SWMBO likes mead. Maybe she'll like braggot?

Howdy,

In my continuing quest to please and intoxicate SWMBO, I thought I would put together a simple braggot. Here's the recipe I thought I'd try. More experienced braggot/mead makers, do you think I'll need any yeast nutrients or tannins?

5 gallon batch

3 pounds of Extra Light Pilsen Dry Malt Extract
6 pounds of Wildflower Honey
1 ounce of Palisades hops @60
1 ounce of Rose hips @5 minutes
With Wyeast German Ale Yeast

I'm going to run two pots, naturally. One will be to warm the water up to 115 degrees to dissolve the honey before pouring that directly into the primary. The other pot will be to boil the wort and hop the brew.

I'm concerned about acidity and tannins, though. Should I throw a lemon in there, some raisins, and some yeast nutrients in stages? I've done beer, and I've done mead, but I've never done this sort of hybrid.

Bumping this... sorry I don't have anything to add, but I am interested in this project.

I've bumped the honey to 6 gallons instead of three. Concerned about it tasting too much like beer...

The stuff will arrive this week, and I'll brew it, then. I'm hoping the rose hips will add enough acid I won't need to do anything, but if I get antsy, I'll throw a handful of raisins in the brew, with some yeast energizer. We'll see what happens on brewday!

Sounds like a lot of fun! I am curious about how you are hopping the mead, why you chose this variety and how long you will boil, if you are going for aroma or bitters... I don't know much at all about hops, and will be making a mead soon with them next month so very much want to learn.

I think noble hops, high in aroma and relatively low in bitterness, would be the best option. I've yet to use Palisades in any of my beers, but my understanding is that they're common in I/APAs and Irish Ales (traditionally bitter beers). However, I've read it produces some fruity notes so maybe it could wind up being complimentary.

Please keep us updated. After I clear my current Bochet out of primary I'll need something to put in there, and I think a Braggot might be just the thing.

I personally do not like beer. I have found that is actually IS the hops that I don't like. So you may be disapointed if she doesn't like it. I would truely ask her what she doesn't like about beer vs mead. If the answer is bitterness in beer then I would skip the hops and just go with the rosehips and keep the rest about the same. Maybe through in a little lemon juice into it in the secondary.

Matrix

I chose Palisades because I had heard through the interweb google search, when used as a bittering hop, it sort of "maxes out" in bitterness and doesn't produce a very bitter beer. (This might be why it's used so much in IPAs?) To me, this is all things read on the internet, and I've never used the hop before. It seems worth a shot, though. My hope is that it will produce some bittering, but keep things mellow.

Bittering hops won't impart aroma, just bitterness. It would be a waste of wonderful noble hops, in my opinion, to use them in this experiment.

The amount of water I boil with the hops will change the bitterness, considerably. I'm only planning on boiling two gallons with the DME, at most. If I boiled four gallons, with a whole ounce of hops, it would become very bitter, indeed.

How long do you plan on boiling the hops?

Slight change of plans... Talking about this got her wanting to make pomelo mead.

We're making Pomelo-Melomel. <-this is really fun to say. pomelomelomel...

I'm still making this Braggot recipe, just probably not until next week.

When I do make this Braggot, I will boil the hops for 60 minutes.

I made Pomelo-melomel yesterday, with my wife, and Braggot today when I had a few moments to spare between work tasks.

Pomelo-Melomel involved 15 pounds of wildflower honey, the juice of 6 ripe pomelos, 2 cans of frozen white grape juice concentrate, the Zest of one pomelo, an ounce of ginger, champagne yeast and nutrients. It smells absolutely unbelievable, already. Credit where credit is due: This was my wife's idea, and I think it's a brilliant one.

The Braggot went down tonight. I made some adjustments on the fly because the hops smelled too delicious not to use some of them in the aroma, and I thought a small touch of spice might be nice.

I brought about 1.5 gallons of water to a boil, took it off the heat, and added 3 pounds of very light malt extract. I brought it back to a simmering boil and started my 60 minute timer.

@60 minutes I added half an ounce of Palisades hops.

@15 minutes I added a teaspoon of Irish Moss, 1 ounce of rosehips, and half an ounce of Palisades hops, one ounce of thinly sliced ginger root, and just a teaspoon of whole cloves.

@0 when the timer went off, I stopped the boil by flash cooling the wort, and pouring it into a sanitized bucket, filtering out all the trub through a sanitized strainer.

Then, I cleaned my boil pot for the second part of the braggot: the honey.

I warmed up a gallon of water, again, to 112 degrees, and melted 6 pounds of wildflower honey in the water, with a teaspoon of tannic acid, and a good tablespoon of yeast nutrient, because I'm not convinced the rose hips added enough acid to the must. I did not boil the honey.

This was then added to the wort.

I topped it off to five gallons with spring water, checked the temperature (it was cool enough!) and pitched Wyeast German Ale yeast 1007!

I didn't have extra hands to take pictures, today, but I will say with such a small boil, this was the cleanest thing I've made, to date. We got a few pictures of the Pomelo-Melomel. I'll upload things, somewhere, eventually.

I hope it comes out good! Fingers crossed!

Badducky, how big is that batch of pomelo melomel? It sounds really good. I'm assuming 5 gallons?

Yup. 5.

On the Braggot, final gravity struck this morning in the secondary. We're going to bottle after dinner. Should be fun!

It smells really good, like a very light, pleasant beer/mead thing.

Flavor at bottling is very floral, with much youth, but once the bottles condition a while, I think the floral aspect will really come out. The braggot isn't very clear, I'm afraid, but it's about as clear as I think it's going to get with that particular yeast. The cake formed up fine on the bottom, and the bracket dropped clear-ish, but there's still a little lingering cloudiness. I suspect the yeast, Wyeast German Ale, is to blame. A yeast that drops clear without filtration, like Nottingham or Wyeast American Ale, would probably be a better choice for folks who want a brighter color.

The rose hips are very prominent, right on the edge of soapy. A little bit more, and it would be soapy. I would hesitate to ever put more than an ounce of rosehips in anything, now that I've tried it once.

I cracked one open today, just to see how it's coming.

Overcarbed a little bit, alas, but otherwise it's coming along nicely. Very tasty. The rosehips are settling down, and I suspect in three more weeks that rocket-fuel heat from the honey will fade (which is still present, to a lesser degree then at bottling).

There's a real floral/hoppy/rosehippy aroma that rises up through the sinuses in a very pleasant way that is not overpowering, but there enough to be noticed and enjoyed.

Six months have passed since brewing this batch. It's *delicious* though I did over-carb. At this point the rosehips are far in the background, but still pleasantly present with the palisades hops. I wonder how they will do as some real time passes, but I think this is definitely a quality combination. The powerful aspects have mellowed down a lot, and it's a great cool sipping drink, with enough alcohol to keep you sitting down.

One note: The German Ale Yeast tastes fantastic, but some of my bottles are very cloudy. I think some fining agents would help, or a cold crash before bottling.

I think I've hit the beginning of the best flavor with the braggot at about six months. We'll see how it improves with age, if any survive.

What about the pomelo-melomel? Any sampling of that yet? I'm curious to see how it turned out/is doing at 6 months.

We'll be cracking that one open at the wedding, and not a moment sooner. It will be exciting, for sure!

The Pomelomelomel was and is amazing. We set some bottles aside for drinking during anniversaries. It came out like a nice, dry, fruity and slightly-bitter white wine. No champagne fizz at all, alas, but at nearly 19% alcohol, that may be why. I could see this recipe working well with a white wine yeast that doesn't get so dry, but I don't think I'd do it differently. Even without the fizz, it is a treasure to cherish our whole lives as we open the remaining bottles at select wedding anniversaries.

I think the Melomel was better than the braggot. I don't know, with a few more beers under my belt, if I'd do that braggot again. I think different hops would be in order, the more I think about it, and a different yeast.

Anyway, just an update for those watching at home.