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Has ahybody used Honey as a sugar substitute in a beer kit and if so how did it turn out?

Yeah mate I've done it a coupla times. Works out great - especially coming into summer!

I use honey to supplement fermentables rather than replace them. That's up to you though, depends on what type of effect you want the honey to have on your finished product.

I bring 500g honey to just below the boil in about a litre of water and let her simmer for a while. Keep stirring it to keep it off the bottom of the pot.

Then tip the whole lot into the fermenter.


I know there are many ways people use honey (a bloke at my work just tips a kilo straight from the jar into the fermenter and uses no sugars) but this method has worked really well for me and avoids the sickly sweet overkill that beez neez seems to sometimes have.

Enjoy,

Throsby

Thanks Throbber. I used a whole kilo of honey in 23 litres of Morgans Golden Saaz Pilsiner (a very nice beer). I will post how it turns out.

You should really boil honey for at least 5 mins.

There are tons of nasties in there you need to kill. As throbber says, in a couple of litres of water.

I add it 5-10 mins before the end of my extract boil when I add the balance of the malt.

I tend to throw it in at the end of the boil and seems to work OK. That should be enough to pasteurise it.

Depending on how it's used, honey doesn't necessarily make the beer sweeter. My honey wheat uses 1/3 honey to 2/3 liquid malt and it isn't too sweet (at least according to my tastes).

Cheers,

Tim

coul you use a kg of honey and a kg of sugar? or 500g of each?

Hunter wrote:coul you use a kg of honey and a kg of sugar? or 500g of each?

You can do anything you want. This is homebrew. I have a freezer full of strawberries to add to a beer, and I am currently sipping an American pale that I added a dash of boysenberry juice to - not bad. I have big plans to utilise honey in my brewing because my dad keeps bees.

I have heard arguments for both boilling and not boilling. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pasteurization Pasteurising may help retain more of the fine qualities if you have a special honey you are using, I cant remember basic pasteurisation temp and time, you might have to look that one up.

If you add honey as more than half your fermentables, it is classed as a braggot. http://mead.bravehost.com/braggot.html And there are plenty of recipes out there if you are keen on your results.

Kippis
Dan

Oh, according to Wikipedia - 63 degrees C for 30 minutes, then cool.

Bottled it yesterday. It smells great. Can't wait to taste it!

Boiling the honey will cause the honey to lose some of it's aromas and flavours. Pasteurisation will also do the same but not as much as boiling.

I was emailing one of the brewers at Mathilda Bay and he said they add the honey at the end of the boil when making Beez Neez. I figure if it's good enough for them.....

Adding it after the boil is basically pastuerising it anyway. I think at about 71 degrees pasteurisation takes about 30 seconds.

It tastes wonderful !!!!!!!!!!!

Excellent.