Adding Honey to Beer

I was thinking about trying to add Honey to my beer during secondary fermentation, is this crazy?
If it's ok to do
1. Should I substitute priming sugar with the Honey or add alongside?
2. If I add with sugar what percentage of honey/sugar should I use?
3. Which Honey would be the best to use?
I'm looking to get a subtle honey aftertaste not overwhelm the brew
4. Is there a better alternative?

would use the honey to prime etc instead of sugar how much to use is up to you as ive never used it apart from adding during boiling wort

Thanks Mark, I'm new to this,(first ever brew on the go!) so just thinking of things to try, but I would have no idea how much to use in a 5 gallon barrel, so maybe trial and error at first. Maybe I'll try sugar/honey combo at first until I get the subtle aftertaste I'm after.

Not sure if you looking to add the honey to an AG brew or a KIT. I would boil a jar of cheap supermarket honey in 1ltr of water then add to the fermentor.

Just adding to a kit, and fancied a bit of experimentation.

trackoid said:

Just adding to a kit, and fancied a bit of experimentation.

Click to expand...

In that case just get a jar of honey add it to the boiling water you will use to mix in to the kit. Just boil the honey in the water for a while to kill off any nasties that may be in there. You may want to reduce the amount of sugar the kit recommends as honey is a fermentable so would up the ABV if added with the same amount of sugar recommended by the manufacturers.

I used to use honey all the time. I'd boil it up with the wort in lieu of sugar. The brew always came out good but, to be honest, I think you'd be better off with brewing sugar. There was never a particularly honey-like flavour about the beer.

I've only recently started brewing again and always use brewing sugar.

Having said that, give it a go and see what happens.

If you want to use it just to prime the beer, then look at your kit instructions t o see how much sugar you should use (70g for 23 litres in a keg is prob fine, depending on what type of brew it is) and look at the label on your jar of honey to see how much sugar tehre is per 100g, or whatever, and figure it out from that.


make sense?

6-10oz of honey is recommended for 5 gals. my honest opinion though, is just get it in the bottle/keg as simple as you can. this is your first batch, don't mess around with it - just get it in there and drink it. :)

Thanks everyone, great advice. I think I'll try honey in a future batch after seeing how this one goes!

Just as a side note, how essential is it to have a good seal on the fermenting bin? I used an Aquarium heater to maintain temp and the wire prevented an all round seal to the lid.

Fermentation creates a blanket of co2 so it's pretty good at keeping bacterial infection out. Get a solution ready for your next brew though :-)

Plug off, hole in lid ,cable through (with grommet if posh) , and then....if you are confident that your brews will always be covering the heater and that it wont be touching the sides or base (or very close to) at any point ,seal with hot glue or foodgrade mastic .You may want to fill the FV with water and have some trial runs before you seal it .Alternatively make sure you have a really tight fit of the cable through the grommet and slide to suit and hold with a springclip . Plug back on .Jobs a (sort of) good 'un . :thumb:

That bit about not touching the base is pretty vital....I had a bad incident with a heater sliding down and melting through the FV when I was away for the weekend ,once .NOT recommended .Houses burned down tend to cause offence and inconvenience .

When using one of these heaters ,also ,be good and sure what the specs are ,whether it needs to be fully immersed at all times and all that .I have some ancient homebrew heaters that came with special 2 hole rubber bungs for DJs but I dont know if they make them these days .They had to be fully submerged and upright so you had to keep an eye on them and reseal them often .

LIke Rob says ,concentrate on the basics and walk before you can etc etc blah .Get confident in your skills and make some mistakes and learn how to deal with them .Theres a wealth of kits out there now ,do a few to get your hand in ,then branch out......

....but I know what you mean...honey beer....mmmmmm (does Homer S drool)

I added a pot of honey to a secondary for my stout the other week! I'll let you know how it works out when I rack it off at the weekend!

Cheers all, will be more careful with my seal in future!!

for those that have added - honey is known to be a notoriously slow fermenting sugar, so expect to be waiting a while. on the plus side, if you let it go until it slows down a bunch, kegging it and force carbonating seems to keep it carbed for a lot longer!