Bochet GROUP BREW - Solera Style

THe wintergreen is out of place with the others, a drop of ginger root would complement them much better. WVMJ

Arpolis said:

Lol I actually went around to 4 different stores in my area looking up the roots for rootbeer. Sadly I find nothing! So extract is what I got. I guess I could order stuff online... May need to look into that because I do prefer fresh ingredients.

I was actually thinking I could do more of a half and half recipe. Using some extract and the following in the bochet:

1/3 oz licorice root
1/4 oz anise seed
3 gram star anise
3 gram dried wintergreen

Anyone think that looks good?

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Hmmm some rootbeer people say wintergreen is a must and you don't have traditional rootbeer without it. I like ginger better myself. So I don't know just yet.

I was talking to my husband last night about starting up a bochet and then I run across this ttopic this morning.... Is it too late to join? I know we would be a few months behind everyone else.

The more the merrier I'd say but I'm in charge. Good luck on the caramelization, watch it with the water.

but I'm *not in charge.

Headed to the lhbs tomorrow to pick up a bung for my 1gal bottles and going to start the bochet up either tomorrow or Sunday... Monday at the latest as this is a busy weekend. First batch will be clover honey taken to an almost burnt caramel with vanilla beans added in secondary. going to go with 1118 for the first one I think as I used it with my cyser and am happy with it so far.

Any sugsuggestions on a good yeast to really bring out the caramel and honey taste for the next one? I am going to use the trader JoeJoe's Turkish honey for that as I love the flavor already and would love to see what it would do with a light to medium burn on it.
also thinking of doing a traditional mead with it to see how it would turn out.... Really love that honey lol

Any yeast with a high diacetyl production works well but you have to rack quickly to make sure the yeast do not clean up the diacetyl.

Good yeasts that I know of are:

Wyeast 1187 ringwood ale
Wyeast 1450 Danny's favorite 50
Wyeast 1968 London ESB
Lalvin 71b-1112

These yeast can help the Carmel flavors but bochets are pretty Carmel like regardless.

Thank you. I am going to use 71b on a 5gal batch of blueberry that I'm going to start up in the next month.

Well I started up my bochet Sunday.
Let me tell you the honey goes FAST once it starts to darken/burn. lol I have pics that I will post later. From the start of the honey boiling till I had it to VERY DARK was 12minutes. I could have pulled it at 10 and the slow process of adding the water would have let it cook to the 12 minute mark.
It is bubbling away like crazy, doing SNA and have a blow off tube on it... it really does look like a Guinness beer

12 minutes of boil time only? God I go for 1.5 - 2 hours on my boil to get it nice and dark. How hot do you run your stove lol?

Work is running me ragged right now and I have zero brew time right now. I will get into my second batch in this probably next week some time.

Ok last Thursday night I finally found some time to start by second bochet in the Solera style aging process. I took orange blossom honey and cooked it for just over 2 hours on a medium heat. Nice and toasty. Last time I added vanilla. This time I added rootbeer extract, I know I know I should have sourced the real ingredients. Well.... I didn't.... And this stuff already tastes awesome! I was a little low on the gravity and it is sitting at 1.058. I had warmed up the yeast slurry I racked off of from my first batch. I added a 1/2 cup of water and a pinch of sugar and nutrients. After just over 2 hours of warming up the slurry did not look real active but I pitched it anyway. Now 3 days later and I see very tiny bubbles but no real good activity like my first one was. Tonight I added a 1/2 tsp of yeast nutrient and shook it up really nice. I will see where it goes from here. If after a week there is no appreciable fermentation I am picking up more yeast.

I checked on the mead today and it is bubbling away now. So now to watch the gravity and follow the rest of my staggard nutrient additions.

This is interesting. I'll try it, as long as my other half doesn't mind me decimating the stove again.

Just another month til' I crack a three year aged Bochet I made from that old youtube video... Viking drinking horn at the ready. I can't wait to taste it.

3 years very nice! I have 1/3 of a bottle left of a bochet I mad 2 years and 8 months ago in the fridge. I think the bochet ages well.

Well I gotta start somewhere, and Saturday the 15th looked like a good day. I cooked up a batch of clover honey for about 85 minutes (it was a dark mocha brown) and used K1-V1116. It was a little slow starting but I did also use a little DAP when I pitched the yeast. I degassed it after 12 hours and it is now chugging away. The OG was 1.112, and it should be ready for it's next feeding when I get home from work tonight.

Hey Guys. Ive gone for a while with life things. But im back now!

Checked the gravity on batch one and its an an acceptable 1.020 but i hope it continues to dry out. Flavors pretty good, very smooth. Much smoother than my 2 year old bochet even.

Ill be starting my second batch in January and blending in July!

My second batch has been racked stabilized and topped up with original must I saved in the fridge. It cleared pretty fully so I though I would give this rootbeer bochet a taste. At first I noticed the color lighter than the first batch. I thought I burned it the same but this is slightly under burned. The taste is very interesting. The orange blossom honey character is shining through a lot. A nice citrusy tangy with the wintergreen/rootbeer flavors in the background. Not sure that the flavors are complimenting. On the good side it is super smooth. Good mouthfeel and just no alcohol burn like with some meads. I think we need to use clover honey for the next batches.

Hopefully getting my second batch fermenting this weekend, work has been occupying more time than id like. Good news, everything on hand has been aging nicely (I believe) haven't checked a lot since summer.

I'm in the same boat Kyza, I need to make my second batch still. But the first one is going nicely.

Well last night I brewed up my 2nd Bochet and checking the dates it was 6 months to the day, lucky me. Let it cool over night and o.g. this morning was 1.110 pitched yeast before heading to work. Will post details and pictures later.

Ok, 20 hour work days are having their fun around here so I've got my trusted (beer brewer) roommate babysitting my mead. Did get the chance to glance at my notes (and check his) and I can say the process/recipe was as follows.

2 gallon batch
6 lbs local wildflower honey, its a bit lighter in color than usual but still tastes and smells the same.
Boiled honey on medium heat for 1 hour (broke my thermometer so no temps.)
Added mixing spoonfuls of water until heat reduced enough to pour water directly in.
Added 1 gallon spring water and boiled down. Let cool outside in freezing temps, after an hour it was about 110° Fahrenheit. Added to fermenter and water to 2 gallons.
Made a starter with Lalvin D-47 overnight.
Morning after aerated, added 3/4 SNA of 1:2 DAP/Energizer.
Pitched starter and off to work I went.
Came home to fermenting caramel and bubbles. Think my roommates girlfriend wanted to raid my brew locker.

Ok batch number 3 is under way. A couple days ago I took my yeast slurry out of the fridge that is from my first and second batch. I activated it with some warm water, a pinch of yeast nutrient and a spoon of sugar.

I boiled 2.25 lb of clover honey on low flame for 2 hours. I mixed in 3/4 tsp potassium bicarbonate, appropriate yeast nutrients and 1 tbs of vanilla extract. Pored my hot honey into carboy and slowly added water while stirring until topped of. I siphoned off 16 fl oz to give some head room and that went into the fridge.

I pitched the yeast which also has my oak from the first batch mixed in with the yeast bed. When I rack to secondary I will add new oak. The OG is at 1.078. So a little low but not by much. Hope it turns well. I may start bottling and moving mead from one container to the other to start the Solaris style bottling and blending portion of this experement.

I still taste the citrous notes in my second batch. Not sure if I think that is complimenting so I am glad I went and got some raw clover honey at the LHBS. No more orange blossom honey in this experiment.

I still need to brew batch 2. batch one is done and ready for blending whenever 2 is done though.

I think I am going to start blending once this 3rd batch is cleared out. Pretty exciting we are going to start bottling soon. This project will be close to a year old by the time I start blending.

Finally made my second batch last night. I guess mine are a year apart. oops.

Lol I am keeping mine about 4 months apart. Getting close to to getting this set of batches blended. Hmmm vanilla root beer Bochet. Hope it turns out well. I am just a little scared of the orange blossom honey in the rootbeer batch. Really hope that one gets better with the blending and age.

If I was to do this in actual five gallon whiskey barrels, would it be too oaky do you think? My wife agreed to get me a five gallon barrel for Christmas this year, and then I'll buy another at each new racking until I have three. I'm just worried about too much oak or too much whiskey.

Beek said:

If I was to do this in actual five gallon whiskey barrels, would it be too oaky do you think? My wife agreed to get me a five gallon barrel for Christmas this year, and then I'll buy another at each new racking until I have three. I'm just worried about too much oak or too much whiskey.

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I might do a stout or two in it to help mellow the oak down more for use in longer aging.

MarshmallowBlue said:

I might do a stout or two in it to help mellow the oak down more for use in longer aging.

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Yeah that's kinda what I was thinking. Thanks for the reply.

Hard to belive we've been going for almost 1.5 years. How is everyone doing?

I'll be starting my third batch in July, but I'm doing a year a part because I fell behind.

Missed my third in august. Harvest is in full swing, might not get to brewing again until December if I'm lucky. First two look so very tempting.

I have a question about the Solera aging process:

What do you do with your last carboy when it's bottling time? If I understood correctly, it will still have 1/2-1/3 gallon of mead. So you add fresh must (1/2-2/3 gallon) and yeast on top of the remaining mead?

MLE0212 said:

I have a question about the Solera aging process:

What do you do with your last carboy when it's bottling time? If I understood correctly, it will still have 1/2-1/3 gallon of mead. So you add fresh must (1/2-2/3 gallon) and yeast on top of the remaining mead?

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Correct, just top up the youngest carboy with new must and yeast. If it gets too much lees at the bottom siphon off of them.

Too late to join? Better late than never, right?

Just started 3 gallons of apple bochet last week and plan on racking 1 gallon of it on to medium toast French oak when it clears. When I rack the gallon over to the oak chips, I'll keep brewing another gallon each time to keep the solera style going.

Question is, are you folks using oak chips in each carboy or only some of the carboys? And do you add new chips at rackings? Also, I rarely use oak chips, when using them in 1 gallon carboys, how much are you using?

I'm using 1 round of chips in each carboy and not replacing them.

I am behind in the game. Been busy and about to move to a new home. A larger one where I can have a brew closet all to myself! Once I get moved in the next few weeks I'll bottle up half my first of my 3 bochet and start the solera process finally.

I started my first in August, 3 gallon carboy started at 1.075 and now down to 1.008. I'm not sure if that's where it will finish.

I'm not oaking, maybe I should...

6 months makes February when I start my next batch. Maybe I'll bottle the first half and then try oaking the second.

I'm guessing we blend after primary fermentation is complete?

You blend after bottling. So you'll always bottle 1/2 - 1/3 from "carboy 1". Then you top up Carboy 1 with carboy 2. Top up 2 with 3 etc. At the end you add fresh must and yeast if needed.

Is it too late to join this group? This looks to have the potential of being a Legacy type thing, And this would be a perfect project for me since I work offshore. I'm new to Mead, my first 2 gallons is now one due to not knowing WTH I was doing(I don't follow directions well), but its almost 6 month old JAOM, clear as a bell but tastes like hell.....Anyway, I'd like to do this because 1. it's extremely intriguing and 2. I think it'll help me learn the finer points of bulk aging before bottling ie. stabilizing and whatnot.

JFARROILDOC said:

Is it too late to join this group? This looks to have the potential of being a Legacy type thing, And this would be a perfect project for me since I work offshore. I'm new to Mead, my first 2 gallons is now one due to not knowing WTH I was doing(I don't follow directions well), but its almost 6 month old JAOM, clear as a bell but tastes like hell.....Anyway, I'd like to do this because 1. it's extremely intriguing and 2. I think it'll help me learn the finer points of bulk aging before bottling ie. stabilizing and whatnot.

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Not too late, We had a "strict" schedule in the beginning, but that fell apart faster than a house of cards in a hurricane.

Welcome aboard!