Burnt honey hopped hydromel/braggot

Hi all, I'm new to the forum but have been brewing for about a year (mostly meads, but some kit beers as well.) I've seen a few threads on here that are related to my proposed style, but I thought I would post my recipe for critique. I recently had a Hopped mead from the Fallen Timber Brewery in Alberta, and it is damned good, but their focus on Cascade hops seemed like the wrong choice for a mead to me. My thoughts are to brew a pilsner-ish braggot, Brochet style. The only grains I'd like to add are going to be .5lb Cara-Pil, and .5lb Crystal 20L. I'd steep these and then add to the pre burnt/caramalized honey and begin the boil.

Recipe is as follows.

9# Honey, (I'd caramilze this to near black while steeping the grains)
.5# Cara-Pil
.5# Crystal 20L
Maybe some yeast nutrient?

For Boil,

1-2oz Saaz @60min
1oz Saaz @30min
1oz Saaz @10min
1oz Saaz @Flameout

Would like to do this with an Ale yeast, and bottle carb with Light DME.

I'm hoping that by caramalizing the honey, I will keep some non fermentables to add to the body without having too much grain (keeping closer to a hydromel than a braggot), not to mention imparting a sweet dark colour to the finished product.

As I'm still new to this, feedback would be great!

Cheers!

Edit: Recipe is for 5 Gallons. I don't trust beer smiths gravity readings for honey, as it has consistantly measured differently than my hydrometer so I'm not sure what the OG would be.

Edit 2: Looking at this, but not aiming for sans gluten: http://onegallonbrewing.blogspot.ca/2013/01/batch-012-alterna-gluten-free-brown.html

With that little malt, I'd add nutrient like any other mead.

I have been wanting to make a Brochet IPAish Braggot for a while now but haven't gotten around to it yet. I was shooting for 1/2 malt and 1/2 honey and was planning on using a dry ale yeast for it.

I was planning to boil the honey and set it aside. Then add it as a late boil addition to the wort.

An easier route for you might be doing a small boil with about a pound of DME and your hops and adding it to your Brochet. Then use a sweet mead yeast.

I like the idea of adding the DME for the boil. Simplifies the process for sure. Just hoping the basically amplify the body in some way, as the hopped mead would have done well with some malt characteristics.

A Brochet IPA could be really tasty.

Why not bottle carb with more raw uncooked honey instead? We did a Bochet Braggot with a dark beer kit, you almost have to slice it to get it out of the glass its so full of Just be carefull after you get your honey caramelized that you let it cool a little before you add any water back to it, if its to hot the water will flash to steam and bring the honey out of the pot and try to get you, we add back boiling water to the burnt honey but it still wants to jump out some. WVMJ

I think for the first batch of this, I'm going to cut the grain. Will try to make it just a hopped hydromel bochet, and see if the honey can hold it's own. Going to start with a 1 gallon batch, carb with honey and backsweeten with something unfermentable if it comes out too dry. Will post pictured of the process when I get around to starting. Thanks for the suggestions!

So I went ahead an made the gallon batch of this. It's been fermenting for a few days, and is down to 1.010 and the body is pretty good. I'm hoping it doesn't go too much drier than 1.008, but I'm just going to let the yeast run its course. The saaz hops work really well with the honey, and I think I am going to a five gallon batch sometime. OG was 1.040 so it is a very sessionable hydromel. I only used honey and hops, and I think that with the carmelization, the specialty grains won't be necessary. (will see how dry it ferments, so I could be totally wrong here). But here are some pictures of the carmelization, and the colour in the carboy.

How did this come out for you Koopa? I'm looking at doing roughly the same although I'm looking at going ~57/43 (Honey/Malt sugars). The only specialty I'm adding is a small bit of biscuit & special B (mainly because I have it leftover and it'd go to waste otherwise) with a pound of pale but the rest I'm going LME.

Came out great! I will be making a five gallon batch of this. It was surprisingly beer like for a mead. Very citrusy session ipa ish instead of the pilsner profile I was going for, but I think the hop utilization was pretty high in the smaller batch, and I had a bunch of hops get out of my tea balls and into the primary. Good flavor at any rate, and the saaz finishes really clean. The malt addition would add a nice offset I think.

Only thing is that the caramelized honey didn't clear very well, so the final product had a unfiltered wheat type haze to it, not much head on the pour, but there was a little (I didn't think honey would make any) and the malt would help with that too.

Worst part of this batch was that it was all gone too quickly!

I'm fine with that. I could care less about the haze as I'm pretty sure my stomach can't tell the difference. Joking aside, I went with Magnum for a slight bittering and then Williamette for aroma (mainly cause that's what I got. ). Pretty sure the Maris Otter will be overkill but it's what I got.

Thanks.

I'm doing something similar this weekend.
Belgian Braggot Dubbel
All Grain (5.00 gal) ABV: 9.78 %
OG: 1.073 SG FG: 0.999 SG
IBUs: 15.1 IBUs Color: 11.7 SRM

Ingredients

4 lb 12.0 oz - Pale Malt, Maris Otter
8.0 oz - Cara-Pils/Dextrine 4.2%
8.0 oz - Caramunich Malt 4.2%
4.0 oz - Oats, Flaked 2.1%

1 lb 8.0 oz - Honey-amber 12.5%
4 lb 8.0 oz - Honey
Add after boil complete (37.5%)

0.75 oz - Hallertauer Hersbrucker
Boil 60 min (11.1 IBUs)

0.75 oz - Saaz
Boil 10 min (4.0 IBUs)

1 pkg - ECY09

I'm going to mash high at 156, hoping that the increase in dextrines will help keep it from drying out and improve mouthfeel. I added the flaked oats for head retention. I'm replacing the Belgian dark candi sugar with some burned honey. I'm also going to bottle condition with honey instead of dextrose. We'll see how it goes. I'm excited!

Just checking to see how everyone's brews turned out. I am going to be doing a full batch of my above recipe sometime in the next few weeks.

I did the full volume batch. Turned out great. Might halve the hops next time as the utilization is really high and it's more like an ipa than a Pilsner. Not a problem as I like both styles, but I want to try something that will showcase the honey better. View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1428451127.543896.jpg