Priming with Honey?, ...how much, how to prepare Options

[koolburro]

So I am about to get started on an Irish Honey Red... though the actual recipe has no honey involved... I'm thinking about priming the bottles using Honey. Though I have heard horror stories of exploding bottles so I want to make sure I do it properly.

Has anyone used honey to prime? If so, how can I figure out how much to use and how do I prepare it? i.e., do I need to boil it down with some water first like dry sugars?

I have found this site, but unfortunately there is no Irish Red... Would using the "American Amber Ale" be essential the same?

http://hbd.org/cgi-bin/recipator/recipator...tml?9257188#tag

Thanks...

[malkore]

it'll mix better if you pre-dissolve in hot water. I wouldn't boil, or you'll lose a lot of the honey aroma, which half defeats your purpose in using honey instead of dextrose.

an irish red is a 'typical' CO2 volume (not really low or extra fizzy), so yeah I'd say anything in the mid 2's for CO2 volume would give you the right mouth feel/carb level, so the American Amber Ale, or American Lager should work just fine.

[Pseudolus]

I don't think there will be enough honey in there to even be perceptible.

I have never seen a good argument for using anything other than plain old sugar for priming. If some other sugar is desirable for flavor reasons, add it to the boil, or to primary, or to secondary, and let it ferment out. And then use plain old table sugar to prime. It's clean, it's easy, and there's no wondering exactly how much you should add for a desired number of CO2 volumes.

[/fun-spoiling curmudgeon]

[BrewerGeorge]

I don't think there will be enough honey in there to even be perceptible.

I have never seen a good argument for using anything other than plain old sugar for priming. If some other sugar is desirable for flavor reasons, add it to the boil, or to primary, or to secondary, and let it ferment out. And then use plain old table sugar to prime. It's clean, it's easy, and there's no wondering exactly how much you should add for a desired number of CO2 volumes.

[/fun-spoiling curmudgeon]

I agree.

But if you want to use honey anyway, here's how:
Honey is a natural, variable product. To get predictable carbonation, you'll need to dilute some down to measurable gravity with distilled water, then calculate the gravity of the undiluted honey. Putting a full pound of honey into a enough water to make a gallon and measuring the gravity will give you the PPPPG (points per pound per gallon) rating of your batch of honey. I wouldn't waste that much honey, though, so you can scale it down and do the calculations. Compare the honey's rating to corn sugar's rating in a ratio to determine how much honey (by weight) you need for an equivalence of corn sugar. Honey does also have variable fermentability, but by assuming 100% like corn sugar, any mistakes will mean less carbonated beer rather than bottle bombs.

[Oldfart]

I don't think there will be enough honey in there to even be perceptible.

[/fun-spoiling curmudgeon]

Yep.

I use honey a lot, need about two pounds to taste a hint of it, three pounds to get a taste worth mentioning, like in a honey rye PA. OF