Orange blossom pilsner help!!!

The way I read it, the honey is not used for bottle priming, but as one of the sugar ingredients. Just add the honey at the end of the boil. Bottle prime as you would normally do. You might also wish to ignore the step mashing and do a single mash at about 150-152 F. If you mash for an hour, an iodine test is likely not needed.

 

Nothing about the recipe stands out to me as objectionable. The % of Carapils seems a bit high to me but that may be personal preference. I would also add the honey to primary instead of the boil but that is also personal preference.

This recipe suggests bottle priming with honey. Personally I would just use table sugar, but feel free to use honey just double check the recipe with a priming sugar calculator.

An iodine test is used to indicate conversion of your mash. I have never done one before, so to directly answer your question I would say it is unnecessary. But then again I was an experienced all grain brewer by the time I had even heard of an iodine test. Assuming you have experience all grain brewing and are comfortable with your conversion, just ignore the iodine test.

 

1. I think if you mash for 60 minutes at 158°F, you can just assume your mash is complete without doing an iodine test.

2. You can use table sugar for bottle priming, as you have probably done in the past. Just remember not to use 3.5 ounces. Instead, use an amount that will result in an appropriate degree of carbonation for this beer (if you're not sure, aim for 2.3 to 2.5 volumes of CO2). If you need more help with that, let us know, but I assume you've successfully bottled your extract batches, and this should be no different.

 

http://www.northernbrewer.com/priming-sugar-calculator

Try this.

 

@scottakelly's suggestion will work, just note that "current temperature" should really be "highest temperature the beer has reached since fermentation." Those may be the same, in which case it doesn't matter. The point is that the beer has a certain amount of carbon dioxide dissolved in it, but the higher the temperature, the less it retains.

Alternatively, there's a nomograph in How to Brew by John Palmer that can be used for the same calculation. Do you have a copy? If not, you can find a copy of the nomograph here. The way it works is that you pick the number of volumes of CO2 you want, and pick the highest temperature that the beer has reached post-fermentation, and connect them with a straight line. That line will then intersect a third line that tells you how much sugar to use. But it's meant for a 5-gallon batch. If you were brewing a different size batch, you would adjust the amount of sugar proportionally.

Finally, I notice that you use both "pilsner" and "ale" to describe the beer. It looks more like an ale, so I just want to make sure that's what you're expecting.

 

Oops - I missed that line earlier. But no need to use honey for priming. Dextrsoe or sugar will work just as fine.