Guinness Bochet Braggot?

I need some help putting together a recipe. I've made a batch of mead or two, but I've never made beer, I'm confused by the terms "mash" and "wort," and I don't know what a "malt" is or what I'm supposed to with it.

That being said, I love Guinness, and I want to try to make a bochet braggot with a similar flavor profile -- I figured I'd attain this by using the same type of malt and hops, but replacing some of the malt (I think) with dark caramelized honey (that's what makes a bochet, right?).

I've looked at recipes on here for Guinness clones, and at recipes for braggots, and I just don't get it. Every recipe I've looked at seems to assume I'll know exactly what to do to put it together.

So, if anyone could help me out putting together a recipe and prodecure for a 5 gal batch, I'll gladly send them a bottle or two of my bochet braggot in a year or so.

Here is a recipe I have used before. I thought it was very guinness like:


5 gallon batch

3.3 lb of LME (Liquid malt extract) Briess Sparkling Amber
1 lb of flaked oats
1 TBS of amylase enzyme
3oz of cascade hops.
5# of clover honey
4 cut up apples
4 sticks of cinnamon
2.5 tsp of DAP
2.5 tsp of yeast energizer


First make your starter:
2 cups water
½ cup of honey
¼ tsp yeast nutrients
10 fine chopped raisins
Yeast (London ESB 1968)

Sprinkle yeast on top or add in liquid yeast an cover with paper towel and rubber band for 8 hours.

Next boil the 5 lb of Honey with a cup of water for 2 hours on low heat.
After an hour start the LME plus 2 cups of water to boil. Add in 1oz of hops at the start of the boil which will be 1 hour long from here. For the last 30 minutes add in 1oz of hops. For the last 10 minutes add in the last of the hops and the cinnamon sticks. (The honey and LME can all be in one pot, my pots are just too small so I do one of the honey and the other the LME/Hops boil.)
Core and cut apples into 1/8th pieces and add to carboy/bucket. Pour in the honey and LME all together with the hops and cinnamon sticks too.
Now take your oats and mix with 1 gallon of water. Bring the temp to 155*F and add in your Amylase enzyme. Hold that temp for 1 hour. Bring the temp to 170*F for 10 min and then remove from the heat. Strain the liquid into the carboy/bucket. Then run an additional gallon of water through the oats
Top off the fermenter with water to 5 gallons, add in yeast nutrients and adjust gravity to 1.070 with additional honey if needed.
Pitch the yeast starter and attach blow off tube for the first 3 days and airlock for the first 1 – 2 months. Rack off of lees and let clear in secondary. Bottle from secondary or rack again every 30 days till no more sediment and bottle.

We used a beer kit, very easy to make, and substituted some of the malt with bochet honey, it turned out very well, a little sweet. It carbed well and has a honey bochet taste that goes well with the brown ale kit and the hops that were included in it. WVMJ

Bearmaul said:

I need some help putting together a recipe. I've made a batch of mead or two, but I've never made beer, I'm confused by the terms "mash" and "wort," and I don't know what a "malt" is or what I'm supposed to with it.

Click to expand...

I think you would really benefit from a good brewing book (see below)... That being said, "malt" is shorthand for malted barley, which is what most beer is made from...malting is the process of starting to sprout the grain, then halting it before it grows...this process is generally not done at home, although you can do it yourself too. Other grains can be malted as well, including wheat and rye. Other grains such as rice and corn need to be cooked or torrified" in order for their starches to be liberated. "Wort" is what unfermented beer is called, and "mash" refers to the process of creating wort from malt. Malt has to be held in a quantity of water at a certain temperature for enzymes activated by the malting process to turn the starches in the malt into sugars like maltose, etc.

Bearmaul said:

That being said, I love Guinness, and I want to try to make a bochet braggot with a similar flavor profile -- I figured I'd attain this by using the same type of malt and hops, but replacing some of the malt (I think) with dark caramelized honey (that's what makes a bochet, right?).

I've looked at recipes on here for Guinness clones, and at recipes for braggots, and I just don't get it. Every recipe I've looked at seems to assume I'll know exactly what to do to put it together.

Click to expand...

Again, if you're going to get into this, I think you may benefit from reading a basic brewing book -- John Palmer's How To Brew is one of the best, but a lot of people still like Charlie Papazian's New Complete Joy of Homebrewing, even though it's a bit outdated. Either can be had at Amazon or your local B&N for less than $15 (and I just realized today that both are available as Kindle versions now too...)

Bearmaul said:

So, if anyone could help me out putting together a recipe and prodecure for a 5 gal batch, I'll gladly send them a bottle or two of my bochet braggot in a year or so.

Click to expand...

All that mashing and malting stuff can be sidestepped using extracts (dry malt extract, or DME, which is a powdered or liquid malt extract, which is more of a syrup), which are basically concentrated dehydrated and/or canned wort. Some of the extracts are already pre-hopped as well, and you basically dissolve them, boil, cool and pitch yeast. Beyond that, you can use basic malt extracts and add flavor and color using various roasted malts that only need to be steeped (soaked in water), not mashed, and add your own hops during your boil. A lot of us got our start brewing with all extract, or extract plus specialty grains, before moving on to all-grain and actually mashing.

There are a lot more fine points, so again, you would be well served to spend some time reading about the basics of brewing beer...

Arpolis, what is the point of adding water to the honey before you burn it when you are trying to drive off all the water to caremalize the honey? WVMJ

I tried it with and without the water additions and found a get a slower caramalization with the water which keeps out the smoky burnt marshmallow taste that some people associate with a bochet.

That is probably what happens when we use a pressure cooker, the water stays in, the honey gets caremalized but no smokey burnt flavor. WVMJ