I will be brewing an amber ale shortly and I wanted to experiment with it since I have already brewed an amber ale. I was thinking of adding either honey or dark cherries or both maybe! On a 5 gallon batch how much honey would I need to add? I don’t want it to be overwelmingly sweet, just enough that you can tell its there.Anyone with suggestions?
Honey will ferment completely, just like sugar. The more you add the drier the beer will become. Think of honey as an additional gravity boost. Unless you are willing to pay good money for flavorful honey, you wont get honey in the beer without making it very dry.
Cherries can make a good beer. Like honey, you have to add a bunch of fruit for the flavor to make it through. Unlike honey, adding fruit will not dry out the beer. If you have time for secondary fermentation, go with a few pounds of cherry puree. If you don’t, go with a few ounces of cherry extract. You can add the extract just prior to bottling but you have to wait for the fruit to ferment before bottling.
Honey malt adds honey-like character in small amounts and a quart of 100% cherry juice will add a nice color and some cherry flavor and aroma, two would add more (pour the juice in the primary when the fermentation slows down to a crawl).
You might be better served adding the honey as the priming sugar.
I always add a bit of honeymalt to any honey beer I brew.
So if I decide to go with the cherries how much should I ad for a 5 gallon batch? and if I ad them at the end of the primary fermentation should I do a secondary as well? This is my first try at brewing outside the lines! I have 3 batches under my belt so far and all have turned out great. Time to start playing scientist!
I attempted to add peaches to a brew. I racked off 1 gallon and added a pound of peaches in the can, drained and blended. The beer was pretty good but I failed in keeping all the pulp out of the bottles. I’d add 5-6 pounds of puree to the full batch or about 1lb per gallon if u decide to split it up. You’ll definitely want to do a secondary to get all the fruit to drop out. If it won’t drop, you can try cold crashing it (getting it down to 30*F for a few days), or adding gelatin. Either one of these methods will still leave plenty of yeast for bottling.
:cheers:
Thanks for the input guys! I will give it a go. One more question tho. What is better in the wheat beer kit: bitter orange peel, or sweet orange peel? Your thoughts.
