How to make honey beer at home?

Of course, you can buy this foam drink in any supermarket or even - in a nearby stall. Also good beer - when it's alive, on the spill, out of the barrel. But even better: cooked at home, made with his own honey beer. It has an authentic taste with a light bitterness, a rich amber color scheme. For its preparation, two classical varieties of honey - flower and buckwheat - are best suited. And they knew how to make honey beer in ancient times in different parts of the world. We have reached mainly Polish and German recipes. There were some secrets of cooking this drink in Russia.

A little about the cooking technology

If you follow the rules, homemade honey beer should turn out to be amber, have a delicate floral aroma with a touch of hops. The drink is famous for lush foam, bitter aftertaste. In general, the taste is difficult to compare with other types of beer: what, it is worth trying?

It should be noted right away that the technologies of preparation of the drink differ from the classical malt prescription. The cooking technique differs from traditional brewing by its simplicity, since it does not require saccharification of malt, which is not used in the recipe at all. This eliminates the need to keep narrow temperature regimes during the process. The dispute about whether you can consider beer as such a drink without the participation of malt will be set aside. You can call the end product in the old fashion: "mead", and honey must - "full". By the way, the following recipe was developed according to the technology proposed in the work on honey-growing, which Professor Tseselsky wrote in 1906.

The recipe for honey beer. Ingredients

To make it, we need the following ingredients: a liter of flower honey (or buckwheat), a bucket of water (8 liters), 10 grams of hop (with 4.5% acidity), 5 grams of yeast beer (horse fermentation).

Tips experienced

It is advisable to use freshly-made floral, buckwheat honey. Sugated product can be used only for those who are confident in their brewing skills: it requires special treatment and knowledge of the intricacies learned from their own experience. And the amount of hops taken will depend on the bitterness that you want to receive. If you do not have the skills in brewing, then focus on the recipe, and the bitterness will be slightly lower than the average. Yeast we take only beer, as on bakery, as well as alcoholic versions will be obtained brags instead of beer. In principle, the yeast of the top fermentation can also be replaced by a "bottom" yeast, but in that case you will have to keep the temperature in a strict range from 5 to 16 degrees Celsius.

And to prevent the wort from infecting with foreign microbes, all instruments with containers must be sterilized with boiling water. It should be remembered that extraneous microorganisms have a negative effect on the fermentation process. The taste of the beverage itself can be adjusted by the honey chosen for cooking and the amount of hop used (increasing the dosage of this component, you will make more bitterness, and vice versa).

How to Make Honey Beer at Home: Stage One

The process itself is not so complicated and requires only patience and attentiveness. Water is poured into the bowl for cooking (the same eight liters). It needs to be boiled, and only after you enter honey. The mixture is thoroughly kneaded; As a result of manipulations, a homogeneous mass should be obtained. Its upper level is marked outside on the wall of the pan, and the actual brewing of beer begins. It will last a full hour, and the lid should be open at the same time. Do not forget to remove the foam: without these manipulations your homemade honey beer will turn out to be turbid, with a strange aftertaste, and besides it can very quickly deteriorate. In principle, the brewing of beer at this stage is somewhat similar to cooking jam.

Stage two, intoxicated

In 60 minutes your honey beer will inevitably boil. The volume should be supplemented with water, topping it up to the original level (in order to make a mark on the pan) level. With the addition of water, hops are poured in. The base for beer is well mixed, and the process continues for another 60 minutes. This time the foam is removed only in the first half hour.

Stage No. 3

The most important rule of how to make honey beer is its rapid cooling after the end of cooking. And the temperature of the drink from 100 degrees should be reduced to about 20. At home, it is easiest to cool down the pan in the snow, if it's winter in the yard, and you live in a private house. Or - in a preselected bathtub, which is additionally covered with ice, frozen in the freezer.

Recent efforts on the way to success

Then honey beer is poured into a suitable fermentation tank at home. For example, in a large glass bottle. In this case, the liquid must be carefully filtered. As a filter, several layers of sterile gauze are usually used. The container is filled with yeast, the contents of the container is mixed, and it is closed tightly in a dark and warm room for a week. The temperature in the room all this time should not fall below 23-24 Celsius. It is also advisable to exclude the possibility of drafts.

Periodically, you will have to release the gases that form during fermentation. If you do not want to bother with this (and in the first days to open the lid you need 5-6 times per day), take care of the installation of the water seal. Experienced brewers claim that when using it, homemade honey beer has a more gentle, even taste, and its aroma is noticeably more pleasant and fragrant.

When a coveted drink is kind to the desired state, it is bottled. In each of them before the bay you need to put honey from the calculation of a teaspoon per liter of liquid. At once to drink beer it is not necessary: it still should "ripen" in bottles. This usually takes from 10 days to two weeks. Store the finished product can be in the room, if only in the street is not worth the July heat. But if you provide comfortable conditions for beer (3-16 degrees above zero), then it is able to maintain its taste and temperature conditions for up to six months.

Subtlety and nuance

In fact, practice is the best way to learn how to make honey beer at home. Recipes are often supplemented with spices: cloves, cinnamon sticks, pepper. The amount of honey is also correlated to taste. Someone loves a messenger, someone prefers bitterness. But some secrets must be kept holy. In particular, do not top up unboiled water at the second stage. However, if you use bottled, you can try not to drive it through the kettle. Yet the recipes are focused on the ancient realities. If you are sure of the purity of the added water, boil from the list of manipulations, strike out boldly.

If you started cooking homemade honey beer in the winter, and at your disposal there is only thickened honey, you can put it into the business, dissolving with the help of a steam bath. Just make sure that its temperature is not higher than +60 Celsius. More hot conditions will kill and the benefits of honey, and its taste, and flavor.

It is better to use dark glass containers for fermentation. Unfortunately, it's quite difficult to find a 20-liter balloon made of brown glass. So home brewers wrap a transparent container with dark rags or simply paint the outer surface. By the way, when setting beer for fermentation, at least 20% of the bottle should remain free. Otherwise, the beer will peroxide or eventually break the cork, even the septum will not save.

Benefits of Honey Beer

Know how to make honey beer, absolutely necessary for everyone who likes to miss on Friday or in the weekend mug or two. And do not be lazy to cook it. Firstly, you get an ecologically safe drink, in which there are definitely no preservatives, dyes and substitutes. Secondly, you get a beer that perfectly matches your ideas of perfection - after all, you cook it to your liking. Thirdly, home honey beer has a beneficial effect on the nervous system. And with an abundance of stressful situations in the modern world, such a relaxant does not seem superfluous to anyone. Fourth, the divine drink normalizes and spurs the metabolic processes in the body, with which there are problems for every second person on the planet. Plus, sleep disturbances are eliminated (for which you need to thank the cones of hop that participated in the process), and all kinds of colds are less likely to cling (this is already the area of responsibility of honey).

Of course, all this is true only in the case when beer (including home and honey) is used moderately, without fanaticism. Otherwise, problems with overweight can begin - "beer tummies" have already become an integral characteristic of modern man. Yes, and relax without the desired hopper drink you can unlearn. On the other hand, if you drink only home honey beer, you will not be able to become an alcoholic. It's unlikely that you have the opportunity to brew it on an industrial scale (work also once needed). Yes, and to store ready-made beer, the citizens do not have many opportunities. So, brew beer for your own pleasure and enjoy it at especially important moments of your life. With such a drink, any rest will become brighter and sweeter, and holidays - more memorable and enjoyable. It is important only to comply with the recipe and not abuse alcohol.