Honey and or sugar

[Sawce]

I see that some whiskey recipes include a mixture of honey and sugar. How does the inclusion of honey effect fermentation and the finished product (distillate)??

[Prairiepiss]

An actual whiskey won't have either in them for fermentation. Assuming by sugar you mean table sugar?

A faux whiskey can be made with sugar and grains like UJSSM. It would be a sugarhead whiskey I guess.

Honey can harbor some nasties in it. If not treated right it can mess up a ferment. But not all have them. It just could be present. So you really never know. Pasturizing can take care of that. But then you also remove some of the good nutrients honey can provide. So damned if you do and darned if you don't.

[RumBrewer]

As a die-hard mead guy... you've got to know that I'd LOVE to ferment with Honey!
I've done a few... 4 batches... with honey. It's a waste.
The honey flavor does NOT come through... and for $38 a gallon.... $3+ per pound... It's simply NOT worth the effort or time or cost!
Simple fact... You will not ferment honey in a week. Unless it's a miniscule amount. And even if you take the time to ferment $80 worth of honey... like I did... you'll be PISSED when it ends up tasting JUST LIKE the batch with Brown sugar!

IMO, NOT worth it. Also... IMO... It's not going to hurt anything, so if you think it's a good idea... do it. I did.

[NcHooch]

I don't recall ever seein a whiskey recipe calling out honey. Rum's got a point though, It's expensive, and a shame to feed it to the yeast when you could be enjoyin it on your biscuits

[heynonny]

Been a long time since I made homebrew, but I almost always used honey instead of sugar. And 'Lublin' (?) hops. It was not very bitter, you could taste the honey flavor, its just not sweet. An acquired taste, tho, , , -hey-

[rtalbigr]

I have never used honey in my whiskies but I have distilled mead. It is the most heavenly distillate I have ever done and I have it only on special occasions. Yes, it is expensive.

Big R

[Durace11]

A lot of the big commercial distillers are getting into "honey whiskey" blends. Bushmills, JD, Seagram's 7, and Wild Turkey has a honey liqueur. All this is IMO is a very small amount of honey added after distillation. Fermenting with honey is expensive and on a commercial scale doing it for distillation would be an excessively expensive bottle to sell.

If you want a honey flavor, just add it to taste in your final product.

[drpotoroo]

As a die-hard mead guy... you've got to know that I'd LOVE to ferment with Honey!
I've done a few... 4 batches... with honey. It's a waste.
The honey flavor does NOT come through... and for $38 a gallon.... $3+ per pound... It's simply NOT worth the effort or time or cost!
Simple fact... You will not ferment honey in a week. Unless it's a miniscule amount. And even if you take the time to ferment $80 worth of honey... like I did... you'll be PISSED when it ends up tasting JUST LIKE the batch with Brown sugar!

IMO, NOT worth it. Also... IMO... It's not going to hurt anything, so if you think it's a good idea... do it. I did.

It is just not true that honey flavour doesn't come through - at least, not for all honeys. After reading this post I thought, since the flavour doesn't come through with distilling, I'd use some honey I had sitting around that had acquired a metallic taste from the drum and was good for nothing else. I used it in place of sugar in Rad's All-Bran recipe. So... two things I learned: 1) It fermented even faster than previous lots I've done with sugar and 2) Flavours from the honey came through (pot distilling).

Actually, point 2 is more complicated than that. The honey flavours (it was an Australian Bush honey) got spread all over the place. There were some distinct flavours and aromas I recognised from the honey in the early heads; then there were some very heavy pollen flavours and aromas in both early and late tails, but still plenty of strong honey aroma hanging around in the backset, too.

I'm way too novice at this to know if I could make anything good out of it by blending my cuts... so I just redistilled and redistilled until I got it as neutral as I could. But, consistent with what BigR posted, distilling a mead can certainly give you something.

[dakotasnake]

it was my understanding that honey has a natural fungiside and that it is very diffucult to ferment, but maybe a large yeast bomb can overcome that. iv just been adding honey to some finished ferments or to the finished product, am i wrong about this?

[Prairiepiss]

It's not really a fungiside. It's the fact that the sugar content is so high. Nothing can flourish in that environment. It will ferment. Just slow because the sugars aren't as edible to the yeasties. So they have to sit there and chew on it.

You shouldn't be adding honey to a ferment after its done. Unless you plan to let it finish again. It will just start fermenting again. And the sugars could burn when ran in a still. Giving off flavors.

Good honey is expensive. Not something I would want to waste. I use it to make mead and or flavor already distilled spirits. That's me and your mileage may vary.

[Dnderhead]

honey /or any sugars is not allowed in whiskey ferments. so if its a whiskey then the honey has to be added after.

[frozenthunderbolt]

it was my understanding that honey has a natural fungiside and that it is very diffucult to ferment, but maybe a large yeast bomb can overcome that. iv just been adding honey to some finished ferments or to the finished product, am i wrong about this?

Yep - it contains a small amount of naturally occurring hydrogen peroxide - inhibits fungus and bacteria. Not normally enough to stop a ferment outright, particularly if diluted, acidified and nutes added