Drunken Farmers' Hopped Saison Cyser

[jdhasse]

Bump - just reading through this and interested as well. Likely going to brew this in a few weeks

 

[habrew]

I guess I don't understand the reason for boiling the honey. When I make hopped meads I boil the water with the hops, allow the water to cool and then mix with the honey. That ensures that all the volatile flavor and aromatic molecules in the honey stay in the mead and are not boiled off...

I saw a couple posts asking why boil hops with the honey.
The reason is that the alpha acids that add the bittering will bond with the sugars and retain the flavor better.

 

[bernardsmith]

I saw a couple posts asking why boil hops with the honey.
The reason is that the alpha acids that add the bittering will bond with the sugars and retain the flavor better.

habrew - Thanks but I am always the skeptic.
1) the hop tea will be used to create a must with the honey just as soon as the tea has cooled enough so as not to boil off any of the volatile aromatics contained in the honey. The bonding won't happen then? And
2. This is for mead - not beer. There is no necessary residual sweetness that the acidity of the hops is being asked to counter-balance. Too much acidity will over-balance the mead and my thinking is that with a hopped mead I am looking for the hop flavors and not the acidity itself. (Honey is in and of itself quite tart - or more accurately can have a very low pH. So I guess I still don't see the value or the necessity of damaging the honey in order to boil the hops. Brewers love heat - wine makers tend to avoid fire except as a very, very last resort.

 

[habrew]

If you only want flavor then you should not be boiling or steeping the hops. The boil breaks down the aromatic oils but release the bitterness. You may want to add hops as a 2nd ferment addition or later.

edit: Typing with thumbs