Tweaked NB's Honey Brown --- Comments Please!

Beer Recipe Design
1

Hi!

Look time lurker, and fairly new brewer here. So far I’ve managed to not screw anything up too badly, so I thought I’d give it a whirl :cheers:

I wanted to try to make a stronger, creamier version of the honey brown AG kit that NB sells, so I am planning on changing the following:

(Stock Recipe)

8-lbs. Rahr 2-Row Pale

0.25 lbs. English Chocolate Malt

0.25 lbs. Special B

0.25 lbs. Belgian Biscuit

0.25 lbs. Briess Special Roast

To this:

(New Version)

10-lbs. Rahr 2-Row Pale

0.75 lbs. English Chocolate Malt

0.25 lbs. Special B

1.25 lbs. Belgian Biscuit

0.5 lbs. Briess Special Roast

PLUS 1.0 lbs Flaked Oats

Will use the same 1 lb of honey (at flameout) and will up the hops from 3/4oz to 1oz.

According to brewersfriend calculator I should come in at 1.072 for OG and ~1.014 for FG.

Am I completely nuts or should this turn out OK? I know fermentation would start again, but should I consider adding honey to secondary instead?

Thanks,
Tim

2

I would cut back on the biscuit/special roast. That much might overwhelm your other flavors. You can up the 2-row to get to the gravity you want

3

I think you’re right.

I’ll cut back a bit on the biscuit, the special roast is still at about the same percentage as the orig. recipe.

Anyone have any thoughts on adding honey at flameout vs. in secondary to retain more of the flavor/aroma?

Thanks,
Tim

4

Past couple years I’ve taken that AG kit and tweaked it up to make a honey porter by doubling the chocolate malt, adding Brown malt and a little honey malt. So, kind of similar to your plan. It turns out real great. I add the honey at flameout. Plus I do add 1 oz. Fuggles at 20 min in addition to the Cluster that comes with the kit.
IME, you won’t get much honey flavor with 1lb honey, no matter when you add it. And I do tend to use honey often.

5

It’s in the fermenter!

I did drop the biscuit from 1.25 to 1 lb, other than that it’s the same as posted above. Honey added at flameout.

I used the “brewers friend” recipe calculator and had to adjust the efficiency to 67% (for 6.5 gal wort collected and post boil volume of ~5.75 gal) to get the estimated OG to agree with the measured OG. Doesn’t seem TOO bad, considering I don’t (foolishly) have a scale and just guestimated the additional malts from the 1 lb bags.

Pitched 2 packets of US-05 at 65F.

I plan on leaving it in primary for at least 3 weeks before checking gravity again.

Predicted final gravity should be about 1.018 for an ABV of 7%. Just about what I was after.

Tim

PS: the OG gravity sample tasted quite good, so hopefully that is a good indicator!!

6

Sounds good Tim! Hope it turns out well.

7

So far so good! :cheers:

Final gravity came in at 1.012 (from OG of 1.064) for an ABV of ~6.8%, and the sample tasted GREAT.

As warned by others, not much hint of honey but that’s OK.

Will bottle tomorrow and then try to be patient for another couple weeks!

8

Turned out PRETTY good. :mrgreen:

Definitely needs just a bit more hops, a bit on the sweet side.

On the plus side, I DO detect a hint of the honey flavor!