↠ Using honey in beer brewing (if you want to increase your ABV)

How to use honey in your beer brewing

Using honey to make beer is a trick of the trade that’s as old as hills but is still just as awesome an idea today as it was when the hills where made.

Adding bee honey to your homebrew efforts is a splendid way to add interesting aromas and flavours to your beer. 

Let’s clarify that adding honey to your beer doesn’t make it mead.

Mead is made wholly from honey whereas, for our purposes, we are simply adding honey to the beer to help impart flavour. Doing this results in a drop known as a braggot, which is arguably a kind of mead. 

It’s also an interesting way to increase the alcohol content (ABV) of your beer.

For the sakes of keeping things simple, the casual or novice brewer will probably simply want to use honey of the kind from a supermarket. The pros might want to use some wild honey sourced from a local supplier or bee specialist however it’s not without risk in terms of bacteria in wild honey having a wrestling match with the yeast in the beer wort as it ferments. 

There are also health risks about using honey, as for example in New Zealand honey can have Tutin contamination, which causes toxicity in honey. So make sure your honey supplier knows what they are doing.

We suggest you stick with ordinary honey that you would be happy to feed your children. 

So when do I add honey to my beer?

In the most basic sense, to add honey to your beer, simply add it when you are preparing your beer kit. Once you’ve added in the malt extract, hops, DME or dextrose etc, this is the time to add your honey.

You may want to soften the honey by placing the jar in some warm water (don’t boil it!). This way it will pour easily into your fermenter.

If you are doing a boil, I've seen punters suggest to add the honey as your wort cools & when it's 160 Fahrenheit or below is a good time to do it. This may help retain more honey flavor in your beer.

You’re probably now asking how much honey do you add to your brew?

I’ve seen recommendations that suggest anywhere from 2 to 10 per cent of your total wort can be honey. I’ve also read it expressed in that you can add up to 50% of your total fermentable sugars like honey. 

Either way, there’s room for you to experiment.

Take note that adding too much honey to your brew may increase fermentation time (but as a patient brewer, this should be no problem for you!).  

Also, the more honey you add, the more akin to mead your beer may taste. 

What kind of honey to use? 

We said anything from the supermarket, just bear in mind that different honey will have different characteristics but that a 'maltier' style honey will assist with ensuring a honey flavor taste for your brew.

A brewer, who actually knows what they are doing have written that you might want to consider adding an increased amount of bittering hops to somewhat counter the sharper, more sweet flavour that could result if you use a lot of honey.

Your beer may also have a somewhat drier mouthfeel.

Can I use honey to carbonate my beer?

Honey sure can be used to bottle condition and carbonate beer. Don't add too much or you may end up with too much secondary fermentation and get a gusher beer. 

Image credit to Jason Riedy via Creative Commons Licence

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