Bochet Mead (burnt mead)

I'm still not having any luck getting this bochet to start fermenting again. A few hours after raising the pH to 3.8, I rehydrated some EC-1118 yeast for 20 minutes and added it to the must. It started fermenting, but a few hours later it slowed down a lot. Now it has stopped again.

I used honey out of the grocery store, instead of honey from local bee keepers that I usually use. Could this have something to kill yeast in it? I really can't think of anything else that could cause this to stop. It seemed to ferment normally for a few days at the start, but now has completely stopped.

It might not have been fermenting if you are reading bubbles. It could just be co2 coming out of solution. Take a gravity reading after a few days to see if the gravity has dropped.

I'll give it a week or two and check the SG. It's just in a 1 gallon jar, so I have it in a cabinet in my kitchen, so easy to store out of the way and forget for a while. When I transferred it to a secondary I tasted some, and was really impressed, even if this batch doesn't finish fermenting, I will be making more. I might wait until the winter though, standing over a stove for 1.5 hours in the summer wasn't fun.

I don't like my mead too sweet... how sweet is it? I remember making a prickly pear mead with 20lbs of honey.. and it was too sweet.... 14 lbs of honey I liked better...

so you boiled honey for about 2 hours... would u recommend 170 mins like another member did?

I never heard of zinc fortified yeast... is that dead yeast? .1 g? that's a very little, what kind of scale did u use? So that gets boiled right?

Something that always confused me about yeast nutrients (extract). I have some, looks like salt, it's white and crystalized. But isn't there bacteria in it that can contaminate the mead? Are we supposed to boil it? I remember I threw some in while boiling another mead... and it boiled over!!! DOH!!! are we supposed to boil it? If you boil it... is it bad? But if you don't you introduce contaminates... still confuses me...

thanks




The official recipe from 2008 Nov/Dec Zymurgy page 46. Article starts on page 45 - "Mead: Party Like its 1949"

18.5 lb light honey
4.0 g yeast extract or yeast nutrient
0.1 g zinc fortified yeast as nutrient
3 Tablespoon yeast (40g) dried champagne or mead yeast (Prise de Mousse recommended)

Target original gravity 1.130 - 1.138
Approx Final Gravity 1.028-1.038
Alcohol 14 to 15% by volume

Add honey to pot. Do not add water. Gently boil the honey until dark and tastes caramelized.

Add 1 gallon of water, zinc fortified yeast and blend into the "scorched honey" Stir until dissolved well.

Blend hot honey and water mixture to 2 gallons of cold water and add to your primary.

Top up to 5 gallons total volume. Aerate extremely well and add dissolved yeast nutrient (yeast extract)

When temp is below 80 F add re hydrated yeast. Ferment between 70-75 F

It may take 3 weeks to 3 months to finish primary.

Rack and transfer to secondary. Store at cooler temperatures Rack off sediment after six months to a year. Bottle when clear and all fermentation ceased. Cork in wine bottles for long term aging.

Anyone brew this one recently? I'm going to be trying it tomorrow.

Does last September count? We did this in conjunction with my 5 year aging 50th birthday Barleywine.

Revvy said:

We started the Brochet (burnt mead) on Ed's firepit. We didn't realize what a nightmare that would be. Do not try this at home, or if you do have silicon fire gloves and a back up plan. Or at least use a bigger cast iron pan. The honey is just warming up. Still honey colored.

Here's why you need to have aback up plan and heat retardent gloves so you can lift the pan off the heat.

After too many boilovers we switched to something with more temp control for the mead. It STILL required constant attention. Which luckily Terrapin put his chef skills on the line to be the man of the (several) hour to stir that puppy and keep fiddling with the gas. This was a lot like making roux at long time consuming process. But hopefully worth it. As you can see it is starting to change color.

Brochet getting darker.

For Terrapinchef, this WAS a working lunch.

As you can see the mahogany color of the honey is starting to come out, the colors that we saw were undescribably beautiful. Like fiery sunsets.

The final minutes of the Brochet, deciding at what point we wanted to pull the plug on the color, and halt the boiling was difficult, we wanted to see how deep it would go but we really wanted not to scorch the honey.

The two gallons of Brochet, being aierated. Look how dark it is, and that is after topping off with water and a little bit of one of the other meads. The taste was insane.

Due to the caloric intake of all the alcohol we were making, plus the ribs for dinner. Smitty decides to do a pre dinner workout...or is he genuflecting before the mead gods?

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Just cracked a few at National Homebrewday and it was a HUUUGE hit. Folks were coming up after asking me if I was the guy with the burnt mead.

There's a women's mead club that was set up there and even they were impressed.

Revvy said:

Does last September count? We did this in conjunction with my 5 year aging 50th birthday Barleywine.



Just cracked a few at National Homebrewday and it was a HUUUGE hit. Folks were coming up after asking me if I was the guy with the burnt mead.

There's a women's mead club that was set up there and even they were impressed.

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Nice, sounds great. Can you give me the details on the recipe you used?

jbrookeiv said:

Nice, sounds great. Can you give me the details on the recipe you used?

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A jug of honey from the grocery store....Water....Yeast (I believe it was montrachet....heat source.......

This wasn't rocket science in the 5th century and it really doesn't need to be over thought today.

Revvy said:

A jug of honey from the grocery store....Water....Yeast (I believe it was montrachet....heat source.......

This wasn't rocket science in the 5th century and it really doesn't need to be over thought today.

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Cool, I was just wondering the ratio of water to honey. I bought a 5lb bottle of honey at Sam's Club yesterday with the intention of doing this, but I'm thinking I might want to do a 5 gallon batch since it's so time consuming.

jbrookeiv said:

Cool, I was just wondering the ratio of water to honey. I bought a 5lb bottle of honey at Sam's Club yesterday with the intention of doing this, but I'm thinking I might want to do a 5 gallon batch since it's so time consuming.

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We just boiled it down, then hit it with some water to cool it, then split it into two gallon jugs, and topped off with more water. We just eyeballed the water amount. Pretty much following loosely what the youtube video said.

I wanted to add to this thread today as I've just finished wrapping up my first bochet mead! There's some things that I've discovered, which I think I've seen hinted at on other pages/sources, but I think they bear repeating (read: big safety issues!):

1) when honey boils, the apparent volume increases DRAMATICALLY! 18 lbs of honey is a couple inches in the bottom of my kettle...once boil hit, the level of "liquid" is at *least* 4 to 5 times higher! Bottom line: you need a MUCH bigger kettle than you might think...

2) the boil requires constant attention to fiddle with the heat level, and needs to be stirred almost constantly to prevent even further rises in the boil and subsequent boil over.

3) Boiling honey is damn f*&King hot! And it likes to splash up and out with the bigger bubbles...my ring and pinky fingers will tell you that you would be well served to wear some sort of protective glove, or probably even better, a *really* long spoon.

4) When you add the water at the end of the boiling, DO NOT add it quickly. I mean this...literally add it like an ounce or so at a time. When water hits hot honey, it boils instantly and sprays damn f*&King hot boiling honey everywhere.

5) Do this outside, but be prepared to battle the bees, wasps and other assorted insect fiends...it would help to have a partner just to shoo/swat them away.

All in all though, my brew was very successful, and I'm really excited at how this will turn out. It smells awesome, is a beautiful shade of mahogany brown, and the hydrometer sample tastes like drinking a perfectly roasted marshmallow....

Just racked last years batch to a keg and made 10 gallons.

Battled the bees. The weather was nice. This batch I went a shade lighter mostly because I was tired of listening to the swarm.

I think I'll wait until winter to brew this ^_^

I just bottled my bochet the other day, and it tastes awesome...it cleared very well right in primary, so I just bottled it from there. The FG is 1.007, and it has just enough residual sweetness that I left it alone. I used the Wyeast Dry Mead strain, which should have dried it out completely, so I wonder if the boiling process may have created some unfermentable carbs? At any rate, I'm extremely pleased with my first attempt at this process, and think this will be a real winner once it ages out a little more (it's really good even now)...already looking forward to Mead Day next August.

Hovercar said:

I think I'll wait until winter to brew this ^_^

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Frick. I live in Hawaii. I can see the little bastards lining up now... must combat my understanding that bees are good with my desire not to become a pincushion!

Want to taste Bochet Mead > Worry about getting stung

Game on!

Bochet is now next on my "to brew" list. I'm thinking that the caramel character of bochet would go well with fruit, and I understand that some of you have made bochet/cyser, however, I am inclined towards something that might complement the caramel with some fruity tangyness. What sayeth ye about raspberries, has anyone tried that?

I've been brewing beer for several years, but just started on meads this year. I believe this one needs to onto my list!

I was so interested in this, I made it this AM. Cooked up 2.8 lbs of clover honey for a little over an hour, and took it off the heat as soon as I tasted marshmallow tones. Going to use Montrachet with it, but wanted a bit of residual sweetness for this one, so I added in 2.5 oz of lactose when I was dissolving the caramelized honey, which should leave me with 6-7 points in the finished product.

As an aside, my wife was very intrigued by this, and decided that the next time I make this, that she wants to use half of it for making chocolate covered caramels.

Cooking this one up now. Picked up 24Lbs(two 12lbs jugs) of blue ribbon clover honey from Midwest this afternoon just for this brew. I got a little carried away pouring honey in my pot from the second jug O' honey, so I wound up with 19.5Lbs of honey instead of 18.5, though I'm sure it'll be just fine.

Anyway, it's starting to boil now so I am getting ready to start stirring!!! Hope this one turns out as good as it sounds!

I'll be making this one tomorrow with 18 lbs of blackberry honey which I will carmelize, and a pound of orange blossom honey that I will add in after the mixture has cooled. I decided to go for that over the costco honey since I have a local beekeeping supply that sells varietal honey at 5 dollars per pound and I'd rather support them than costco. lol I also picked up 40g of EC-1118 per the recipe, so we will see how this one goes, but I have high hopes for this batch. If this ferments out to 15% I'll be happy but I'm fine if it goes over that since I plan on aging this a while.

I'm just wondering with 19 lbs of honey how much it will dry out with the EC-1118, since I want it to be strong but still have sweetness to it. I'll be shooting for a 1.140 starting gravity. I couldn't find any zinc fortified yeast, but at 0.1g for a 5 gallon batch I can't imagine that would have an impact on the final product. I'll be using some fermaid K for the nutrient. Any suggestions or ideas? Wish me luck.

Any thoughts on how caramelised honey would work in a braggot wort? Ideas for what malt to use?

How dry will EC-1118 yeast take this?

lsmith47 said:

How dry will EC-1118 yeast take this?

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My understanding is that "low attenuation" yeasts ferment slightly less dry than high attenuation yeasts; high ones eat more/all of the sugar, low ones conk out once the sugar runs low, meaning you'll have an ever-so-slightly sweet drink.

Pith said:

Any thoughts on how caramelised honey would work in a braggot wort? Ideas for what malt to use?

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I think it would make a fantastic braggot...I'd imagine you could take just about any braggot recipe and substitute the boiled honey, creating a nice carmalized quality. I'd think it might complement a dark, roasty malt profile very well...

lsmith47 said:

How dry will EC-1118 yeast take this?

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All the way, baby...

Pith said:

My understanding is that "low attenuation" yeasts ferment slightly less dry than high attenuation yeasts; high ones eat more/all of the sugar, low ones conk out once the sugar runs low, meaning you'll have an ever-so-slightly sweet drink.

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Attenuation has little meaning in mead making, as the must is essentially 100% fermentable...in the case of mead, the attenuation can be assumed to be the ABV tolerance, assuming you manage the fermentation well, proper nutrients, no stuck fermentation, etc. There's always *some* non-fermentable stuff (proteins, unfermentable sugars, etc.) so this isn't strictly true, but it's close enough.
FWIW, though, I have wondered (based on the fermentation experience that I had with my bochet) if the boiling/carmelization process may create some increase in unfermentable sugars...there was definitely an *apparent* lower attenuation in my bochet compared with other honey-only mead fermentations I've done with the same yeast, and the perceived final sweetness was there to back this up.

This mead definitely has a higher perceptible sweetness than the final gravity would have you believe.

BargainFittings said:

This mead definitely has a higher perceptible sweetness than the final gravity would have you believe.

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Yeah, the maiilard reaction creates a ton of un fermentable sugars.

Well, I decided to brew up 2 gallons worth of bochet.

I used about 8 pounds of SueBee Clover honey. I guess I didn't stir quite vigorously enough, since there are still some small black bits stuck to the bottom of my stockpot. Anyway. Boiled the honey for 1¾ hours, stirring constantly, then split it between 2 1-gallon carboys. Added water, 1 tsp energizer and ¼ tsp Fermax nutrient to each gallon, then waited hours for it to cool sufficiently. Pitched one gallon with EC-1118, and one with Côte des Blancs. It almost looks like Guinness. OG (unless I did my math wrong) is something like 1.15.

I'll also wind up adding in about ¼ tsp nutrient per day for the 3 days after the initial brew.

I'm thinking I may backsweeten after I rack the bochet once or twice.

I'll post pictures later today when I can download them off my camera.

biochemedic said:

All the way, baby...

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So what would you recommend using for this bochet to have a sweet to semi-sweet final product?

lsmith47 said:

So what would you recommend using for this bochet to have a sweet to semi-sweet final product?

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I actually think EC-1118 would probably be fine...as discussed in the past few posts, you will generally get some unfermentable sugars and a resultant sweetness just from the process of creating the must, so that is one source. If you want it sweeter than that, you may have to consider stabilizing and backsweetening after fermentation. I used Wyeast Dry Mead (4632) and this has the same ABV tolerance as the EC-1118. My OG and FG were 1.107 and 1.007, ABV 13.4% What I meant by "all the way" is that strain would eat anything and everything available, and wouldn't likely poop out until it hit the truly unfermentable parts of the must.

It will definitely be sweet even when it finishes out.

I'm finding my last batch to be a bit dryer than the first batch probably because I did not darken it quite as much.

Sounds great. I plan to have some started before the end of the year. I love keeping up with everyone else's though, so keep us posted on how things turn out.

As promised, here's the pictures! First, meet the cleanup crew. By the time he was done, nobody was sticking to the floor.


Next are the pictures of the pot at 0 minutes, 45 minutes, 75 minutes, and 105 minutes:


A closeup of the final must and a look at the change in color over time


And here are the carboys waiting for me to pitch the yeast


Definitely reminds me of Guinness.

Your cleanup crew looks very attentive!

He is. He's not getting any mead, though. No matter how much he begs.

Would be very interested to see what it looks like at the end of vigourous fermentation, and then again after final racking.

Have a great Christmas and New Year, and let us know how it goes!

Ha I thought I had stumbled onto a new idea. I guess there is nothing new under the sun!

PaddyMurphy said:

He is. He's not getting any mead, though. No matter how much he begs.

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Mine gets to clean the floor after bottling. Are boiling just the honey to caramelize or honey and water?

thebigred67 said:

Mine gets to clean the floor after bottling. Are boiling just the honey to caramelize or honey and water?

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Just the honey.

I just finished my first bochet, 10.5 lbs of generic honey simmered for a couple of hours, 2 tsp of yeast nutrient in a 3 gallon carboy. I'll post some first ferm pics tomorrow morning.

Edit, I went with D-47 for my yeast.

I plan on doing a bochet in the next week or two, just a single gallon batch. New at this, and starting with 3 single gallons of different styles to get a feel for mead making and this will be the last for a bit. Probably. Maybe. I am wondering, how large a pot I would need to accommodate 3.5 lbs of caramelizing honey? The SO and I moved to Texas recently, and left a lot of stuff behind and I am uncertain if my current pot is up to the task.