how much is too burnt?

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CaptainLongneck

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Did a burnt mead yesterday, the color changes on my drip chart look nice. I continued to cook it until it actually started to smell burnt, which may be pulling out too early.. but smelled amazing after I added the water..


uhh.

2 pounds clover honey,
water to a gallon,
2 tsp vanilla

my question is,

To me it tasted very bitter before I added the vanilla, however my brother says its tastes of cold coffee. Is this a normal flavor? How will it change as it mellows? what sort of tasty additives (fruits spices chocolates) could I add to increase its A.C. and make it a tad less bitter?

thanks
 
My Bochet lost almost all bitter flavor after the first 3 months. However I did a low boil for 1.75 hours so don't know if I burnt mine as much as you did. I also added raspberry and it is aging very well with every bottle getting better and better.
 
That's very nice to hear, though my brother liked it, the must was unbearably bitter to me. Raspberries where def on my list of flavor candidates, but I am going with cocoa for sure.

Additional question that has come up... It's so dark. No light passes through, looks like motor oil in water... Even the bubbles and krausen are yellow.... Normal? Interesting? The plague?

What's up
 
Sounds like you may have actually burned it, rather than just progressively caramelizing it.

As far as clarity--have you done any fining?
 
Yes it is normal at this stage. Mine is somewhat see-through after final racking/clearing. But even then there is just faint hints of a reddish amber light shining through the wine bottles. The bubbles/krausen will be yellowish so you are all good.
 
New racking. Man this stuff is still so bitter. I had added some chocolate/cocoa powder to it, and since racked off, and it barely changed the flavor....

Could I possibly mix this batch into something else.... Could I sweeten it with more fresh honey..... Or will it be a lesson learned that a burnt mead is really just an ambered one?

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If it is really bitter & you are not liking it you can try making a beer and leave out the bittering hops. Just blend this 50/50 with that once the beer is finished to make a bragott.
 
I think it will probably be fine, it sounds very like mine though I plan to age it a full 4 years, though I expect only the first 2 will be needed. Mine will be at a year in feb and is still sat on the cocoa nibs...
 
I like the beer idea, however; I have yet to brew any beer. Perhaps someone in my area stumbles across this and wants to try, I'm welcome to share.

In the meantime I will continue to let it sit and maybe improve.
 
Sad face, was looking over all my bottles and carboys, and found two little copper green mold colonies floating atop my burnt mead.

I knew I probably wasn't going to use it, but id have rather it been for some other reason than this
 
That's really too bad hopefully you try another one soon. I've got a bochet that I made about a month ago, I'm also a little concerned that I went too far and burned the honey but I was going to let it age out and try it anyway for posterity. The beer idea has got me thinking of a nice high ABV braggot to drink while ice fishing this year. When drinking while ice fishing you need something that won't freeze too easily.

Any thoughts on a Bochet Braggot recipe ?
 
I did a bochet bragott a while back. Man was it good. I really liked it. It however had too much head space in the carboy and I got a little behind on bottling and it got infected....:( I was treating it like a mead and I dont worry about infection like I do my wines but the bragott seems to need a little more attention than a strait mead. I changed the recipe a little for when I try it next but here is what I came up with:

Apple Cinnamon Bochet Braggot Recipe
5 gallon batch

3.3 lb of LME Briess Sparkling Amber
1 lb of flaked oats
1 TBS of amylase enzyme
3oz of cascade hops. (bittering and aroma)
5# of clover honey
4 cut up apples
4 sticks of cinnamon
2.5 tsp of DAP
2.5 tsp of yeast energizer
First make your starter:
2 cups water
½ cup of honey
¼ tsp yeast nutrients
10 fine chopped raisins
Yeast (Nottingham)

Sprinkle yeast on top or add in liquid yeast an cover with paper towel and rubber band for 8 hours.
Next boil the 5 lb of Honey with a cup of water for 2 hours on low heat.
Start the LME plus 2 cups of water to boil. Add in 1oz of hops at the start of the boil which will be 1 hour long from here. For the last 30 minutes add in 1oz of hops. For the last 10 minutes add in the last of the hops and the cinnamon sticks. (The honey and LME can all be in one pot, my pots are just too small so I do one of the honey and the other the LME/Hops boil.)
Core and cut apples into 1/8th pieces and add to carboy/bucket. Pour in the honey and LME all together with the hops and cinnamon sticks too.
Now take your oats and mix with 1 gallon of water. Bring the temp to 155*F and add in your Amylase enzyme. Hold that temp for 1 hour. Bring the temp to 170*F for 10 min and the remove from the heat. Strain the liquid into the carboy/bucket. Then run an additional gallon of water through the oats
Top off the fermenter with water to 5 gallons and adjust gravity to 1.070 with additional honey if needed.
Pitch the yeast starter and attach blow off tube for the first 3 days and airlock for the first 1 – 2 months. Rack off of lees and let clear in secondary. Bottle from secondary or rack again and bottle.

If you want it to be harder to freeze then you could up the gravity to 1.107 with about 10 lb of honey rather than 5.
 
Yes I will try again. In the future it will turn out better and cleaner. I have thought a lot about doing a a braggot, but have no knowledge and experience with hops.
 
I made a bochet mead last December with some EC-1118, and it was quite bitter and harsh, up until about 2 months ago when I tasted it and it had dramatically improved. I added 2 ounces of medium roast french oak cubes and I tasted it again yesterday and WOW, it was actually good. I'm going to let it sit on the oak for maybe another month or two and then let it age another year. But anyway, I did have serious doubts about it since it did taste like ass for so long, but it just goes to show that it will get better with time.

It sucks that you found mold on your batch though. Maybe you could try racking most of the mead out from under the mold on the surface and seeing how that goes?
 
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