Converting a extract blonde ale kit into a honey blonde

[JonGoku]

Ok, so in my attempts to get my wife more involved and approving of my new hobby I asked her what kind of beer she liked best. She's not much of a drinker period and beer is pretty much beer to her, but she said she had some honey beer she liked in the past.

Anyways, long story short, I have a blonde ale kit (7lb Ultralight LME, 0.5lb Crystal 15L, 1oz Willamette Hops) from morebeer and was wondering how best to alter it to make it a honey blonde instead. Would I just add a couple pounds of honey and viola I have a honey blonde? I'm not that interested in spiking the alcohol content which I would assume would happen by just adding that much more "sugar" so to speak. I would be most happy if it turned out to be a cool session beer so if I have to to add water to dilute it I think I can handle up to a 6 gallon batch with my current kettle.

I apologize if this information is readily available with a simple google search, but I figured I would post this question here first to see what the experts had to say.

TIA!

[JonGoku]

Here is an interesting article on honey from the National Honey Board.

Honey In Beer

[JonGoku]

Damn, 26 views on this thread and no responses. I thought "honey" beers were pretty common and that there would be floods of expert advice on this topic.

So far, the mixed advice I've gleaned from other sources so far is as follows:
1) Forget real honey, just add 0.25~0.5lbs of honey malts to the grain steep
2) Add 1.0-3.0lbs of honey at 45 min
3) Add 0.5-1.0lbs at flame out
4) Add honey at high krausen
5) Dilute honey and add at high krausen
6) Dilute honey and add into secondary
7) Some combination of some or all of the above

Needless to say, I'm confused and would like to get some homegrown advice as well. Currently I'm leaning towards 1 and 5.

[backyard brewer]

Honey is very fermentable and will add a lot of alcohol. If it's honey flavor and aroma you want then I'd use the honey malt if you were mashing. I'm not sure the honey flavor will come through from steeping but you can try it. I use it in my honey beers and it adds back a certain something that is lost in fermentation.

I'd recommend 4-8oz in 5 gallons.

Never add honey any longer than flame out, otherwise you're just adding sugar. If you don't want to spike the alcohol, then I'd recommend holding back 1-2 lbs of malt extract and add 2-3lbs of honey after flame out and when the wort has hit about 140*. This will be plenty warm enough to help dissolve it. The alcohol will go up, but I think you'll be pleased with the results.

[brahn]

From what I can find it looks like honey malt needs to be mashed, ideally with a base malt to aid in conversion. Don't let that discourage you though, this probably isn't a whole lot different than the steeping you're doing now.

[kevinham]

I always add honey a little after flameout, while it is chilling but still hot, for our honey (imperial) cream ale. it also adds alcohol that we want, so I would replace some of the extract with it if you don't want. honey tends to help the beer finish at a lower gravity and dry it out, which will bring the alcohol up a tiny bit.

[JonGoku]

Thanks all for the input. I will have to do some more research on mini-mashing I guess.

So both Derrin and Kevin suggest withholding some of the malt extract if adding honey so as to not spike the alcohol. Would it be possible to just add more water instead of subtracting LME? I think I could handle up to 6 gallons or possibly more if I do a split boil.

Again here is my current kit contents (for 5 gallon batch)
7.0lb Ultralight LME
0.5lb Crystal 15L
1.0oz Willamette Hops (60min)
Yeast US-05

Estimated Original Gravity: 1.045-1.050
Estimated Alcohol Percentage: 4.5-5%
SRM (Color Range): 4-6
IBU's: 20-25

Considered additions:
0.5lb Honey Malt
2.0lb Honey (after flame out and <170F)
additional H20 (1 gal??)

If anyone could input that info into promash or beersmith and figure out how much water would need to be added or if I need to purchase some extra crystal 15L to go along with the added water so as to keep the alcohol level down that would be great. Hops wise, I'm a little disappointed with this kit as it seems like "Blonde Ale" for B3 translate to "Plain Jane", no wonder it was on their cheap bargain section.

[lexuschris]

Hey Jon,

I take it this was the honey blonde you brought to the September meeting right? That was real tasty! It came out well!

Which honey option did you finally decide upon?
--LexusChris

[JonGoku]

Hey Jon,

I take it this was the honey blonde you brought to the September meeting right? That was real tasty! It came out well!

Which honey option did you finally decide upon?
--LexusChris

Hey, glad you liked it. I've stopped drinking it for now as I am saving it for for the "colder" months or for when I have company. I need to get a new batch of something going soon, but as I've pretty much cornered myself into getting some better fermentation control before making making something new.

The recipe I went with for the 5 gallon batch was:
7.0lb Ultralight LME
8 oz Crystal 15L
4 oz Honey Malt
1.0oz Willamette Hops (60min)
1.0lb Honey
Yeast US-05

I boiled about a quart of water on the stove for 5-10min and then after turning the heat off and letting the temp come down some I added the pound of honey to dilute it. I added the diluted mixture to my cooled wort, stirred some, and than pitched the yeast.

I also moved this batch to secondary at about 1 month as I was too busy to bottle it. It secondaried for another 1.5 months before bottling.

Cheers!