Bochet Cyser

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jwynia

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Yesterday I made a "bochet" cyser. I'm waiting to see how turns out before posting it in the recipes section, but thought I'd share the details here now.

The basic recipe was 4 gallons of "bottom shelf" apple juice from Costco and 5 pounds of caramelized/"burnt" clover honey, fermenting with Irish Ale yeast.

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To process the honey, I put 5 pounds of it in my 10 gallon pot over a burner in the back yard. I cooked it until I just started smelling burnt marshmallow, at which point it was pretty dark.

To ensure I could pour it later, I added half a gallon of water to the burnt honey. If you do this, be VERY careful in that step as it spatters a fair bit and boiled honey is like napalm (though I had no problems when I did it).

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Since there were quite a few bits of solidified/caramelized honey on the bottom/sides of the pot, I decided to add more liquid, add heat and dissolve them. Rather than adding more water, I just added one of the gallons of apple juice.

From there, I went fairly normally, putting the remaining 3 gallons of juice in the fermenter, adding the juice/honey blend on top and pitching the yeast.

While I would normally add things like vanilla, I'd like to enter this in competition (I have high hopes for it) and the cyser category is supposed to be just apples and honey as ingredients, so I held off from any other additions.

It's now in the fermenter and is the darkest cider I've ever made/seen.

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Thanks for sharing this! I look forward to hearing how it turns out.

This is something I would consider playing around with...
 
And, as of yesterday, the aroma coming out of the airlock has entered "rhino fart" territory. I know it's just a phase, but it's decidedly less pleasant when degassing this concoction.
 
The only time my cider has smelled awful is when I forgot to add yeast nutrient. Every other time has been just fine during fermentation. I've used 3 different yeasts and multiple temperatures, only one the smelled I forgot to add the nutrient. It botched the batch, sulfur smell lingered post-kegging.
 
Nutrient is essential when dealing with honey as it has little to no nutrients for the yeast to eat up.
 
I added a bit of nutrient the day I indicated and the sulphuric smells died down. I'm continuing to degas and wait for this to finish fermenting.
 
Only degas and nutrient until the 1/3rd sugar break (when 1/3rd of the overall potential sugars has been consumed by the yeast) otherwise you run the risk of oxidation. If you have a hydrometer reading this would help you greatly!
 
I have only been degassing by shaking the carboy. As such, given the airlock seal and positive CO2 pressure, how would O2 be getting in to oxidize? I understand if I was opening the bottle and stirring, but given the amount of CO2 coming off pushing out and not breaking the seal, I'm just curious.
 
Oh, well that's not exactly 'degassing'! To degas, I usually open up the carboy and whisk for about 10mins straight, then add some nutrient and seal it all back up. If you're just shaking it then you should be fine.
 
You can degas throughout the fermentation. In fact inthe mead section it was suggested by all the award winners. I take the whole top off and use a hand mixer and blast the hell out of it. Though the hand mixer never agitates the surface. Once fermentation is finished and completely degassed then you need to be more careful.
Degassing and oxygenating are not synonymous.
 
Cooking the apple juice into the honey sounds good but may cause a problem with pectins setting and the cider not clarifying. Hazy drinks have never bothered me, just a side note for those who like clear cider.
 
OK. So, I bottled this (along with another cider) this evening. As I did, I tasted both. While the other cider was good (and pretty much what I expected, having made it before), this bochet cyser is freaking amazing.

It's so good, I'm having a glass of it, uncarbed and warm, with dinner.

It's the color of an Irish Red, and has these amazing, dark, complicated flavors. Given that this is only 2 months after I put it into the fermenter, I'm really eager to see how it ages. It has a hint of sweetness that isn't syrupy, but with the bottling sugar involved, it's hard to say how much of that is going to remain.

I'm also really interested to see how this recipe tastes with fresh juice from my local orchard. I usually create these recipes using store juice because it provides a nice, consistent base. It's also a rare cider like this that doesn't get better when using fresh juice instead.
 
Looks like this is a bit old, but i have been buying time to try this burnt recipe. I am going to make this, probably tomorrow. Never made a cider before. How often do i need to degas? How long to ferment? I saw the thread about 1/3 ferment. Then what. I am going to look over some different forums for techniques. Sounds a bit more involved than throwing together and waiting. While i am asking... When would ithrough in a vanilla bean? I was thinking just at the nd if the boil to kinda open it up and then add water and transfer inro the fermenter until bottlng. Or should i just add some vanilla extract before bottling? Man i am loving this hobby/habit! It is like coming home! Thank for any help / suggestions
 
I degas pretty much daily by shaking it until it doesn't foam much. I fermented for a couple of months before bottling. When I add vanilla, I typically do so at the beginning.

This stuff is really interesting. Nearly everyone who tries it likes it. I will say that the apple flavor in this first batch is pretty much non-existent (or blends in so you can't pick it out). In a subsequent batch, I didn't cook the honey quite as dark and went with a recipe that looks like this:

4 gals juice
5 lbs bochet clover honey
2.5 lbs unburnt clover honey
5 tsp wine tannin
2 oz vanilla extract
Dry Mead yeast

In that version, I did the honey in a crock pot instead of a steel kettle outside. It does foam up quite a bit, so you have to make sure you don't do too much at once.

I just bottled this and it's much more smooth and a bit more balanced flavor.

Both approaches have their appeal. The darker version has some of those deep, dark flavors that scotch/whiskey/bourbon lovers will really like. The 2nd version is better if you want more apple or traditional mead flavors included.

Overall, this whole area is something I would encourage anyone interested in mead/cider or just interesting non-beer beverages to experiment with.
 
Tasting the 2nd version tonight and there's definitely much more apple flavor and the burnt honey fades back quite a bit.

This may be too far in the other direction, but makes a really nice beverage all its own. In future batches, I'm going to try to figure out the timing for burning honey in a crock pot so I can get consistent results and dial this stuff in more completely.

This batch was brewed on 7-17-2011 and is still a bit boozy, but still enjoyable.
 
That is just what i needed. I bought 5 # of honey from a local beekeeper. I will go with that and just go with the vanilla extract. I guess you arent boiling at that point so it should show up at the end. That all sounds good and will add the nutrient, too. What about the pectin. Needed?
 
I don't boil juice because of the pectin. I also don't add pectin enzyme to store juice, which is what I use for most of the year. In the "off" season (December through August), when fresh-pressed juice from my local orchard isn't available, I use store juice for recipe/technique development.

When using fresh pressed, I use campden tablets to kill off the wild yeast, and still avoid boiling the juice. I did use a little bit of juice to boil the honey off of the sides of the kettle. However, I'm finding that's not really necessary and little water works fine for that.

The tannin adds balance to the sweet and tart flavors in the juice. In "traditional" cider, you use a balance of sweet, tart and bitter apples. Since the bitter apples have mostly disappeared in most places and pretty much ALL of the juice you get (unless you control the apple selection entirely) is just the sweet/tart apples, adding wine tannin substitutes for those bitter apples.

I sometimes use black tea for that purpose, but wine tannin is quick and easy and is something I've been experimenting with to figure out the right ratios against commercial sweet juice.
 
While I would normally add things like vanilla, I'd like to enter this in competition (I have high hopes for it) and the cyser category is supposed to be just apples and honey as ingredients, so I held off from any other additions.

:off: So is this competition you'd enter your cyser just for the Twin Cities metro area? Since I live in one of the farther reaches of the state, I don't hear too much in the way of homebrew competitions.

Back on topic... I think I might try my hand at your recipe, especially going to the darker side of the burnt honey (I just love those dark, smokey beers and spirits, plus just imagine what a couple bottles of your darker cyser would do to a nice pork shoulder!). Would you be willing to share 1) the OG of both versions and/or 2) the difference your yeast made per batch (the original one you used an ale yeast, the lighter one a mead yeast). Thanks!
 
jwynia said:
I don't boil juice because of the pectin. I also don't add pectin enzyme to store juice, which is what I use for most of the year. In the "off" season (December through August), when fresh-pressed juice from my local orchard isn't available, I use store juice for recipe/technique development.

When using fresh pressed, I use campden tablets to kill off the wild yeast, and still avoid boiling the juice. I did use a little bit of juice to boil the honey off of the sides of the kettle. However, I'm finding that's not really necessary and little water works fine for that.

The tannin adds balance to the sweet and tart flavors in the juice. In "traditional" cider, you use a balance of sweet, tart and bitter apples. Since the bitter apples have mostly disappeared in most places and pretty much ALL of the juice you get (unless you control the apple selection entirely) is just the sweet/tart apples, adding wine tannin substitutes for those bitter apples.

I sometimes use black tea for that purpose, but wine tannin is quick and easy and is something I've been experimenting with to figure out the right ratios against commercial sweet juice.

Ok, that makes sense with the tea, also. I will be using store juice and will need the balance. Thanks for the help.
Back to procedure. Are you saying you shake every day for two months or so? I guess i hadnt thought about it, but it sounds like the honey allows to just keep fermenting. Are you stopping it to retain some sweetness with those additives mentioned? Cant remember the exact name, but will look back at it. Or are you just letting it do its thing and bottling around two months?
 
There are lots of competitions listed on the BJCP site. There's something every few weeks if you are willing to ship entries. The 2 biggest in MN are the Upper Mississippi Mashout and the MN state fair.

Unfortunately, I'm not very good about taking hydrometer readings (I keep breaking hydrometers and not getting around to getting replacements). So I don't have any of those numbers for either recipes.

Both taste fairly close in residual sweetness, though the character of each is slightly different. Neither, however has that level of sweetness that leaves your lips sticky. I don't do much to stop the fermentation, choosing to use yeast selection and how much sugar I start with to determine the final sweetness.

This second one is actually nicely sweet, though nowhere near as sweet as, say, Woodchuck Amber. The first one isn't nearly as sweet, but those vanilla and dark flavors hint at and "rhyme" with sweet flavors, which changes the perception.

In this case, the yeast doesn't seem to have done as much for a change in final gravity as it does in the ester/flavor profile.

I pretty much let it go, degassing to drive off the CO2, adding yeast nutrient to help the yeast along and let them do their job, bottling when they're done.
 
Burnt the honey and put it all together today. I have to say, it was a little crazy burning it. I guess the burner i used was a bit hot, it took all of 15 minutes before i started seeing black steam and got to be a real blackish red. The weird thing was that he minute i put the honey on, there were honey bees everwhere. I am in FL so they are still pretty active, but there had to be 30 or 40. I either got paranoid or they started acting agressive when the black steam started up! That is when i pulled it off and brought it in.

I went with 2 oz of tannin( that is what my local brew store gave me free), nutrient and a small bottle of vanilla extract. The OG was huge for me, at 1.074. It tasted really good. Lots of depth of flavor, then the honey came in at the end. I sprang for a white labs english cider yeast, WLP775. and the bucket is currently sitting in my tub until it starts givin off gas. I am planning on putting in my cooler at 66-68. Any reason to go colder?

All and all, a fun brew. The smells are really pretty wild when cooking the honey. I had local gallberry honey and it gave off the blossom smell while cooking. I will post some pics when i pull it out of the bucket in 6-8 weeks... If i can wait that long!
 
The bees are part of why I'm working out a crock pot-based method of caramelizing the honey. :) I think that those first whisps of smoke are a good place to stop anyway, because I don't think burnt marshmallow is particularly tasty, but that's just me.

I wouldn't go cooler. I ferment all of my ciders between 65-70F and haven't gotten any of the flavors from hot fermentation.
 
Ok, i tasted and checked gravity on this over the weekend. It is at 1.008 or so and seems to be tasting dry. In fact, it doesnt have much taste at all? I want to bottle some for a party in november but fear it will taste... not great. Should I back sweeten? or just wait? I seem to remember someone saying the taste kinda comes back. It has only been ferm. For about 3 weeks. All that wonderful burnt honey taste is gone. I will say it has some kick to it. The color is very similar to bourbon and taste and smell is like diluted cider. Suggestions?
 
Sounds like it just needs some time. Backsweetening will help, but aging really brings a lot of the flavor back.
 
The bees are part of why I'm working out a crock pot-based method of caramelizing the honey. :) I think that those first whisps of smoke are a good place to stop anyway, because I don't think burnt marshmallow is particularly tasty, but that's just me.

I wouldn't go cooler. I ferment all of my ciders between 65-70F and haven't gotten any of the flavors from hot fermentation.

Did you ever work this out? Would love to try bochet without melting my skin off.
 
Blanchy said:
Sounds like it just needs some time. Backsweetening will help, but aging really brings a lot of the flavor back.

So should i just sit on it for another few week, then back sweeten or go ahead and add some sugar now and let go. I want to see what it turns to by itself i think. I can always ad sugar at the end
 
I would simply keep it in your carboy for as long as you possibly can, and not worry about back-sweetening it until you are ready to bottle. It really is just a waiting game. The flavors should come back a bit over the next month or so, so you can calculate your sugar amounts then. After you've bottled, try sampling it every month or so- you'll really be able taste a difference from month to month.
 
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