Hi everyone! Im new in the homebrewing world and im about to make my first all grain batch. I want to make a Honey Blond Ale and im planning to add honey to the fermenter at high krausen after pasteurizing at 170-175 F for about 15 minutes (Any advice). The thing here is that im not an expert and im confused about the IG and FG. I will measure the IG after the boiling and considering that i add the honey aprox 3 days after fermentation has started, how this will affect my IG and FG or what i have to do in this case? im having a hard time to understand the propper way to do so. I should stick with my first IG or have a second one after adding the honey? After adding the honey extra fermentation time will be required? Hope i made myself clear and hope you can help me. Sry if my english is not that good! Thx in advance!
For a 5 gallon batch honey will add about 7 gravity points. So just measure your gravity before fermentation, then add .007 for each pound of honey added. Assuming this is a 5 gallon batch.
You can also measure the gravity immediately before adding the honey and immediately afterwards, take the difference, and add that to the gravity that was measured before fermentation. This total will be your original gravity (OG). Honey is almost fully fermentable, so it won't add any gravity points to the final gravity (FG) as other non-fermentable sugars would.
If you are planning on bottle conditioning you could always use honey for priming instead of sugar. Would add a bit of honey flavor without changing your FG much.
I've done honey in 2 beers and made 3 meads. I try not to heat the honey. Capture the flavor. As you said, high krausen would be a good time to add it. Contamination risks will be very low. I was about to say especially if it's a quick turn around beer that will be gone in 4 months like an American Blonde ale. Then I stopped to think, and especially if you're doing a 9% beer that no microbes would want to grow in. It works either way. Dump it in at high krausen and watch the bubbles flow. Heat the last little bit of honey if you want to make it easier to pour, or make a peanut butter sandwich with a little extra flavor. Honey as a priming sugar is silly. It's 99% fermentable and a waste of money for a priming sugar, IMHO. There won't be a flavor profile on that level. Use table sugar. It's predictable and cheap. If you want honey flavor in your beer you should use Gambrinus honey malt or the real McCoy.
The amount of gravity points that the honey will increase the OG of the wort seems to me to be dependent upon how much honey is added. Is the .007 increase per pound of honey? OP, there have been recent threads about honey additions, when, how much, as priming sugar, etc. so if you do a search of this forum using honey as a search word (or just page backwards), you'll find additional comments in those threads. (Searching thread titles only will probably find all of them for you.) Or here you go, it's an easy thing to do. http://www.beeradvocate.com/community/search/32406072/?q=honey&o=date&c[title_only]=1&c[node]=8
Ooooooooo I love honey malt. I've used it in many of my beers and they all have that residual honey taste. Love it.
