Orange Blossom Honey Qeustion

[GFHomebrew]

real local honey doesn't taste like the store bought either, I buy some from a farm that has a hive and the first time I tasted it I said whats this?

Yea ive herd the stuff at the supermarkets is pasteurized as well which as weve found from this thread kills a lot of the flavours

 

[Mase]

A recent article I read indicated that "clover" honey won't give much of a flavor, if any. The article suggested wild flower, or honey made from fruit tree pollen will give flavor, but can take several weeks for the flavor to re-emerge after bottling.

 

[Ozarks Mountain Brewery]

I agree I buy clover and its thinner and a different flavor than store bought, its good just different

 

[Nosybear]

real local honey doesn't taste like the store bought either, I buy some from a farm that has a hive and the first time I tasted it I said whats this?

Have tried that, too. Cane sugar is still a much cheaper way to dilute the body of a beer. There are some strongly flavored honeys that might shine through in an American Wheat. Up here, mesquite honey has a very strong flavor that might make it to the palate if used in the mildest of beers by the pound. Molasses, cane syrup, candi sugar all work better at providing flavors, as does honey malt if you really want honey flavor.

 

[Ozarks Mountain Brewery]

ok now you did it all this talk about honey made me want some, doing a partial mash honey red with my 5 gallon pot on an induction cook top, this should be interesting

FERMENTABLES:
5 lb - German - Red X (47.6%)
3 lb - Dry Malt Extract - Light - (late addition) (28.6%)
1.5 lb - Canadian - Honey Malt (14.3%)
1 lb - American - Caramel / Crystal 60L (9.5%)

HOPS:
2 oz - Cascade, Type: Pellet, AA: 7, Use: Boil for 60 min, IBU: 59.51

MASH GUIDELINES:
1) Temp: 150 F, Time: 60 min

YEAST:
Mangrove Jack - US West Coast Yeast M44
Starter: No

 

[drveasey]

Thinking outside the box....make a mead....blend with your beer...carbonate

 

[Nosybear]

Thinking outside the box....make a mead....blend with your beer...carbonate

Here's how to think about honey in beer: Does mead taste like honey? None I've ever tasted has, it's floral but does not taste like honey. Honey fermented in beer will not taste like honey, either, it will taste like mead. For honey flavor, honey malt. For mead flavor and thinner body, honey is the way to go.

 

[krackin]

Agreed, honey malt works quite well. I use it in my ginger beer. Honey has better places to go, bacon cure for one.

 

[Fatty Lumpkin]

I've got a honey kolsch lagering now. This my first try at using honey in a beer and I used my own wild honey that was added to the boil at 10 minutes. Primary is complete, I racked over into a carboy and I'm into the 3rd week of lagering and I'm very surprised at how strong the floral honey note has remained in this beer. I was really expecting it to be a bit dry because of the honey, but it seems to be maturing nicely. It has a lot of body, nice and malty with some interesting floral notes.
As a bee keeper, I can assure you honey is not sterile. It is somewhat antiseptic because of the complex enzymes it contains. Raw honey when first slung out of the comb is loaded with bee parts, pollen, and all sorts of micro organisms. Big Honey, (think sue bee) pasteurizes, filters and blends different honeys, and I've heard other syrups, to get a consistent product at the grocery store. All I do is run whatever comes out of the hive through some fine mesh filters to get rid of the hive "trash". Nor do I run my hives around trying to catch different blooms for different honey characteristics. Whatever nectar the bees think have the highest sugar content is what they put in the hives. Most of the time it's very, very good. I think they know what they are doing.

 

[GFHomebrew]

I keep australian native bees @Fatty Lumpkin their honey is quite strong very eucalyptusy i would make for a unique beer

 

[Nosybear]

As with everything brewing, there are exceptions.

 

[krackin]

I gave up on bees. Within a few years I lost 17 hives to bears and a few just cause bees are bees. Been 15 plus years and I still have honey bees show up where I don't know of any hives anywhere close by. I'm thinking I have wild hives from my old swarms. So be it.

 

[ltrog]

Many varying opinions but all sound reasonable. I appreciate the help. If I had it to do over again I would do two small batches. I would add on pasteurized dose of honey in secondary and one non-pasteurized to see if there is a difference. I would guess that non-pasteurized increases risk of contamination but also adds a more enhanced aroma. I guess it depends on how much one is willing to gamble. I brew tomorrow, will make the decision once I get to secondary, and then follow up with what technique I chose. That of course will be after the beer is ready and I have indulged in several samples so I can share the results. Thanks to everyone for the response. I did learn a great deal from all of the responses.

 

[Nosybear]

Many varying opinions but all sound reasonable. I appreciate the help. If I had it to do over again I would do two small batches. I would add on pasteurized dose of honey in secondary and one non-pasteurized to see if there is a difference. I would guess that non-pasteurized increases risk of contamination but also adds a more enhanced aroma. I guess it depends on how much one is willing to gamble. I brew tomorrow, will make the decision once I get to secondary, and then follow up with what technique I chose. That of course will be after the beer is ready and I have indulged in several samples so I can share the results. Thanks to everyone for the response. I did learn a great deal from all of the responses.

You could still do the experiment, slightly modified: Add the honey malt to the mash, then split the batch after boiling and add the pasteurized honey to a portion of it. You wouldn't be testing for preference - which flavor you preferred in the beer - only difference. If the honey side tastes different than the non-honey side (assuming you kept both batches pretty much the same conditions through fermentation), you have difference and if you like the honey side more - make sure it's a blind test so you don't know which is which - you can go with the second split-batch test you mentioned, a little more difficult to pull off (I'd do it by mashing the honey malt separately, splitting the batch, then adding the honey malt mash - tiny mashes work by the way - to one kettle and the honey to the other batch at secondary.

 

[KC]

- tiny mashes work by the way -

I fit half-gallon widemouth Ball jars in the mash tun so they all go through the same mash steps at the same time. Each jar can have a different malt blend, up to 1lb total per jar.