Simple Honey Ale

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TheRandyRedcoat

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Hello chaps,

I am in search of a simply 1 gal honey ale recipe as I have a pretty large supply of free local honey I need to use and I want to get into all-grain brewing. I have a book on mead making which features a simple ale recipe;

450g Honey
30g Hops
10g Citric acid
(?g) Nutrients
(?g) Brewers yeast
Water to 1 gal

Add honey to 6pts water, add hops and boil for 45mins, add a few more hops 5mins before boil ends. Add citric acid and nutrient. Cool overnight. Add water to 1 gal. Add yeast. Ferment until completion, skimming off yeast daily. Bottle and leave for few months to clear.
Click to expand...

Now to me, this doesn't seem right. Can anyone advice on a simple 1gal ale recipe I use and ferment in a dj.

Thank you in advanced,

Simon.
 
that's a mead. you can't really do 1 gallon of ale without a boil.

That said, 2 gallons will boil down into 1 gallon quite nicely. Just add say 30g hops (low alpha acids to be safe) and boil up 2 gallons of water with about 300g each of Honey and Light Dry Malt Extract. boil until it's 1 gallon, then cool in the sink and pour through a sieve into the demi john. voila, honey beer!
 
Sounds good, will it keep the taste of honey? I have read from here if I want to keep it to add more honey, plus I have quite the sweet tooth.
 
honey isn't really sweet in a beer, it ferments out you see. if you do want something sweet, you'll need to kill the yeast with k-sorbate after fermentation, which means you won't be able to carbonate.

in that respect, i'd probably just go with your initial recipe and add 200g DME to the equazion. it'll be mostly honey, you can carbonate it, and the malt will leave a little residual sweetness.
 
Nah, carbonation isn't all that. But, I will still give it a go according to your recipe.

Cheers for that. Allons-y!
 
you could use pale malt , mash high say 70c and use honey in fermenter . That will retain some sweetness cuz of high temp mashing leaving more sugars that won't ferment . The choice of yeast would be important but that i'm not sure on.
 
When you mix mead and ale you get braggawd. Brains Craft has been making one for over a year and it's a good style. I made a red braggawd by using half pale malt and half honey, steeping dark grains (special B, dark crystal, roast barley). Delicious stuff. My recommendation:

Aiming at 5% ABV, ~20 IBU. Do a 45m boil. Bring 6-7l of water to the boil with 330g of light DME. Add 5g of gentle hops (for example EKG, Fuggles, Mt Hood, Tettnanger). With 10m remaining to end of boil add another 5g of hops. After switching off the heat add 330g of honey. Never boil the honey, you lose the aroma and there is no need to boil it anyway. Cool down to ~30c. The honey is low in nutrients for the yeast relative to malt, so add a tiny bit of yeast nutrient when you place the wort it in the demijohn. If you didn't reach the gallon volume, top up with cold water. Aereate well (I shake the demijohn upside down, open it up, shake again), and pitch the yeast. You can also use baker's yeast if you want that sort of stuff.

The colour of pale braggawd is very light, so this will come out a similar colour than darker white wines. It's also very clear and dry. It's quite an experience, as there's a subtle maltiness but with a wine-like dry finish. Should have a remainder of the honey aroma and no tart flavours.
 
JKaranka,

This looks like my short of thing. I will give this a try next week. Going to try myself as it is my birthday.

Thank you all for your advice.
 
I like my honey beer. The last batch I made was 2.3 kgs light malt extract, (could try AG with 4kg pale malt with maybe 200crystal 23 ltrs). 40g of bittering hops, then maybe 10g in the last 15 with you Irish moss. Let that ferment out, then add 500 g honey when I rack my beer off after 10 days ish. Let that ferment out then I use 140g of honey mixed in to prime for your bottles or kegs.

Adding honey late after the initial ferment means the honey taste doesn't completely vanish.
Same with priming, and 640g doesn't overdo the taste. Might be a slight haze on the beer, but it tastes awesome!!
 

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