Honey Beer Bread Recipe | Gimme Some Oven (2024)

FAQs

What is the best beer to make beer bread with? ›

Lighter beers, such as lagers, ales and pilsners, will give your bread a lighter color, and mild taste that just about everyone loves. Darker beers like stouts and porters make a darker-colored loaf and have a stronger beer flavor. Hoppy beers like IPAs will give your bread a more bitter taste.

To carbonate a 5 gallon batch of beer with honey, you can typically replace 5 oz of priming sugar and use 1 cup of honey. Bring 16 oz of water to a boil. Add the 1 cup of honey to the boiling water and stir vigorously. Add this honey solution to the bottom of your bottling bucket, then rack your beer on top of it.

Use room temperature beer: This helps the bread rise and creates a better texture than cold beer. Don't over-mix: After adding the beer to the dry ingredients, mix enough until just incorporated and nothing more. Overworking the dough will create a very dense loaf.

Color: Honey can give bread a darker crust and crumb color due to its natural sugars caramelizing during baking. This can result in a golden or amber hue, depending on the type and amount of honey used. Tenderizing: Honey can act as a dough conditioner, making the bread softer and more tender.

Can You Use Something Other Than Beer in Beer Bread? Absolutely! Almost any carbonated or noncarbonated beverage can be used, including water, soda pop, milk or buttermilk, fruit juice and even creamed corn! In general substitute 12 fluid ounces of whatever liquid you choose in place of beer.

Amber and brown ales tend to be less bitter than the alternatives and feature a nutty flavor. Because of this, these beers are often recommended for caramels, cookies, and pies. Light-colored beers have their place in baking, too. Lagers and Witbiers are used in lighter cakes and cookies.

Honey beers, on the other hand, take only a few weeks to ferment and age to perfection in a month or so.

Adding Honey to the Boil

Since honey is 95% fermentable, most of the sweetness in honey will be lost unless added at later stages in the boil. If you want a subtle honey flavor, add honey between 10 to 30 minutes left in the boil.

Mead (/miːd/), also called hydromel (particularly when low in alcohol content), is an alcoholic beverage made by fermenting honey mixed with water, and sometimes with added ingredients such as fruits, spices, grains, or hops.

Bake the bread for 45 to 50 minutes, until a toothpick inserted about 1/2" into the top of the loaf comes out clean, or with a few moist crumbs clinging to it.

Can kids have beer bread? ›

Keep in mind, the alcohol evaporates in the baking process, so it is safe for the kids to enjoy as well. Add in cheese if you like, it's not necessary, but it is delicious. Drizzling butter on top helps it have a nice crust. This beer bread comes together in less than 5 minutes and bakes in less than an hour!

Unopened beer bread generally lasts up to a week past the sell-by date. Once opened, it's best to consume it within 2-3 days. If you've baked homemade beer bread, try to consume it within 2-3 days as well. If you choose to freeze it, beer bread can last from 2 to 3 months.

Honey is more liquid than sugar, changing the consistency of your baked goods. Honey is more acidic than sugar and will change the flavor of your baked goods. Honey browns more quickly than sugar, which can result in overbaked goods.

Science confirms that heating or cooking honey does indeed damage it, thereby eliminating many of its beneficial effects. As per the National Center for Biotechnology, heating honey causes adverse effects. Cooking honey lowers its quality, and it loses essential enzymes and nutrients.

Pasteurized honey or bust

To be clear, wild honey — the kind you can find at farmer's markets and health food stores — is the honey that threatens your yeast. Wild, or raw, honey has been left completely natural, traveling from hive to jar with zero processing.

No matter what kind of beer you use (a lager for a lighter loaf, an IPA for a hearty, hoppy taste, or a stout for a rich result with a slightly darker finished product), you'll end up with malty, buttery bread with a golden crust and tender crumb.

Go Seasonal. Try making beer bread with pumpkin ale, a nutty brown winter ale, or even a hard cider. Beer Lover's Choice. Use a fully flavored beer.

What type of beer to use? I'm from Pennsylvania, so my go-to is Yuengling. It's a nice, well-balanced medium-bodied lager with malty and hoppy flavors that works really well for beer bread. Many people choose a light or medium beer with a mild flavor, but you can experiment with whatever you have on hand!

If you bake an overworked dough, it will come out hard. Even though you aren't kneading beer bread, the same principle applies. It can be harder to tell when the dough is overworked, though, since you won't feel it in your hands and the mixture isn't supposed to be smooth. Instead, rely on your eyes.