Coopers Canadian Blonde + Honey?

[philip5660]

I currently have a canadian blonde in the bottles conditioning, an early sample and everything seems to be going in the right direction. I fancy doing the same kit again and doing something different for comparison - like adding honey.

Has anyone tried this with the canadian?

What is the best approach - replace sugar with honey in the primary FV? or just prime the bottles with honey?

Should I add the honey to boiling water first ( I really don't like the idea of just sticking it in "raw")

In addition to the above I thought about short brewing (a couple of litres less water)

Your comments please....

 

[philip5660]

Well I think i'll give this a shot with 340g honey + 800g of brewing sugar in the primary FV and then batch prime with about 200g of honey - Can anyone confirm if this sounds any way sensible?

 

[abeyptfc]

aye go for it, im gna start my 2nd coopers lager next and use 1kg of brown sugar instead of normal white tate and lyle or brewing sugar.from one of the videos on youtube apparently the brown sugar 'excentuates' the flavour of the lager so I'll give it a whirl, i'll probably start this brew on wednesday so I'll take some pics and see wha happens!remember and report back!
i would think it would be easier adding the honey to the fv to start with as trying the prime each bottle with the same amount of honey might be a task!

 

[Grumpy Jack]

Sounds a reasonable approach there with the honey, when i've only used honey to prime, it's added very little to the flavour of anything, but I'm a big fan of mixing the sugars and using darker ones sometimes, dark muscovado works for me in dark ales, as well as short brewing for a stronger, deeper flavour! Let us know how it goes! :thumb:

 

[philip5660]

Well it's on ! , I got a little more ruthless and fired in 680 g of honey and reduced the sugar. Depending on tasting I may also prime with honey, priming with honey will be easy enough as i'll be batch priming. So i'll let u know how this goes

 

[abeyptfc]

Well it's on ! , I got a little more ruthless and fired in 680 g of honey and reduced the sugar. Depending on tasting I may also prime with honey, priming with honey will be easy enough as i'll be batch priming. So i'll let u know how this goes

u got any photos? what was ur og reading? :

 

[philip5660]

I have no trial jar (i'm still gathering kit!) and it was very foamy in there but it was between 1040 and 1042 - i'll stick a photo up later if i get a chance but it looks pretty normal right now with a nice big foamy crust on the top and some pressure build up - it's just coming on 24 hours now...

I'm just off out to bottle my first batch of wurzels :)

 

[philip5660]

I crash cooled for a couple of days at 2 degrees then fired it in the bottles on Wednesday - I batched primed with about 200g of acacia honey too. Had a wee taste and it seemed nice enough.
Official first tasting will be next weekend!

 

[Grumpy Jack]

:thumb:

I'll look forward to your update... with photos if possible... :)

 

[philip5660]

Here it is, been in the bottle a few weeks and tastes great! Honey is subtle enough, and it's just lightly sparkling, not too gassy

 

[the shadow]

Well I think i'll give this a shot with 340g honey + 800g of brewing sugar in the primary FV and then batch prime with about 200g of honey - Can anyone confirm if this sounds any way sensible?

ye thats rigth honey is 2x as sweey as sugar per 0z

 

[tooker]

I tried this, but just shoved 1lb of honey into the bucket when I added the sugar and tinned contents.

I primed the bottles with sugar.

The early 'test' openers were really nice and you could definately taste the honey, but as it matured (and i'm only talking 2+ weeks here!!), the honey became harder and harder to taste.

I wonder if it would be better to put 2lb in and reduce the amount of brewing sugar slightly??

 

[philip5660]

I actually put 680g of honey in and reduced the sugar as u have said. Next time i'll go all honey.
I noticed the honey more at the start too. I haven't drank much yet but while the overall taste is improving the honey element seems to have faded. At the weekend i'll be comparing a honey v a non honey Canadian, both well conditioned at this point.

 

[medlington]

I've just bottled a very similar batch: Coopers Canadian with 380g of honey and around 800g of sugar. My problem is that my flats too cold and I cant get anything to secondary ferment so now I've got 3 batches that have been bottled for various amounts of time and all of them are completly flat and sweet. Im just going to leave them untill spring and hope they sort themselves out.

Interested to hear how yours turns out as Im going to have to wait quite a long time before I can try mine