1-gallon Braggocyser

So I was planning to bottle my first batch of homebrew beer today... one whole gallon of Everyday IPA from a kit from the Brooklyn Brew Shop. That left a fermenter empty, which situation I didn't care for. I didn't have the ingredients on hand for another batch of beer, but then a light bulb lit up over my head: I had honey, almost a quart of it. I figured that honey and enough water to make a gallon would be just the thing for my first-ever batch of mead.

But I wanted a bigger, hotter mead. More is better, right? Something to stun the yeast and later me? Well, be that as it may, I decided to throw in a can of apple juice concentrate. So at that point it was no longer a mead, but a cyser. Now with the high sugar content of my wort (don't know what the SG was... don't have a hydrometer yet), I thought maybe getting the fermentation started would be something of a challenge. So I didn't pitch the dry D47 I'd just got by mail-order.

Instead, I reasoned, I would get better results with a good strong yeast starter. And after I'd siphoned off most of that batch of IPA, being careful not to stir up the sediment, what I was left with was a big old layer of trub and yeast. I added a quarter-teaspoon of Fermax yeast nutrient and shook up the jug... that would be my yeast starter.

But now I've added several ounces of IPA and God only knows how much hop solids to my mead, and that makes it a braggot. Braggot and cyser? Braggocyser.

After a pasteurizing simmer, I chilled the wort down to 70 degrees and poured it into the gallon primary fermenting jug. 90 minutes later it's fermenting so hard it's blowing foam out the vent tubing and into the sanitizer-filled water trap. I figure I'll let it do the primary ferment for about a month, then I'll rack it into a secondary and park it and forget it for six months or so.

Here are the primary ingredients of my braggocyser:

This stuff is bubbling incredibly fiercely... practically boiling with yeast action.

To my knowledge, you and I are the only folks to make this hybrid. I call it a Craff, which is a mixture of Cyser and graff. It is very tasty and quite good in the summer time.

I actually had planned a batch for tomorrow!

Be sure to throw some pectinase in there to clear the apple juices pectin haze.

Better brewing through science!

I am a little concerned... Starting to get some hydrogen sulfide in the exhaust gas. I supplemented with yeast nutrients and aerated the batch by shaking it. It's still fermenting like mad.

Did you give it DAP? H2S indicates there is not enough free nitrogen.


Better brewing through science!

No DAP... just the Fermax. I will obtain some DAP.

Though I will say, today the rotten-egg smell has almost completely gone away... just a hint of it now.

DAP is just a yeast nutrient, I would check the ingredients of your fermax. It should supply all the nitrogen you need, probably as a urea.

So it's day 4 of the primary on this batch, and I have supplemented with brown sugar syrup and 1/4th teaspoon of Fermax twice now. The rotten egg smell is gone, and now it's just clean yeast smell with a touch of acetaldehyde. The fermentation has finally slowed down some, to just over 1 bubble per second out of the blowoff tube.

I had been thinking I would have a water lock in the stopper by now, but the CO2 just keeps comin'. Go, babies, go... make that mead. I'll see you on the other side.

Found out there's a shop in town that sells wine-making supplies... I was able to pick up a hydrometer. It wasn't easy to read with all the foam in the primary, but my (sanitized) hydrometer tells me the SG is about 1.040 on day four of primary. God only knows what it was on day 1.

Day 5 of primary fermentation. The bubbling has slowed to about one bubble every 1.5 seconds... I think the yeast is starting the uphill climb against the alcohol content already. I took a small sample of the must with a sanitized sample thief (well, let's be honest... a turkey baster), and I can taste that it's already got a detectable alcohol heat, and some sweetness still. We'll see what happens.

I would really like to pop an airlock in this and park it for a month, but it's still bubbling too hard for that.

Day 10 of fermentation. I decided on Saturday (which was primary fermentation day 7) that I wanted to sample and assess. I used my sanitary sample thief again, and discovered that it was hot, yeasty, and not sweet at all. Could all that sugar have been used up already?

Under those circumstances I figured it was time to get more sugar in the mix. I had been thinking of racking to secondary to get it off the lees anyhow, and doing so would remove a little volume from the now-full jug. So, going to the store, I found this:



...and I thought "That's just the stuff... concentrated apple and cherry juice in a single can."

So I boiled the stuff in a pan to sterilize, added another tablespoon of honey and two more tablespoons of Domino's dark brown sugar, and stirred until all the sugar was melted and the whole thing bubbling. Then I chilled it down to room temp and dropped it into the new clean 1-gallon glass jug I'm using for a carboy. I dropped in another 1/4th teaspoon of yeast nutrient and siphoned the must onto it from the other jug.

When the jug was full I capped it and gave it a good shake and a spin, and within half an hour I was seeing bubbles again. After a day I was comfortable enough to put the airlock on and park the batch in my storage closet for an extended stay.

Even though this is a braggocyser/craff, I think that with all of the fermentables you have added from start to finish, this is going to be a hot beverage. Almost wine-like. I would think aging this for a few months will be your best course of action.

I also think you will be disappointed that there is not much hop or malty taste to it if thats what you are looking for. When I finished bottling my everyday ipa kit, I poured a gallon of musselmans cider over the remaining few ounces of ipa and yeast. I ended up adding 4oz of english breakfast black tea made from two tea bags about a week into fermentation to add some body. Tasted it a week later and ended up dry hopping as there was no hop or malt flavors coming through.

Well, I can tell you that when I sampled it last, there was definitely a hop character to the flavor. How it ends up is anybody's guess, but I may end up hopping it again before I put it in storage for the long sleep.

About which, yes, I did not really expect this to be ready until perhaps six months had gone by. The wine-like character is what I was looking for... I want it to be not just like wine, but like one of the stronger wines. I'm okay with that.

What hops and yeast did you get with your kit? My yeast was unlabeled but narrowed it down to probably being us-05.

That hopped sai-ser that I bottle tastes great young but you get a slight winey aftertaste so i imagine it will probably only end up better with a couple months aging time. I am going to bottle up some still and let it age for 4-6 months when my 3 gallon batch finishes.

Next batch I'm going to replace half the honey with some amber dme and see how it tastes.

My kit came with Columbia and Chinook, if I remember right. Not sure about the yeast. I figured that it was whatever was suitable for an IPA.

And oh by the way, I wasn't sure if the ale yeast would sustain itself for the long ferment, so I also pitched a packet of D47 when I first put the batch in the fermenter.

I am looking for this to definitely be on the strong mead side of things rather than the beer side.

Day 12 of fermentation. The little bubbles are still making their way to the top of my one-gallon carboy in an orderly fashion... the yeast is still doing its thing. Did not sample; I won't open it again for at least a month, unless something changes.

Day 18 of fermentation. The little bubbles are still rising.

Day 22. The bubbles have slowed down somewhat, but if you look close you can still see them.

Subbed, I'm quite interested to see where this is going

I should advise you, since I have essentially decided to brew the closest thing I can to fortified wine, it's going to be a while.

All the more entertainment

So, more than a month in, I took a little sample... and it's pretty hot and on the dryish side. There are hops in the finish, but they're subtle. I may dry hop a bit to dial it back up, now that we're in secondary. I'm thinking that mostly age is what's required now to settle this stuff down and make it behave.

Dropped a clean hydrometer into the jug today just to check... SG is 1.01 or so. In other words, primary fermentation is done and we're into aging now. Taste is a bit harsh and raw; some time in the jug will mellow this out.

Ah... sampled this again just today. I'd pitched it on January 17th, racked it to secondary on the 24th. Today, March 10th, I find that I'm starting to get the result I'm looking for. I kept adding honey until I drove the D-47 to the limit of its alcohol tolerance, and consequently the mead I have now is strong, fruity, and mildly sweet. I'm still going to let it age, but now I'm getting quite excited about the prospect of serving this sometime down the road. Maybe for Thanksgiving or something.

I have decided on a name for this:

Mazer's Whim