Fat Basset Bochet Cyser - Cider with "Burnt" Honey

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jwynia

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This recipe started when I watched

.

The idea of dark, carmelized honey made me wonder what it would be like in a cider.

So, I made a batch using this recipe. I specifically used nothing other than water, apple juice and honey so I could enter it in competition. I may make variations that break that rule for flavor sake in the future, but, based on the taste when bottling, this stuff is pretty amazing as is.

Ingredients:

4 gallons of Costco apple juice (any preservative free apple juice will work)
5 pounds (about half gallon) of "burnt" honey (instructions to follow)
1 gallon of water
Yeast - I use WhiteLabs Irish Ale WLP004 for most of my ciders, including this one.
Yeast nutrient - WhiteLabs, using the recommended amount for 5 gallons.
Optional - pectin enzyme if you're worried about clouding due to how I cool/heat the juice.

Procedure:

Take the 5 pounds of honey and put it in your kettle on your burner. You need to make sure you use a big enough kettle because when you cook honey, it foams up like crazy. Just watch the YouTube video to see this in effect.

Boil the honey until it's a dark mahogany color. In the pot, it should look like this when done:

5629409555_19bb5e7833.jpg


The guy in the video cooked it until it was actually starting to burn, but I didn't go that far.

In a spoon, it's lighter, somewhere around 18SRM. You'll need to stir the honey every once in a while to be able to see what color it is because the foam will cover it up.

Once the honey is dark enough, add the water to dilute it and make it easy to pour when it cools and to get the caramelized bits off the sides/bottom of the pot. BE VERY CAREFUL and add the water slowly. When water hits boiling honey, it has the potential to launch napalm-like boiling sugar out of the pot at you. You've been warned.

Cover the honey and let it cool a bit.

In a sanitized carboy/fermenter, put the 4 gallons of juice. I tend to refrigerate (to almost freezing if possible) the juice so it can help in cooling down the heated honey.

Pour the cooled honey into the fermenter.

When the overall mixture is down below 70F, pitch the yeast. About 2 weeks later, I added nutrient, but I will do that right away next time.

I left it in the primary fermenter for 2 months and then bottled with sugar for priming. I also pitched more yeast when bottling because I wasn't sure if it would prime on its own and really wanted this batch to turn out.

When I bottled it, the taste I had was so good, I drank a glass with dinner even flat and warm. It's got a really complex, interesting flavor. Lots of the dark sugar flavors that complement and bring the apple flavors forward.

In a couple of weeks, when I crack the first carbed bottle, I'll post pics of it in a glass.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I keep meaning to take pictures, but every time I open a bottle of this stuff, I get distracted by it's flavor and forget.
 
Personally, I'm not as big of a fan of spiced ciders as other people seem to be. I don't think it would be bad, but I haven't tried it.
 
I attempted tonight, but my camera phone didn't cooperate too well. Here's one shot with a flash and one without.

6024090582_4558fac8e1.jpg


6023535973_829716a400.jpg
 
Thanks for the pictures, looks like it cleared up nicely!

I'm planning to try a batch of this as soon as I get some cider from a local orchard, then keg it. You said it was good flat & warm straight out of primary, how was it carbed & chilled?
 
I bottle conditioned mine using the "standard" amount of corn sugar.

I would suggest that if you are going to use orchard juice (instead of grocery juice) to cut back on the burnt honey. While this stuff tastes amazing, the apple flavor is pretty much non-existent in the first batch. If you're using good juice, you'll want to pull the apple flavor forward more.

I'm hoping to do an experiment soon to determine the ratios where the apple flavor and the burnt honey flavor are in perfect balance, but haven't had the time lately.
 
I whipped up a batch of this on Saturday. You weren't kidding when you said to be careful when adding the water to the honey. When I first started pouring in the water it was like magma launching out of a volcano. I got honey all over the kitchen... fortunately none on me.

I will reiterate. If you make this, BE CAREFUL ADDING WATER TO BOILING HONEY!!!

I've mopped my kitchen floor half a dozen times... it's still all sticky.
 
There are things that it seems no matter how well warned you are, you can only learn through experience.
 
This sounds awesome. I'd like to try it. What, exactly, are you supposed to do when adding water to prevent magma-honey spewing?
 
I didn't track how long to cook the honey because it's going to vary for every burner and every cooking vessel, etc. Basically, you cook it until you start smelling burnt marshmallow and then it's done.

If you cook in a large vessel (so you're only 1/4 full of honey or less) and add the water slowly, you'll avoid napalm conditions. I've done it several times with no problems.
 
Some very good advice in here...boiling honey is damn hot. You have to be carefully when stirring it -- a very long spoon and/or protective gloves are recommended! When you're done cooling and starting to add water, ONLY ADD WATER AN OUNCE OR TWO AT A TIME AT FIRST!!! (REALLY, I'M NOT KIDDING!) I also had a near explosion when I first started adding water...
 
I made one of these as well, still bottle ageing.

Let the honey cool down a bit before adding the water--I didn't have any problems with explosions (but I was using only a couple pounds in a large pot).
 
It's got a very unique taste that's kind of hard to describe. There are definitely vanilla notes of that same variety that whiskey or other oak-soaked flavors generate. There's some burnt sugar/caramel flavors obviously. There's some apple notes from the cider. There a distinct "dark" flavor in the same family as molasses, but entirely different (see how hard this is to describe?)

I can say that people tend to either love it (several people have literally begged me for more bottles of this stuff) or can't seem to understand why anyone would drink it.

If there was anything similar on the market, I'd advise trying some, but there's nothing I know of that even comes close to tasting like this stuff.

I'd say, if it even sounds remotely interesting, to try making some.
 
suzanneb said:
so how does it taste? anybody else that made this recipe got any comments on taste??

I had the honor of trying some of jwynia's bochet yesterday. I was already planning on making some, but now I am thinking sooner than later.

It does start out with a mild burnt sugar flavor then progresses to hints of vanilla. I detected some notes similar to wild flower honey, but that may have been on my mind from the meads before.
 
how much sugar did you add to carb? I'm assuming at least 1/2c? I've got a spare carboy sitting right now and i'm gonna follow behind a batch of stout with this. Also curious how tis would be with pear.....:tank:
 
sam1el said:
how much sugar did you add to carb? I'm assuming at least 1/2c? I've got a spare carboy sitting right now and i'm gonna follow behind a batch of stout with this. Also curious how tis would be with pear.....:tank:

IMO the apple really takes a back seat to the honey. The cider ends up being more of a medium. I assume that would hold true for pear cider as well.
 
Just a guess here but, depending on the ale yeast it won't dry it out as much. I used trappist yeast on my last batch of this and it came out WAY beter than my last few attempts with cider or standard ale yeast from nottingham.
 
I just made mine. The honey went from honey colored to BLACK in the space of two minutes. It then filled my entire apartment with smoke. Fun times.
 
Ok guys just put these in bottles. I didnt like the way it tasted so I added 3 cans of the frozen apple concentrate along with 7 lbs of honey. Now I'm loving it. It's better than the Crispin Honey. You can really taste both the honey and apple this way. Just my .02 but I'm all about the taste of whichever I'm shooting to make. With all the sugar added im sure I'll be at the stove in about 2-3 days lol. 8% before I added the stuff. Drinking a glass now.
 
Any news here? Im always curious if on the second time around if any tweaks were made
 
Hey guys, I wonder if this thread is still active. I'm doing mead and cider, and naturally drifted to cyser. However, I wanted to do something unique and thought about caramelizing honey for a bochet cyser. Turns out i wasn't alone.

Heres my situation, lemme know what you think, and I'll tell you how it turns out.


1. I had 6 gallons of hard cider in the primary, and racked five to the carboy. This left me with 1 gallon of fresh, UV pasteurized cider made with Mangrove Jack's yeast. OG 1.054, no SG reading at this point.

2. I took that last gallon and put it in a two gallon tub for this cyser. I agitated the lees and used them for this two gallon batch. (over-pitch may be possible. I did it bc the OG of this new thing is 1.190, and I have superkleer and bentonite to clean up the yeasties if they still taste like dirt in a few months)

3. Added DAP and Fermaid K. half tsp each.

4. costco krikland apple juice, pastuerized, in a boil pot with honey for about 2 hours.
half gallon of apple juice and three pounds of clover honey. costco brand.

5. in two hours this boiled a lot, and made a mess. It didn't get black, nor brown. just darker. and the smell never got to toasted marshmallows, but more of a field of clover smell.

6. its all in the two gallon tub now, and in 12 hours is bubbling slowly. the base cider had some carbonation in it from its own primary phase, but these bubbles seem stronger and more constant/consistent with fermentation.

7. this new thing is 1.190, and sitting at about 65-69 degrees, which is fine for the mangrove jacks yeast.

8. i plan to leave it for maybe two months and rack it to two single gallon jugs for aging. or ill find another two gallon.

Let me know what you think, and if i should cut it into two single gallons to try yet another cyser experiment.

Thanks cats!
 
I can't remember if I ever posted on here but I did my own version of this back a couple years ago and it was one of my favorite cysers I have made. Down to just a couple 12oz bottles of it. It has been going solera-style since then. Started out with a 3 gallon batch, held back 1/3 of it. Last year's was a 5 gallon and I wasn't as happy with it so I will only be holding back 1/5. Will actually be making a brandy out of the majority of it. Will be starting the third addition this fall.

View attachment IMG_20160513_091046.jpg
 
I can't remember if I ever posted on here but I did my own version of this back a couple years ago and it was one of my favorite cysers I have made. Down to just a couple 12oz bottles of it. It has been going solera-style since then. Started out with a 3 gallon batch, held back 1/3 of it. Last year's was a 5 gallon and I wasn't as happy with it so I will only be holding back 1/5. Will actually be making a brandy out of the majority of it. Will be starting the third addition this fall.

View attachment 417518
Did this cider dry out, or did the caramelization leave unfermentable sugars behind?

I made a burnt mead and it was very sweet, but it was high ABV and my yeast may have pooped out.
 
[/QUOTE]I also pitched more yeast when bottling because I wasn't sure if it would prime on its own and really wanted this batch to turn out.[/QUOTE]

Please tell me more about pitching yeast when you bottle. How much yeast do you use? Does it affect the taste? Thanks.
 

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