Black Cherry Sweet Stout Braggot

[Burquebrewer]

I am a long time beer brewer, fairly new to mead (about six batches made) and I am making my first braggot. It is now in the secondary. I have a few questions from the folks on this forum:

First, the recipe:

2.5 gallon batch

4 lbs US 2 row
2.5 lbs locally sourced unfiltered raw Wildflower honey
8 oz Chocolate wheat malt
8 oz Victory Malt
6 oz Carapils
5 oz Roasted Barley
2 oz Maltodextrine
1/2 oz Calypso hops (13% AA) at 30 min
0.3 oz Calypso Hops at 10 min
0.3 oz Calypso at flameout
14 oz black cherry juice in the secondary
8 oz black cherry juice at bottling

Nottingham yeast rehydrated

OG- 1.091
IBU's- 64


I mashed in at 157 for 40 minutes
boil for 90 minutes

Questions:

1) do I treat this more as beer or a mead in terms of fermentation?

2) how long does this braggot need to age?

3) Do I carbonate it? if so, what is the best method? IS the Nottingham yeast going to be exhausted after say about 12% ABV? If I pitch a higher Alcohol tolerant yeast at bottling, will it consume more of the unfermented sugars in the brew and create bottle bombs? I do not have keg small enough to force carb 3 gallons....

Thanks in advance for the advice

 

[bernardsmith]

Not an expert braggot brewer but I would think that the only sugars left in any braggot will be the unfermentables that come from the grains. That means, just like beer your braggot will be sweet even if the braggot is carbonated in the bottle.
Do you treat this brew like a mead or a beer? In my opinion if you added the honey to the boil then you already decided that you were making a beer. If you added the honey to the primary after the wort had cooled enough for you to pitch the yeast you were making a mead.
How long to age? The higher the SG the longer it will need to age... I would think in this case you are going to want to age this about 6-9 months - longer perhaps as you do not seem to be adding any nutrients (the grains will have some but I am not sure that they will have enough for the honey).. I might use two packs of yeast.

 

[Burquebrewer]

Not an expert braggot brewer but I would think that the only sugars left in any braggot will be the unfermentables that come from the grains. That means, just like beer your braggot will be sweet even if the braggot is carbonated in the bottle.
Do you treat this brew like a mead or a beer? In my opinion if you added the honey to the boil then you already decided that you were making a beer. If you added the honey to the primary after the wort had cooled enough for you to pitch the yeast you were making a mead.
How long to age? The higher the SG the longer it will need to age... I would think in this case you are going to want to age this about 6-9 months - longer perhaps as you do not seem to be adding any nutrients (the grains will have some but I am not sure that they will have enough for the honey).. I might use two packs of yeast.

Thanks for the input Bernard,

I did start adding SNA's after I racked it to the secondary (at three weeks). Also, I did not boil the honey, I added the honey to a small amount of water heated to about 90 degrees, just to get it fluid, then added that to the primary.

I guess carbing it in the bottle after three weeks in the secondary may be the best bet? Do it before the yeast all flocs out, then let it age in the bottles for 6-9 months?

 

[bernardsmith]

The yeast need nutrients soon after they are rehydrated and begin to become active in the must or wort, so adding nutrients in the secondary may (may) create off favors rather than provide the yeast with enzymes they no longer need in quite the same amounts as they did when the gravity was closer to 1.090. The yeast in the secondary have either done all the heavy lifting they need to do or if they have not the secondary may really be their primary.. You don't say at what SG you transferred the braggot and or how many more points you thought the yeast had still to go...

 

[Burquebrewer]

I transferred at 1.014. I suspect that it had about 6 points left to drop, probably all from the honey, so I felt nutrients at that point might help the yeast finish up the fermentables from the honey.
So far it has dropped one more point to 1.013 and has held there for a couple of days..

 

[bernardsmith]

How would a beer finish? I imagine about 1.013 or thereabouts... so I would think that there is no more sugar to ferment... You might want to monitor the gravity another two or three times over the next week or two..

 

[Burquebrewer]

How would a beer finish? I imagine about 1.013 or thereabouts... so I would think that there is no more sugar to ferment... You might want to monitor the gravity another two or three times over the next week or two..

Thanks again!

 

[Burquebrewer]

How would a beer finish? I imagine about 1.013 or thereabouts... so I would think that there is no more sugar to ferment... You might want to monitor the gravity another two or three times over the next week or two..[/QUOTE

According to BeerSmith, it should finish out at 1.008 or thereabouts, but then again, BeerSmith is not really designed for meads or braggots.

 

[bernardsmith]

What would that calculator suggest would be the finishing gravity if you added no honey but everything else was the same (presumably the volume of water would be increased by about a quart... )

 

[Burquebrewer]

What would that calculator suggest would be the finishing gravity if you added no honey but everything else was the same (presumably the volume of water would be increased by about a quart... )

Starting gravity without the honey is 1.052
Final gravity without honey is 1.013

 

[Burquebrewer]

What would that calculator suggest would be the finishing gravity if you added no honey but everything else was the same (presumably the volume of water would be increased by about a quart... )

I see your point. Thx again. That will definitely help me when calculating the FG on my future braggots....

 

[Burquebrewer]

Update on this - I bottled almost a week ago with cherry juice. I used 1 2/3 cups of juice w/ SG of 1.070 for 3 gallons. So, I had to check to make sure it was carbonating...

It is delicious. Very green, but still a great tasting braggot for where it is. I can identify the flavors that will mellow out (alcohol hotness, roasted flavor from the dark grains, yeast) but there are no off flavors that I'm noticing. I'm thinking its going to be fantastic at 4-6 months. Cherry is noticeable but not cloying or overpowering, even after only 6 days in the bottle.

It's carbonating just fine with the cherry juice.