What demon did I just conjure by brewing this?

[Hammertongue]

So here I am drinking Rye with a friend while distilling more Rye at the same time because... Rye not? All Dad Jokes aside, I do not know what I have done. I caramelized 5 lbs of honey and reduce it by about a 1/4, and dissolved it in spring water. Then after it reached Approx. 80 degrees F, I added a strong cup of black tea, a crushed cinnamon stick, yeast nutrients and for some ungodly heathenistic reason... I threw in 4 oz of cracked Rye (malted of course). It is fermenting nicely from all signs I have so far... but tomorrow I do my 2 week Hydrometer check, and check the smell and a slight taste to ensure my brews are moving in the right direction. I am planning on racking it to remove the grains and most of the lees if the abv shows promise.
My question... what should I be expecting from this? I know it is probably the most sketchy thing I have ever done with a mead. It may turn out to be tossed down the drain, but has anyone done something like this??? Dear sweet baby jesus someone help.

 

[bernardsmith]

Hiya Hammertongue and welcome to this forum.
Cannot speak to rye, but a braggot is a mead that is made with malted barley - neither an ale nor a mead but a braggot. Usually, braggots have half their sugar from the honey and half from the grain. Cannot see why rye would make an undrinkable mead if you like the flavor of rye... and you have added 4 oz of rye to 5 lbs of honey before you boiled off much of the water... so this may be a braggot-lite-like beverage. Cannot imagine that the gods of mead or the gods of ale will be demanding you pour this concoction down the drain. And as I say, though it sounds rye -lite, if you like the flavor of rye you might like the flavor that these grains add to your bochet (a mead made with caramelized honey).

 

[Hammertongue]

To be more specific, I caramelized the honey first, added all other ingredients mixed it vigorously to oxygenate, and then added dry cracked rye grains. not the usual procedure for sure. The sugars in the grain are not entirely fermentable and to be honest, I would put the content of the grain squarely at 3-6% fermentable and the remaining to be starch. I am simply looking to incorporate the smell of the Rye, and a bit of that "bite" it is known for. More or less I am trying to find new ways to add to the complexity of the flavor with different notes. This being a 1 gallon experiment, I hope it is something I can return to you all with success. If even possible, I would love to have someone try my meads and tell me what they think, so I can have an impartial opinion. Thanks again for the comment! Here is a look at the current "project"...lol

 

[yoop89]

If the rye you added was at 80F on the way down then you likely added some LAB(lactic acid bacteria) to the mix and could sour your mead. If im not mistaken all grains have a little bit of bacteria on them which die off during the boil of a normal wort.

Ive made plenty of lacto fermented veggies and sour beers as well but have never used grain as the inoculation so I cannot speak to how much you could have added to the mix.

 

[Hammertongue]

If the rye you added was at 80F on the way down then you likely added some LAB(lactic acid bacteria) to the mix and could sour your mead. If im not mistaken all grains have a little bit of bacteria on them which die off during the boil of a normal wort.

Ive made plenty of lacto fermented veggies and sour beers as well but have never used grain as the inoculation so I cannot speak to how much you could have added to the mix.

I added the Grains last, and the yeast I used was already well started when it was pitched. I think ill have to be more careful in the future if this turns out well. Will a very strong yeast be able to starve out the LAB? Or do the feed on different nutrient sources?

 

[yoop89]

Thats above my knowledge but I believe they can feed on both sugars and starches. I believe they also have a pretty low alcohol tolerance so if your mead gets into the higher range you may not notice any lactic acid production.

 

[yoop89]

If this project turns out well the safe bet in the future would be to boil your cracked rye for a minute in a small amount of water to kill off any LAB.

 

[Hammertongue]

I'm aiming high with this batch. Enough sugars to get upwards of 16-18%, and a high tolerance yeast as well... EC 1118. Perhaps I should look into a shorter time of allowing the grain to be in the mix, or change the time of exposure as well... maybe in secondary fermentation next time? thanks again for the information!

 

[bernardsmith]

I've made made by making a liquor from soaking wheat berries in water for three days and using that water to mix with the honey. Mead (and wine) has a low pH to begin with and so you are not getting the same sour bite as you might from a sour beer, but sour mead is very drinkable (in my opinion) though I never sent any off to competition.

That said, in my early days as a wine maker I also experimented in using rice and wheat and barley not as the sugar source but as the flavor source and they can indeed make lovely wines. I don't know that without enzymatic reactions you are going to obtain any fermentable sugars from the rye. The sugars are far to long and complex for yeast to ferment. But I am no expert - and after all, when you make bread and add yeast the yeast can and do find some sugars in the wheat that they can gobble up and spit out the CO2 - and that is true even when you make sourdough. So perhaps there is enough simple sugar in the rye for the yeast to dip their tiny toes in that water.. (is that a mixed metaphor? I think it might be. Sorry).

 

[DuncB]

" A man walks into a bar "

Ouch that is a mixed metaphor.

 

[bernardsmith]

" A man walks into a bar "

Ouch that is a mixed metaphor.

Nah.. Where I come from that's a pun...

 

[Hammertongue]

I've made made by making a liquor from soaking wheat berries in water for three days and using that water to mix with the honey. Mead (and wine) has a low pH to begin with and so you are not getting the same sour bite as you might from a sour beer, but sour mead is very drinkable (in my opinion) though I never sent any off to competition.

That said, in my early days as a wine maker I also experimented in using rice and wheat and barley not as the sugar source but as the flavor source and they can indeed make lovely wines. I don't know that without enzymatic reactions you are going to obtain any fermentable sugars from the rye. The sugars are far to long and complex for yeast to ferment. But I am no expert - and after all, when you make bread and add yeast the yeast can and do find some sugars in the wheat that they can gobble up and spit out the CO2 - and that is true even when you make sourdough. So perhaps there is enough simple sugar in the rye for the yeast to dip their tiny toes in that water.. (is that a mixed metaphor? I think it might be. Sorry).

I didn't rely on only the sugars from the grain. I used 5 lbs of honey for the main food source. I was simply using it for flavoring. As to the sugars available in the grain, there shouldn't be much even though it is malted. I havn't heard of people using dry grain in a hopping style of introduction to mead before so I wanted to try it... thus this batch of experimental "Gonr-A-Rye" as I call it.

 

[bernardsmith]

Not certain but I suspect that rye has about as much sugar as barley or wheat, so that might be about 40 points per pound, but to extract the sugar you need to either malt the rye or add enzymes to break the long sugars into smaller ones that the yeast can munch on. You can make a rye beer though, it seems malting rye is not as easy as malting barley but I think rye may have similar enzymatic power as other grains.