My First Meads (Orange Blossom / Bochet)

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Sharkman20

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Well in the last week and a half I've created my first two batches of mead. For my first batch I made a traditional mead with 17 pounds of orange blossom honey. I did not heat the honey at all. The starting gravity of this batch was 1.112. I added 1 teaspoon of Fermaid K and dropped in my airstone hooked up to a walmart aquarium pump and aerated for about 20 minutes and then pitched Montrachet yeast. I saw bubbles in the airlock within 5 hours and been fermenting along nicely for the past week at 68 degrees. Of course, while I was racking it out of my brew pot into the carboy, the hose slipped out and sprayed sticky honey water all over the hardwood floor, which was a joy to clean up. I didn't even bother to check the ph, since I figured mead has been around forever without having its ph messed with.

17 lbs orange blossom honey
20g Montrachet yeast
1 tsp Fermaid K
Aerated for 20 minutes
OG 1.112

For my second batch, I made a bochet mead similar to the recipe that BargainFittings posted. I boiled 18 pounds of blackberry honey for 130 minutes (with a loooooooong spoon) until the honey was a dark reddish brown color. I added cool spring water and came out with exactly 5 gallons, and added the 1.5 lbs of orange blossom honey. I think this will bring back a little of the aromatics lost in the boil and perhaps give a little more complexity to the finished mead. After that I had a starting gravity of 1.136 and added my yeast nutrient.

As I was racking this into my carboy, once again my siphon tube leaped out of my carboy and sprayed burnt honey water mixture on me, the floor, the oven, the white cabinets as I scrambled to put the hose back in. I think I did fairly well though, since I only lost about a cups worth of must, though I think I'm doing a number on this hardwood floor. Even after I think I got it all cleaned up, I'll step in the wrong spot in the kitchen and hear that velcro like sound of my shoe unsticking from the floor. lol After all that, I hit the must with my airstone for 20 minutes and pitched the yeast. I went ahead and pitched the whole 40g per the recipe, but I'm thinking that's a wee bit overkill for a 5 gallon batch. Anyway, I came down 6 hours later to go to work and the airlock was already bubbling away.

A funny thing I noticed though, is it's sitting right next to my other carboy which is holding at 68 degrees, and the bochet is at 70. I guess the EC-1118 is putting off a bit more heat than the Montrachet, so I may wrap a wet towel around it or something for the time being.

19.5 lbs of honey
(18 lbs of blackberry honey - caramelized)
(1.5 lbs orange blossum honey - raw, added after the must cooled)
40g EC-1118 yeast
2 tsp Fermaid K
Aerated for 20 minutes
OG 1.136

Here's a compilation of pictures I took of the honey throughout the boil. My house still smells like caramelized honey. lol
2mhy7ls.jpg


I stole this idea from machinelf. lol It looks like a painters palate.
3ycux.jpg


Aerating the must. (After my spill)
2md574.jpg


Both of my meads fermenting away on some barstools.
b4at69.jpg
 
Looks good. I made a burnt mead earlier in the year and only boiled it for about 70 minutes. It turned out great. I think all of my meads from here on out will be burnt because that one was very tasty.
 
I let mine age about 8 months, give or take. Too bad it was gone within the first month of being ready.
 
Nice, I'm pretty anxious to try it. I'm going to hold back a few bottles from each batch and stash them in the closet though so I can revisit these a few years from now and see how they progress. What yeast did you use with your batch? I'm thinking mine will probably need more time just based on the fact that I used EC-1118 on mine.
 
The yeast doesn't need more time, it needs more time aging since the abv is higher
 
GinKings - The smell is great, but expect it to take about 2 days to go away. lol Then again, it's winter so my house has been sealed up. I'm sure during the summer when all my windows are open all day it would go away much quicker.

Since this is my first mead, I'm not sure when I should make my first gravity check. Both of my meads are still actively fermenting so I was thinking I'll wait until the 30 day mark before taking my first measurement, and then another a week later before I decide if I will rack to secondary since I don't want the mead to sit on the yeast if fermentation is complete. Anyone else have input on this?
 
I'm actually thinking of making a 1 gallon batch now with a lower abv% yeast just to tide me over while this one ages... lol
 
Just racked over the bochet mead tonight and the gravity reading was 1.028, which is roughly 14.32% abv. Very strong alcohol notes and not much of an aroma right now but you could definitely taste some caramel flavors hiding behind the alcohol. I'm very interested in tasting this in another few months when I rack it again.

My orange blossom mead is strangely still fermenting. It's been 2 months to the day and I still see active yeast on the surface and it is still bubbling. It is also still very cloudy and there is very little yeast cake on the bottom of the carboy. In anyone else's experience, how long does fermentation last for montrachet yeast in a high gravity mead? I read somewhere it would finish anywhere between 30 and 90 days, so this seems to be pushing the latter. I figure I'll leave it be for another month and take a gravity sample at that point.
 
Well it's been 9 months since I made my 5 gallon batch of bochet, and it's been about 6 months since I last racked and tasted it. This racking I'm going to add in the french oak cubes but I'm unclear of how much to start off with since it's my first time adding oak to anything. What would you all suggest is a good starting point? I definitely don't want to over oak it, but I have 4 ounces and I was thinking of adding 1 or 2 ounces and oaking for a month or so. What do you all think?
 
Sharkman20 said:
Well it's been 9 months since I made my 5 gallon batch of bochet, and it's been about 6 months since I last racked and tasted it. This racking I'm going to add in the french oak cubes but I'm unclear of how much to start off with since it's my first time adding oak to anything. What would you all suggest is a good starting point? I definitely don't want to over oak it, but I have 4 ounces and I was thinking of adding 1 or 2 ounces and oaking for a month or so. What do you all think?

I've always had good luck with 2oz in a 4-5 gallon batch, tasting it about once a week and then racking off the cubes when it hits the right amount of oakyness
 
I'm with brewingmedic.. a month may be too long. I plan on adding just under an oz to my 3 gal batch and will probably only let it sit on oak for a week.
 
I wound up adding an ounce of the french oak cubes and I'll be tasting it weekly. It's been 6 months since I last tasted it and it's definitely getting better. It's developing almost a nice port like taste and the alcohol heat has gone down considerably, and it's developing a nice caramel-honey aroma. I think the oak will compliment this very nicely.
 
Well after adding the 1 ounce of french oak, I tasted it after a month and there was hardly any flavor difference at all. I think that 1 ounce to a normal, lighter flavored honey batch would suffice but the strong burnt, nutty, caramel notes of a bochet dominate much more than a normal mead. I added 1 more ounce of oak and tasted again yesterday after 2 solid months of oaking and WOW was all I could say. It tastes awesome. You can definitely taste the oak and it adds everything that the mead was missing before. Personally I want just a little more oak than it has now, so I will be giving it one more month before letting it age out for another 6 months to a year before I bottle.
 
Well I've started to bottle my mead. Got some no chip dip "wax" from etched images online and did a yellow Maker's Mark style wax job that I must say turned out really well and threw on a label I made up in photoshop elements which came out pretty well for my first label. I'm thinking of getting some glossy label paper to do some in too. I'd say these bottles are ready for some long term aging. As well as look pretty sweet. lol

Mead.jpg
 

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