I've heard of honeysuckle being used in wine making but never in beer. Wine makers generally add it to primary I've read, but I'm trying to capture the aroma of the the flowers.It seems to me that the escaping C02 will carry away the aroma and I'm concerned that adding to secondary will cause issues due to wild yeasts and such. My instincts tell me to add to secondary though, but this will be a lager and could be sitting for a while. Base malt will be a clean German pils base with a little brumalt/honey malt. A little Magnum hops for balance of bitter and hersbrucker for a late kettle addition. Any takers??
Honeysuckel lager
Started by
*_Guest_Matt C_*
, May 09 2009 06:34 AM
3 replies to this topic
#3
Yeasty Boy
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Posted 09 May 2009 - 09:12 AM
When I was a kid, we'g pull out the stament from the bottom and get a drop of nectar. If you had about three hours to spare you could collect a couple tablespoons of that and add it to kegging. I think the flowers themselves months later may just contribute a vegetal bitterness.Maybe you could transfer the aroma to some rice, just half a pound with a whole bunch of flowers mixed in, then add the rice to your finished beer after lagering. Or infuse some vodka, but then you're adding vodka to a lager which soudns nasty.
#4
Jimmy James
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Posted 10 May 2009 - 08:33 AM
Matt, I think the hard part is from what I read after seeing your post the aromatics in honeysuckle are pretty volatile. Most extract preparation methods out there involve a reflux condensation or super-heated water. Neither of these are options available to most homebrewers. Just dumping the flowers in your wort will probably lead to getting the bad stuff (tannins, etc) and losing the volatile aromatics as they'll be carried off during the boil or fermentation. I think if you want to make a honeysuckle beer the best thing to do may be to purchase extract and add it at bottling/kegging. I realize you have the flowers, just not sure if you have the ability to make your own extract.
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