Going to give a Braggot a try

I found this recipe using google...its a recipe that was posted in a thread on HBT. It seems pretty simple. I have never brewed a beer. I'm a straight up wine and mead maker. Its seems like I could pull this off but i want some input on this recipe.

Lemon Ginger Braggot

3.3 lb light malt extract
3 lb honey
1 oz. Hallertauer hop pellets
3 oz. shredded ginger root
Champagne or Nottingham yeast
4 oz. priming sugar
8 oz. maltodextrin
2 lemons, zested and juiced in the boil
1 lemon juiced in the prime

Boil the malt for 45 minutes.
Add the ginger, lemon zest and juice, honey, hops, and maltodextrin.
Boil another 10 minutes.
Stain the wort into your fermenting bucket.
Add ice cold distailled water until the temperature reaches approximately 100 degrees F.
Add room temp. water to top off the 5 gallons.
Add the yeast, cover, and allow to ferment for 7 days.
Strain out the trubb while racking the brew and do a secondary fermentation until all fermentation stops.
Rack again.
Prime and bottle.
Let it clear and enjoy.

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So...once you have reached your desired carb level you pasturise? Does anyone see some holes in this recipe that would need some attention? What the hell is trubb? Any comments would be great.

Trubb is a beer term for what we generally call lees.

The yeast should ferment everything dry. You add the priming sugar and maltodextrin right before bottling and the sugar will completely ferment in the bottles and the maltodextrin should stay to retain a bit of sweetness. No need to pasteurize as long as the volumes are all correct.

Only differences I may add is to not add the honey in the boil. Skip that and after you add the cooled "wort" from your boiling pot to the carboy/brew bucket then add your honey to that.

Also my yeast of choice with braggots which clears super well and I think does well with honey is London ESB 1968.

With that yeast mix the braggot twice daily for the first week to stir up yeast that settles to the bottom and then let sit for another week or two after that before racking to secondary.

Good luck and let us know how it goes and what all you do.

I'd let it ferment for closer to 2-4 weeks, but let your gravity readings be your judge. Not sure what the Malto-Dextirn is for. There should be some unfermentables from the malt extract to create decent body in a mead/ braggot.

Hops: you get hardly any bitterness from boiling Hallertau at 10 minutes. If the goal is to add some aroma/ flavor you're likely better off adding it when you kill the heat or even dry-hopping it.

Trub is lees, but with hops and other brewing material in it. But it's pretty much the same thing (the pile of sediment on the bottom of primary).

Edit: +1 ing Arpolis's thing with the honey. No need to add that anywhere in the boil.

I prefer ale yeast. That recipe seems pretty light on the hops- maybe double it if you feel so inclined and it still won't be uber hoppy. After secondary there is no need to rack again- braggot will clear nicely in primary but I would recommend racking to a carboy if your primary is a bucket. No need to pasteurize your bottles.

+1 to not boiling honey. In a low gravity recipe I will add it when the wort is 170 and let it sit 10 minutes to pasteurize before chilling. In a higher gravity recipe I will pasteurize (150 for 10 minutes) in a little water and add that after a day when fermentation is most vigorous.

Maybe 1 oz Hallertauer for 30 minutes or 60 if you want more bitterness. Another ounce after the boil or even added to secondary a couple of days before bottling.

Eh, this recipe looks too confusing and light for me. Something you could drink one of and then be done, but maybe I'm wrong about that.

Let me know if you try it

I decided to try this recipe as an experiment, because braggots appeal to me, and I like the thought of adding lemon and ginger. There are important details missing in the recipe (e.g. did he use liquid or dry malt extract; why did he add malto-dextrine; why does he add the third lemon juice to the primary?), and I tried contacting the originator of the recipe without success. I followed the recipe as closely as possible, and the only main change I made was adding the honey after the wort was chilled to about 95 F. I also used 3.0 lb of light dry malt extract (it appears as if liquid malt extract might have been intended). If anyone is interested, I can post a follow-up message once it has finished. By the way, the S.G. that I got (another important detail that was lacking) was about 1.048.

I guess your recipe may be technically a braggot but it is incredibly stingy with the honey: 3 lbs in 5 gallons. This looks more like a recipe for two gallons than five. I would have perhaps upped the honey to 12.5 lbs and perhaps increased the DME to 6. I also agree that boiling is for brewers. This is a braggot not a beer but with a gravity of 1.048 this looks like a honey flavored beer than a grain infused mead...

bernardsmith said:

I guess your recipe may be technically a braggot but it is incredibly stingy with the honey: 3 lbs in 5 gallons. This looks more like a recipe for two gallons than five. I would have perhaps upped the honey to 12.5 lbs and perhaps increased the DME to 6. I also agree that boiling is for brewers. This is a braggot not a beer but with a gravity of 1.048 this looks like a honey flavored beer than a grain infused mead...

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I agree with everything you just said (except this is not "my" recipe). As I mentioned, this is only an "experiment" for me to learn more about braggots. I've done a lot of reading on meads and braggots, and have tasted several, but this is a good experiment to learn at what level the honey begins to become noticeable. I've had braggots where I could not even detect the honey, and others that seemed far closer to a mead than a "braggot". This is a very light "beer" with some honey, so any tastes will likely be subtle at most. Being a homebrewer, I would also prefer to work with mashed grains, rather than with extracts.

I'm looking for some good braggot recipes. If you have any you could share, including any with ginger or lemon, I would be most interested.

Apologies if you thought I meant that you were the author of the recipe. I simply meant that this recipe was the one that you were referring to. Certainly no offense meant.
Ken Schramm has a number of braggot recipes in his book The Compleat Mead Maker. One he calls "Don't Cry for me Spargentina" and the recipe, I believe goes something like (this from a site dedicated to mead making).
I have never made this one so I cannot vouch for it, but Schramm is considered the Papazian of mead making and while some of his published ideas now seem a wee bit old fashioned (heating the honey) his thinking and understanding seems to be right on the money and even today he is considered amongst the very best in the world of mead.

5 US Gallons (18.92 L)

All Grain Option:
4# (1.82kg) crushed pale malt
0.5# (227g) crushed crystal malt

Alternate Extract Option:
3.3# (1.5kg) pale male extract syrup
Or 3# (1.36kg) pale dry malt extract

Common Ingredients:
2oz (56.7g) Cascade hop pellets, ~5.5 AAU (optional)
10# (4.55kg) medium amber honey
2 tsp (19.8g) yeast nutrient
2 tsp (19.8g) yeast energizer
10g Lalvin D-47 yeast

bernardsmith said:

Ken Schramm has a number of braggot recipes in his book The Compleat Mead Maker. One he calls "Don't Cry for me Spargentina" and the recipe, I believe goes something like (this from a site dedicated to mead making).
I have never made this one so I cannot vouch for it, but Schramm is considered the Papazian of mead making and while some of his published ideas now seem a wee bit old fashioned (heating the honey) his thinking and understanding seems to be right on the money and even today he is considered amongst the very best in the world of mead.

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Thank you. That was actually one of the books I read (an excellent book!), and I see that recipe on page 154. It's one that I will try subsequently. What a difference from the recipe mentioned in this thread! Schramm used 10 pounds of honey, while the recipe above uses only 3 pounds. However, maybe the author of the recipe above meant to accentuate the ginger and lemon and therefore reduced the amount of honey. It still seems like too much of a drop.

My sense is that the recipe you found basically balances the honey and grain bill, but braggot (IMO) is basically a mead with added grains. Ten pounds honey /5 gallons would provide for a gravity of about 1.080. The grain might add another 10 points over the five gallons.. so this is getting closer to a wine (mead) than a beer.

For what it's worth, I made a clover mead a few months ago and did not like the way it turned out and so transformed this into a braggot by brewing a beer and combining them. So it was similar to Schramm's but was not made in quite the same way since each wing (the mead and the ale) were made separately.

bernardsmith said:

For what it's worth, I made a clover mead a few months ago and did not like the way it turned out and so transformed this into a braggot by brewing a beer and combining them. So it was similar to Schramm's but was not made in quite the same way since each wing (the mead and the ale) were made separately.

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I read that historically, braggots were sometimes made in that way - i.e. combining mead and beer.

don't forget to tell us how it goes!

Bottoms_Up said:

I read that historically, braggots were sometimes made in that way - i.e. combining mead and beer.

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Yes when beers would go bad or skunky it would be mixed with mead to freshen up. I still like combing the processes together to make a braggot.

Well, it was in the primary for one week, so today I racked it to a secondary. The S,G, was already down to 1.006. I tasted a small sample, and I was pleasantly surprised. Even though it's a light 'braggot', it comes across with lots of taste. You can clearly taste the honey, lemon and ginger, without any one of them overpowering the others. I was especially surprised that the honey came through so well. It definitely needs clear and age so that the tastes blend better, but it's still very young. I think this will turn out to be surprisingly tasty.

? Honey lemon and ginger..
Malt? Hops?

IJesusChrist said:

? Honey lemon and ginger..
Malt? Hops?

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All spelled out in Message #1.

Bottoms_Up said:

All spelled out in Message #1.

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Right but I was just confused, you didn't mention their flavor at all.

IJesusChrist said:

Right but I was just confused, you didn't mention their flavor at all.

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Oh, sorry, you mean the flavor of the hops and malt? I feel there could have been more malt flavour (a little thin) and the hops were not too noticeable at all. Maybe, as it matures, the lemon, honey and ginger flavor will mellow, bringing out more of the hop and malt flavor.