Has anybody tried honey instead of candi syrup in their golden strong ales?
Sure, there’s no reason why you con’t. Just make sure you add at flame out (not before) or you will lose all the honey character during the boil. If you want even more honey character don’t add it until fermentation is finished because the yeast releasing co2 can scrub the aroma.
Elevation brewery in Poncha Springs CO makes Apis IV which is a Quad with honey. Really good beer.
+1 to this. I like using honey in Belgian style beers. But the only way I’ve ever managed to get significant character is adding in the fermenter after fermentation starts to die down. This also gives you the benefit of needing slightly fewer yeast cells as you only have to pitch based on the gravity without the honey.
Honey in a belgian golden strong ale sounds delicious!
+1 to adding the honey to fermenter after high krausen.
I did a bochet’d honey dubbel this way, added the ‘burned’ honey after high krausen and then keg conditioned with raw honey. The bochet added some marshmallow, caramel and raison flavors but was a lot different than dark belgian syrups. I would probably use both if you are doing a dark strong.
I really want to make a Dark Belgian with buckwheat honey at some point
or forest honey.
Just looked up Forest Honey as I had never heard of it before. Loons really good.
They’d be the D-90 and D-180 of the honey world!
I actually got into using buckwheat honey way back when my wife and I were still dating. We both got terribly sick with upper respiratory infections and the doctor at the on call we went to was into holistic practices for medicine. He prescribe us two tablespoons of buckwheat honey every few hours.
It worked! And tasted great! If it weren’t so expensive I would consider brewing with it.
I just pulled a bunch of frames from my supers and have been growing a bunch of buckwheat for a cover crop that the bees had been working like mad. I’m extracting in the morning so we’ll see if it has a buckwheat character. It looks fairly light, as summer honey generally does, so we’l see.
The stuff I get locally near Syracuse is daaaarrrkk. And tastes delicious.
+1 I love buckwheat honey. I’ve never used it in a brew though. Unlike most honeys, I imagine a little would go a long way. Also, I believe it has a fairly high iron content (I should fact check this, but am feeling lazy). Which could make for a weird taste. Let us know if you do this, a Belgian dark sounds delish with this honey.
I used buckwheat honey once and thought it was horrible.
All of the sweetness was gone and there was the nasty strong flavor of buckwheat.
There are some what liked it. And I gave them as much as they would take.
I would recommend you use a very small amount.