Jessica, not sure if I'm jumping in between you and Brie, but I'll tell you what I did. Brined, then simply smeared the honey on. The honey I used was raw, I'm curious to try some crystallized, or white honey to see about differences. At any rate, the raw did something odd, it seems the important stuff stayed on the surface/absorbed in, while the liquid content just ran down the side and pooled on the board. In essence I'd say if you mixed salt and honey you might be able to skip the brine step and just get your salt content from the honey salt combo.