Leap Year 2012?

The bananas are just for body. Trust me, there won't be even a hint of banana flavor in the final product.

Banana scent and flavor is pretty much completely boiled out even before fermentation begins. I strain any skin or left over banana parts from the boil before adding.

I've done this for a few fruit wines and even in second run rose wines the banana isn't present.

ahhh so kinda like adding maltodextrin to a beer, cool

I've also used Extra Light DME to add body to a fruit wine without having it add any malt flavor.

Brew day! Well, for me anyway, most of you lot should all be sleeping! Just cleaning up my mess of a kitchen ready for me to burn it down!

Tamarind.

Ow, ow, ow, that ****ing hurts, ow!
Ok for all those following today, having a bbq mit nearby for when stirring is a good idea, actually using the thing would have been a better one!

Yikes, boiling honey isn't much different from napalm. I hope it was in one little spot, otherwise you are going to need med attention...

Yeah it was just one bit, right on the end of the finger, one burn is a lot better than some of the attempts I've heard of on here! Hurts like hell though, will have to keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn't get infected but I think it will be ok. The rest of you, don't get complacent, it was fine at first untill it started to darken, then it started to spit! I boiled for an hour, it's black as Guinness, will post pics later.

I did mine yesterday an inoculated today right at midnight.

The most dangerous part by far is adding water at the end of the boil. The honey at that point is well over the boiling point and any water will instantly boil up.

So add the water very slowly and in small amounts until the honey mixture drops below boiling.

Yeah that can be nasty but I was expecting that to be dangerous so was cautious. Apart from one little splash to see how much it would spit where I stood right back, I added my water after letting it cool enough to go back to almost its original size. That way when the water boils its closer to the surface which means less spitting, but also there is more pan to catch the spits too. But definaly tiny amounts at first even with these precautions.

Seeing as how I burn myself almost every time I make chicken stock (ie often) I think Im going to sit this one out. Someone email me a bottle when you are done ;-).

Here are some pics from my Bochet. I boiled for a little over an hour. In the primary it is dark, but not black. It has a reddish hue.

SG was 1.15 exactly, but the chopped dates and raisins probably still have some sugar in them.

I got one slight burn on my lip when some honey napalm flew up on my finger and I was stupid enough to quickly lick it off. My finger was tough enough to not get burned, but my lip and tongue still hurt.

Below is from baking bread a couple of weeks ago. Don't do this.

I have a dark spot on my right hand that will never go away thanks to a jar of molton chicken stock. Of course, I couldnt drop the overflowing jar (save the stock!) so I held on to it until I got to the counter. Huge angry blisters like the above.

Be careful out there folks, particularly those of us who are uninsured...

I didn't have any antibiotic cream, so I used honey for a day until I could get some.

Wow, that burn looks nasty! Luckily mine wasn't bad enough to blister, at least not instantly and can't see one yet...

6 gallons of botchet at boil (or rather the honey for it). I will surely commit at least a gallon of it to the leap day chocolate project.

Couple pics of todays Leap Year Bochet, my cocao nibs didn't get delivered today so they will be going into the secondary...

Used 3# of orange blossom honey, d47 yeast and got a OG of 1.100-1.105,
little light but maybe will make up in flavor what it lacks in alcohol.

Wish I could have gotten a good pick in the hydrometer tube with the light behind it, has an amazing deep red with amber hue color, otherwise it looks coffee colored dark.

oooooooooooo pretty!

So sad that I am just now getting back into brewing. I'm about to crack open my 08 Leap Year Mead and you guys did a mean that I'm dying to make anyways! So sad, I guess I'll just have to make it on my own down the road

Just pitched EC1118 on 3# of burnt honey for Leap Year. I liked the idea of a chocolate/vanilla so that's going in the secondary.

Photos here: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/members/cyberlord/albums/bochet-1-gal/

Day 2, ~18 hours post pitching, beautiful bubbling

Leap year bochet update, 13 days later and we went from an OG of 1.105 to 1.01...racked onto 1 lb. of cacao nibs, 4 long spit vanilla beans and some oak chips

tasting the hydro sample just because you have to....faint sweetness upfront, very very little but there...finished with the cooked not quite burned caramel that faded into almost a smokyness...in the middle it's still pretty muddled but I expect that its only 2 weeks old

think it has potential to be amazing maybe even just a year from now and extraordinary in 4 years

Planning on racking it off the nibs/vanilla/oak after its clear, bulk age awhile then bottle, take a few small bottles like 12 oz'ers for annual tracking and the rest 750's to go into the "time capsule" for 2016

Mine was fermenting with some cocoa in primary, fermentation has slowed enough for most of it to have fallen to the bottom now. I will probably look at racking to secondary next week after cold crashing to get as much yeast out as I can, I would rather not have the tlyeast settle on top of the cocoa. So I will likely wait for the second racking before adding more.

Speaking of boiled honey and Insomniac, hows your burn bro?

Yeah not too bad at all thanks, i dont think it was a direct hit as it didn't blister and has left a thin line. Stopped hurting after about 3 days so think I got off lightly!

Mine is still in the primary. It has gone from an estimated 1.165 (read 1.15 +raisins and dates + 1lb. added later) to 1.032 so far and is still putting out a bubble every couple of seconds.

I plan on racking tonight to get it off the crud and hopefully reawaken fermentation a little bit. I will also up the fermentation temperature since it's been in a room with ambient temperature in the mid-60's.

I'm not sure how low it will go with the carmelization creating unfermentables. With how much nutrients I added SNA + step honey, I should be able to get pretty close to 20% if it is all fermentable.

It actually tastes pretty good for being almost 17% right now. The high sweetness definitely helps. It does have a slight off-aftertaste that I'm associating with the high gravity, but I think it will age out.

Racked this last night, racking off of / through / with cocoa nibs is a complete pain but got there in the end. Have it cold-crashing now to get as much yeasties out before I add in the rest of the nibs and vanilla (dont want them getting buried in lees!). Will probably rack again tonight or tomorrow.

6 weeks later...How is everybodies leap year bochet coming?

I've gone from the 1.105 OG to three readings of 1.012 so now it's chilling in the tertiary, the autosiphon again proved it was worth the $12, racking off of the cacao nibs was pretty easy, almost lost siphon once, gave it half a pump and it continued without a problem with very minimal loss.

Going to let it sit awhile to finish clearing then probably will get one more racking to bulk age 8-10 months, then I'll think about bottles.

wish I got better lighting on the picture, this doesn't do the color justice.

I made my first mead on leap day not knowing this was going on. Just felt like it was the right day for my first mead attempt. Made a JAOM with tangelos and added vanilla. After reading the thread I don't think I want to wait 4 years to drink it though.

inordeck said:

After reading the thread I don't think I want to wait 4 years to drink it though.

Click to expand...

When you bottle it, save one, hide it somewhere so you still have the leap year thing working for you plus get to enjoy the rest before then.

TheBrewingMedic said:

When you bottle it, save one, hide it somewhere so you still have the leap year thing working for you plus get to enjoy the rest before then.

Click to expand...

I definitely thought about it but will JAOM age well that long? I guess I'll see in 4 years.

inordeck said:

I definitely thought about it but will JAOM age well that long? I guess I'll see in 4 years.

Click to expand...

I think if its good and clear, kept in a relatively cool dark place, stored appropriately for the type bottle or more accurately for the closure system ie: if use cork you'll want it on its side or even upside down I've seen, in 4 years you could be tasting the best aged jaom ever.

TheBrewingMedic said:

6 weeks later...How is everybodies leap year bochet coming?

I've gone from the 1.105 OG to three readings of 1.012 so now it's chilling in the tertiary, the autosiphon again proved it was worth the $12, racking off of the cacao nibs was pretty easy, almost lost siphon once, gave it half a pump and it continued without a problem with very minimal loss.

Going to let it sit awhile to finish clearing then probably will get one more racking to bulk age 8-10 months, then I'll think about bottles.

wish I got better lighting on the picture, this doesn't do the color justice.

Click to expand...

Mine is still fermenting. SG 1052 last I checked on Wednesday. I pitched the yeast 29 Feb, so it's taking its sweet time. No pun intended.

TheBrewingMedic said:

When you bottle it, save one, hide it somewhere so you still have the leap year thing working for you plus get to enjoy the rest before then.

Click to expand...

I'll probably bottle in a combination of larger bottles for stashing away, and a number of smaller bottles, probably just 12 oz bombers (although perhaps I'll get some half-size wine bottles). I figure the smaller bottles will be good for incrementally sampling, and also for some swaps? I'd definitely be into swapping a couple bottles amongst the others doing this project.

I just racked mine for the first time since getting off its gross lees. It's already really good (but young). I'm amazed how much the honey has come through considering how high the gravity was, but I did use a ton of honey.

I'm not planning on racking again for another 6 months - 1 year.

Over-oaked it big time. It tastes like toasted plywood with a bit of honey sweetness. Since it's got over 3.5 years to cool down should I let it go for now or should I whip up a couple more gallons to add in and bring down the oakiness?

I've never had this problem and I've oaked at least 15 batches. I'm thinking it was the higher alcohol extracted at a much higher rate. Maybe the residual sugar also played a part?

By my calculations (based on actual gravity readings, but used step-feeding) I got the alcohol up to a little over 20% (1116) with 1.02 my end gravity. Surprisingly, it was already drinkable (but not good) when I added the oak at the end of June, the sweetness helps. I thought I added only enough cubes that they would extract to neutral before making it too oaky. I was wrong.

I would leave it a year and taste again, if its mellowed a bit, awesome. If not you still have plenty of time to add stuff or blend it.

Oh, while I'm here, mine is still sat on the coacoa nibs... Really need to get that racked again!

I think I'm going to go with the nibs, but I'm going to wait a couple of years.