Judochop
Well-Known Member
To be honest, Im a little baffled by the reports here of brewers using a pound of this stuff and actually liking it. Granted, my beer is (its still flowing as we speak) at the lighter end of the size and taste spectrum, being low-gravity and consisting mostly of 2-row, wheat and Munich with nothing else to mask the honey malt but I only used 3 ounces of the stuff and I thought it was a smidge too intense. Now, the plebian drinkers loved it when I served it on a hot July day, but still just about everybody noted the unusual flavor of the honey malt. (I will go ahead and brag about how fine and clean my ferment was. I am very confident that what was being tasted was indeed the honey malt and not some homebrewy funk.)Hey Judochop, how'd that American Wheat turn out once it aged a bit? I've never used Honey Malt before and I'm trying to get a feel for "reasonable" quantities.
If I did it again, Id probably cut down to 2 oz. I cant imagine a POUND of it in my particular beer resulting in anything drinkable, much less enjoyable. But maybe its a flavor that marries better with darker styles, like a Brown or somethin. I mean seriously go to your LHBS, stick your head in a bucket of low-grade crystal and whiff. Then in a bucket of something more intense like Special B and whiff. Then do the Honey malt. Its ridiculous, the intensity.
And yes, let's just stop the talk in here about Honey malt and honey having anything to do with each other. The effects of one in beer would be totally different from the other. Closer to opposite than alike, in fact.