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We got a brown ale kit for fun and poured in the carmelized honey, the whole batch if black. We thought about not hopping it but our LHBS guy said the hops would offset the extra sweetness of the honey so in went the hops that came with the kit, the bochet braggot ended up a little higher in alcohol but everything really balanced out well. If you just added hops to a bochet mead I dont think it would be balanced without the "beer" flavors to. WVMJ

Has anybody tried hopping a bochet? Or maybe cocoa and cinnamon to get a smores flavor?
 
WVMJ said:
We got a brown ale kit for fun and poured in the carmelized honey, the whole batch if black. We thought about not hopping it but our LHBS guy said the hops would offset the extra sweetness of the honey so in went the hops that came with the kit, the bochet braggot ended up a little higher in alcohol but everything really balanced out well. If you just added hops to a bochet mead I dont think it would be balanced without the "beer" flavors to. WVMJ

Sounds tastey
 
so after 3 weeks, this is the first mead i've had that the yeast isn't chugging through the primary fermentation. at first it was a VERY slow start, and with aerating it twice a day and feeding it nutrients... after a week it was only down 30 pts. the OG was 1.092, and today after 3 weeks i finally racked it to a secondary but its only at 1.039. the yeast is EC-1118, which in past experiences, it should chug through about anything. any thoughts on why this is going SO slow or stalled out? did "burning" the honey effect the fermentable sugars in the honey? this just is the first mead that is going SO slow and seems weird to me and curious.
 
so after 3 weeks, this is the first mead i've had that the yeast isn't chugging through the primary fermentation. at first it was a VERY slow start, and with aerating it twice a day and feeding it nutrients... after a week it was only down 30 pts. the OG was 1.092, and today after 3 weeks i finally racked it to a secondary but its only at 1.039. the yeast is EC-1118, which in past experiences, it should chug through about anything. any thoughts on why this is going SO slow or stalled out? did "burning" the honey effect the fermentable sugars in the honey? this just is the first mead that is going SO slow and seems weird to me and curious.

Depending on how much carmelization took place is what determines how much fermentable sugars you are left with. You see, Carmelized sugars don't ferment. So what is actually fermenting is the sugars that were not burnt or charmelized. This is bound to make it slower. On mine, I did only 1/2 of the primary carmelized. That way I ensured that I would have some fermentables. I got a nice toffee tasting mead, after back sweetening it.

Matrix
 
Mine started out pretty normal, but once it got to 1.040 from 1.110 it started to really slowly ferment. I think it's because of the caramelized unfermentable sugars. Its since gotten down to 1.030, but I need to check the gravity again. Just be patient these are supposed to age wonderfully.

I also read a blog form Fatbloke about his bochet, and his fermented all the way down. He used a pressure cooker to cook the honey and I used a gas range stovetop. I thought it was interesting that maybe the honey caramelizing process also effects the amount of unfermentables added.

image_zps3bb5fa13.jpg
This was a hydrometer sample taste from some time ago.
 
that's kind of what i was thinking... so i guess this one is just going to sit for a LONG time:) i've just never had a mead take this long so i was curious.

thanks
 
Does anyone have a percentage of how much of the honey is fermentable after it is burnt? I'm on my second batch and it really starts off slow compared to other meads. I even added in burnt honey at the end to ensure my yeast had something to eat. I'm worried it might be a ph issue as well.

Any thoughts on why the slow start and what percentage of the honey can actually be fermented in a bochet?
 
My Bochet has been going for about 3 months, and is down to 1.024 from 1.088. It's been sitting on the spices for a week and a half, and tastes suspiciously like flat Dr. Pepper... :)
 
Aoife3Sheets said:
My Bochet has been going for about 3 months, and is down to 1.024 from 1.088. It's been sitting on the spices for a week and a half, and tastes suspiciously like flat Dr. Pepper... :)

This is really a long term commitment mead :p sounds delicious though. Are you going to ferment dry?
 
I'm starting a batch this weekend with a collection of leftover honey I have laying around. Most of it has crystallized, or has otherwise gone unused for too long.

8694041023_58101cf24e_b.jpg



Some safeway brand, local wildflower, Chestnut, Christmas Berry, and not in the picture, just a bit of Forest Honey.

I'm excited to try this again... I started a batch a few months ago and it caught an infection, so I sadly had to toss it.
 
YOur Bochet caught an infection, what happened to it so we can all keep an eye out if its something particular to Bochets??? WVMJ
 
Agreed, that is, as I am finding, a rare thing for meads to get infected.
 
YOur Bochet caught an infection, what happened to it so we can all keep an eye out if its something particular to Bochets??? WVMJ

I think it was a matter of my nephew sticking his fingers in the bucket when I wasn't looking. Nothing inherent to bochets exists that I know of, but I just couldn't narrow down exactly what the cause was beyond the circumstances around dirty kid fingers. :D
 
Was it the idea of a dirty kid finger in there that made you imagine it was bad or did it turn into vinegar or something terrible smelling? WVMJ

I think it was a matter of my nephew sticking his fingers in the bucket when I wasn't looking. Nothing inherent to bochets exists that I know of, but I just couldn't narrow down exactly what the cause was beyond the circumstances around dirty kid fingers. :D
 
Was it the idea of a dirty kid finger in there that made you imagine it was bad or did it turn into vinegar or something terrible smelling? WVMJ

It turned into a terrible smelling concoction that had distinct notes of vinegar. If you got a good whiff of it, it would sting the nostrils. It was sort of a combination of dirty feet and vinegar, actually. :D Trust me, if it's bad enough for me to throw out, it's beyond help...

Now that we've established that no, I'm not a rookie who would throw out good mead, we can continue. :D


I couldn't wait until this weekend, so I started that bochet just a couple hours ago. I ended up with ~6.5lbs of honey, so I'm making two gallons of it. Firstly, when I threw everything in the pot, still crystallized, I had to get a pic of it. It looked so terrible I had a good long laugh. The dark honey on top there is the forest honey... I thought it rounded out the bee puke look to the stuff.

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Once it all melted, it started to look pretty nice, and ALL I could smell was the chestnut honey. It surprised me that it took over on top of everything else, as there was only 1lb out of 6.5 in there.

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That pic was just as the very first boil bubbles appeared. Took a little over an hour to turn black, now I'm just waiting for it to cool down a bit. I'll get a gravity reading later tonight.



EDIT: Topped off to 2 gallons of water, SG is 1.129. I'm using some K1-V1116, rehydrated with Go-Ferm. I'm pretty excited for this one.
 
Ha Ha, not newbie, germaphobe :) Its funny to me how people worry about every little germ that gets into their must, how can you really wash the bird poop of every grape, or get every last stink bug (full of germs) out of each batch :) And what about those people with hairy feet stomping around on grapes! When we got our dog I knew one day there would be dog hair floating across the must, instead of waiting I just dropped some in there to get it over with!! WVMJ
 
When we got our dog I knew one day there would be dog hair floating across the must, instead of waiting I just dropped some in there to get it over with!! WVMJ

Haha, that's great. Reminds me of my buddies grandpa. Every new car he would get on the day he brought it home would scratch it with the key.
 
Ha Ha, not newbie, germaphobe :) Its funny to me how people worry about every little germ that gets into their must, how can you really wash the bird poop of every grape, or get every last stink bug (full of germs) out of each batch :) And what about those people with hairy feet stomping around on grapes! When we got our dog I knew one day there would be dog hair floating across the must, instead of waiting I just dropped some in there to get it over with!! WVMJ

I used to be overly careful, but after doing this for a few years, the only problem I've ever had was that one Bochet. Beer, mead, fruit wine... I sterilize carboys and all that now, but everything else, I just give it a good washing and call it good.
 
I just started my first bochet this morning. Woke up at 12:30, couldn't sleep for thinking about the mead. So I got out of bed and started cooking honey.

I did a split "grain bill" on mine. There's one pound raw, one pound lightly reduced, and one pound heavily reduced honey. I saw this suggested somewhere and I have to say the cooking time really affects the flavor. The lightly reduced honey has a caramel taste while the darker one is toasted marshmallow. This should give a bit more depth to the flavor of the mead. I hope. There's also a pound of blackberries. I think the end result will be something like a blackberry pastry. I think I may need more berries though.

Right now I'm waiting for the honey to cool. I'm also giving the pectic enzyme time to do its thing. Once I get it all together I'll take an SG reading. Then it's just a matter of rehydrating and pitching the yeast.

Speaking of yeast, what can I expect from EC-1118? I wanted to use White Labs WLP720 since I've had good results from it. But the shop was out of it. So the guy sold my wife the Lalvin saying it was a direct substitute. I don't know how he figured that since the two yeasts don't have any of the same characteristics. I know I'll get more alcohol from the Lalvin. I'm just hoping it doesn't produce a lot of esters and junk.

*EDIT*
Took an SG reading and got 1.110. But that's low because I screwed up and left a layer of honey on the bottom of the jug. I poured the raw honey in first and then forgot to mix it up when I added everything else.
 
Took a bit for this to really get active. The hydrometer showed the evidence, but it was super slow until this morning... now there's visible fermentation taking place.

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Love the color too, and the wife just wants to go in there and sniff them all day. :D
 
Anyone try to back sweeten a normal mead with burnt honey? My mead is at .996 and I'm thinking of trying this. i want a FG of around 1.010, maybe a little over. For 3 gallons this would be 1 1/3 cup of honey, more or less, right?
 
i'd be really curious how that turns out!!! do it and report back, with photos of the color differences of before and after... and how far you "burnt" the honey. i'd bet that turns out awesome.
 
ok so what to do... this mead started off to a VERY slow fermentation... it pretty much stalled at the 3 week mark and only went from 1.092 down to 1.039... now after 3 more months, it hasn't budged a bit. still sitting firmly at 1.039 with no activity for a long while. i checked the pH with the little strips, and it's sitting right between the 4.6 & 5 range, so i'd comfortably say it's 4.8, and it's been well taken care of. where to go now? do i repitch some more yeast hoping to bring it back and restart fermentation? i originally pitched EC-1118, so this should of been no problem for it to chew through.

my rough recipe is:
1G batch
3lbs standard clover honey cooked for an hour and 15min as seen here-https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f30/medieval-burnt-mead-112163/index24.html#post5024320
about a gallon of water
Lalvin EC-1118 yeast, rehydrated with GoFerm
3x SNA of 1/4t DAP & 1/8t FermaidK
@1 day(1.085)
@3rd day(1.073)
@7th day(1.045)
spread out because of the very slow fermentation.
racked to secondary after 3 weeks. (1.039)

any thoughts?
thanks!
 
jmfitzgerald said:
ok so what to do... this mead started off to a VERY slow fermentation... it pretty much stalled at the 3 week mark and only went from 1.092 down to 1.039... now after 3 more months, it hasn't budged a bit. still sitting firmly at 1.039 with no activity for a long while. i checked the pH with the little strips, and it's sitting right between the 4.6 & 5 range, so i'd comfortably say it's 4.8, and it's been well taken care of. where to go now? do i repitch some more yeast hoping to bring it back and restart fermentation? i originally pitched EC-1118, so this should of been no problem for it to chew through.

my rough recipe is:
1G batch
3lbs standard clover honey cooked for an hour and 15min as seen here-https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f30/medieval-burnt-mead-112163/index24.html#post5024320
about a gallon of water
Lalvin EC-1118 yeast, rehydrated with GoFerm
3x SNA of 1/4t DAP & 1/8t FermaidK
@1 day(1.085)
@3rd day(1.073)
@7th day(1.045)
spread out because of the very slow fermentation.
racked to secondary after 3 weeks. (1.039)

any thoughts?
thanks!


That ph is actually quite high no? If I'm
Not mistaken the yeasties prefer 3.2-3.5 ph.
 
And your Fermaid is a little low, I think the guidelines say up to 1.5 tsp gallon and a Bochet would be one of those meads that might need to have all of it. Maybe drop in some acid blend and yeast ghosts to get them going again. We used Primier Cuvee in our batch and it did very well.WVMJ
 
thanks for the replies... the bottle of FermaidK i have says use .5-1g per gallon (1/8-1/4tsp per gallon), then doing that 3x, i was actually worried i was using too much? so i used GoFerm to rehydrate the yeast, which has plenty of nutrients already, then with 3 additions of 1/4t DAP & 1/8t FermaidK, i used a total of 3/4tsp DAP & 3/8tsp FermaidK for a 1 gallon batch... which brings up another question, is batch size relevant? when i inquired about rehydrating a pack of yeast, i was told still to use the full 2tsp of GoFerm to one pack of dry yeast, even for a one gallon batch. is that correct also?

well for now, i think i'll pick up some acid blend, and repitch maybe a half pack of yeast just rehydrated with some more goferm for nutrients and hope it takes off, because it still smells great!
 
well 3 days later, after pitching another half pack of EC-1118, 1tsp GoFem, and 1/4tsp Fermaid K... nothing... no airlock activity. i haven't opened it up again to take a gravity reading, but the level in the airlock hasn't changed even the slightest, so i'm assuming nothing's going on in there... any other thoughts to start this back up, or is this going to totally stall out at 1.039? maybe blend it with another mead down the road??? just weird, i don't understand why i'm having problems with this one mead, so far it's been my only problem child.
 
Is it possible that all of the fermentable sugar has fermented? I've read that the process of burning the honey renders some of the sugars unfermentable. I wonder if you could mix up some everclear and water to a bit above your target ABV and add it until you hit your target FG. I've never done this, just trying to think of a way to salvage the batch if its so sweet it's unpalatable.
 
My favorite idea on lowering the gravity is to blend it with a traditional mead that is fermented dry. If 1118 yeast has died out then it may not ferment. The only other thing you can check is see if the PH is to low. If so then use calcium bicarbonate I believe to raise the PH to the butter zone of about 3.5.
 
the pH definitely isn't low, it's sitting about 4.6... i was going to add some acid blend, but haven't made it to the HBS yet to do so, so really, that should be in a good range for the yeasties? i think at this point i'll blend it with another mead. i have a traditional mead in a primary going that i'm going to add spices and do a metheglin with here next week. i made a little extra, so i'll use some of this to blend it and see where it goes from there. thanks for the input so far!
 
Premier Cuvee might be able to take it down a little more sometimes this works better than EC1118. WVMJ
 
I used some Fermcap-S in the boilpot and it helped keep the honey out of endless expansion.
 
800 posts on this wonderful mead and someone comes along and is like why dont you guys use that anti foamy stuff when you cook foamy honey! I didnt know you could use this in the boil, did it work all the way up to the black stage or did it eventually give out or did you have to keep adding it every so often? What a great idea. WVMJ

I used some Fermcap-S in the boilpot and it helped keep the honey out of endless expansion.
 
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