Fullers Organic Honey Dew

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chrisstrong_86

Fullers Organic Honey Dew

Post by chrisstrong_86 » Thu Apr 05, 2007 10:16 pm

Has anyone tried Fullers Organic Honey dew? I had some today, was on offer in sainsburys and it was delish!
Great summer ale

Interested in getting into all grain brewing and was wondering if anyone had a recipe with a similar outcome.
Have tried Waggle Dance but it's not a touch on this stuff


Chris

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Post by Andy » Fri Apr 06, 2007 5:54 pm

I've had Honey Dew on draft and it's very nice :)
Dan!

eskimobob

Post by eskimobob » Fri Apr 06, 2007 8:35 pm

I agree with you about the Waggle Dance. I have brewed a few Honey beers and really like them but the Waggle Dance that Youngs make is not a patch on the Waggle Dance that Vaux used to make.

I'd recommend trying Bumble Bee from the Freeminer brewery (you can only get it in Coop).

Here's a link to my Waggle Dance recipe.
and here's a link to my Bumble Bee recipe.

Yum :D

maxashton

Post by maxashton » Fri Apr 06, 2007 10:43 pm

I tried a honey and vanilla beer at my local a few years ago, and haven't touched a brew that mentioned honey ever since.

chrisstrong_86

Post by chrisstrong_86 » Sat Apr 07, 2007 1:45 am

Well this stuff, as Andy also says, is very nice. so give it a try before you blow it off.
It is nice and smooth with floral honey-like aroma's, my gf liked it, its definately one for the non ale drinkers.

I looked at eskimobob's bumble bee link and
one thing I would say is why use fairtrade honey from chille when they could use proper british stuff which is ofcourse just as fair trade.

I'm thinking maybe som lovely Heather honey, that I picked up from Driffield Farmers market, strong stuff, very floral.

Chris

maxashton

Post by maxashton » Sat Apr 07, 2007 1:06 pm

Only fairtrade stuff i ever buy is Clipper fairtrade tea. Its bloody fantastic.

SteveD

Post by SteveD » Sat Apr 07, 2007 8:02 pm

Honey beer recipe....

(1) Take one pale ale, dark ale, any old ale, recipe.
(2) Brew as normal
(3) Prime your keg with 3-4 oz honey. Voila! Honey beer!

Job done.

Ok, more detail. Many honey beer recipes tell you to add honey to the boil. I've done this before (reluctantly) and then found that, as suspected, the honey flavour has heavily diminished if not disappeared altogether in the finished beer.

I used to make mead, and for that you never ever boil the honey because it drives off the aromatics and flavour compounds, a bit like hops. This is also what happens in beer when you add honey to the boil as you would any other sugars.

Having realised there was no evidence of honey in the beer, I just primed the barrel with it and the flavour and aroma were restored. So, save your money and add ordinary sugar to the boil, or up the grain bill, to get the extract you'd have got from the honey and just use it to prime. If you're worried about sterility, I give mine a very briefest zap in the micowave to get it to near boiling point, and that's it.

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Post by iowalad » Sat Apr 07, 2007 9:33 pm

I had nice luck putting honey in the boil with 15 minutes left (it seemed to leave some of the honey flavor).
SteveD's position seems to make a lot of sense though.

On the topic of honey ales Fullers seems to get consistently high marks from everyone who has mentioned it. I have tried to a couple of times including once at the brewery and never cared for it. It seems too sweet to me (yet I tend to be more of a malt man than a hophead). On the otherhand nobody has much good to say about Waggledance and I loved the stuff in the cask. Found Waggledance to be horrible in the bottled version here in the States.

Always the odd one out I guess.

oblivious

Post by oblivious » Sun Apr 08, 2007 3:05 pm

I have added honey to a cider straight from the jar with no problems

mysterio

Post by mysterio » Sun Apr 08, 2007 4:31 pm

Why not just add the honey at the end of the boil and let it steep for 15 minutes and then chill it down?

SteveD

Post by SteveD » Mon Apr 09, 2007 7:06 pm

iowalad wrote:
Always the odd one out I guess.
Me too. I don't like it much either. Fullers, Vaux, Youngs, or whoever. Still, horses for courses.

SteveD

Post by SteveD » Mon Apr 09, 2007 7:08 pm

mysterio wrote:Why not just add the honey at the end of the boil and let it steep for 15 minutes and then chill it down?
Can do I guess. CO2 evolved during fermentation might carry off the aromatics though. If you just prime with it, it's all locked in. :)

J_P

Post by J_P » Tue Apr 17, 2007 10:52 pm

Fullers Honey Dew is by far the best honey beer I have tasted so far, bags of honey aroma with none of the sweetness.

I wouldn't worry about sanitising honey if you get it out of a new jar. Honey itself is bacteriostatic, meaning bacteria cannot multiply in it and I asume that the folks who put the honey in the jar have to sanitise it before flogging it to the general public.

This is of course just an educated guess, being a utter rank amateur when it comes to brewing this could equally be complete hogwash :roll:

niall

Post by niall » Wed Apr 18, 2007 3:29 pm

I like most Fullers beers but I don't particularly like Honey Dew OR Discovery. I find both too sweet - maybe it's an acquired taste.

bluebuzzard

Post by bluebuzzard » Sun Oct 14, 2007 11:50 pm

Checked the Bumble Bee link earlier in the thread and I have a question.

Batch Size 19 litre

Mash Temperature 64C
Pale Malt 3100g (Marris Otter)
Crystal Malt (80L) 100g
Honey 1000g (added to last 5 minutes of the boil)
Fuggles 36g @ 5.7% AA (for full 90 mins)
Goldings (EK) 35g @ 6.4% AA (for full 90 mins)
Irish Moss 5g (for last 15 mins)


How do I scale this up for a larger batch size as I'd be looking at trying a 23 or 25 litre batch? In fact it's a general question anyway with regards to scaling up or down. Are there any hard and fast rules?

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