the info guys. Ill update this thread when I brew and taste it.

 

[Ajae]

OK so I brewed today! I steeped 1 pound of flaked wheat for 20mins turned off the heat and added the muntons export pilsner and two cups of honey and pincthed muntons gold day yeast @73F. What do you guys think?

 

[imrook]

Steeping the wheat should give you a better head and some wheat flavor. I personally am not a fan of wheat beers, but lots of folks are. Don't expect any honey flavor in the finished beer. It will be more like a golden wheat ale. If you're into that sort of thing, it'll be great. Also, 73 is a little high for pitching. The fermentation will raise the temp several degrees as well. You want this fermenting no warmer than 70 degrees. When it's warm out, I put my fermenter in my brew kettle filled with ice water. This time of year, I can just put the fermenter in my garage or my basement and it stays cool enough.

 

[Ajae]

yeah i put my Wort outside for a while, I took the temperutre and it read 68 but when I stirred in the yeast and took another reading it read 73. So the top of the beer was cold but I didn't think about the rest of the body. Oh well, maybe I should throw in another packet of yeast. My bubble where really going but it's really slow now after just 2 days.