Medieval Burnt Mead!

[WVMJ]

You need a bigger pot, the honey will foam up, we did 5 gallons of honey in a 25 gallon brewers tank and it tried to come out. What is the brown sugar for when you already have honey? Just go by your hydrometer reading, transfer from your primary to secondary around 1.020 or so, you dont want the pumkin to oxidize. Good luck. WVMJ

 

[Newsman]

Hey, everyone. Northern Brewer has a limited time discount of 20% off anything. I was thinking I might get 12# of orange blossom honey. Would that make a good bochet, and if so, how much bochet might I be able to make with that much honey?

 

[Rambunctious]

Do not waste good honey on any fermented beverage that must be cooked or boiled. Use the cheap stuff from the grocery store. Instead make a Cyzer or mead with the orange blossom honey.

 

[nickwoo]

I was wondering how log it took to ferment for you guys. Mine has started slowing down a lot. It started at 1.15 and dropped quickly to 1.070 then slowed down to 1.058 and now it has been a week to get to 1.054. I am using lalvin d47 with staggered nutrient additions.

 

[Newsman]

I was wondering how log it took to ferment for you guys. Mine has started slowing down a lot. It started at 1.15 and dropped quickly to 1.070 then slowed down to 1.058 and now it has been a week to get to 1.054. I am using lalvin d47 with staggered nutrient additions.

I've never made mead, but I've read a lot about it. I still plan to make it sometime when I have a bit more time, so take my question/answer with a grain of salt -- have you been "de-gassing" your mead? I think I remember reading that a build-up of dissolved CO2 will cause problems.

 

[nickwoo]

Yes i have been driving off the co2 every day

 

[LouieBlue]

Hi, this is my first post ever!

I actually just bottled a 5-gallon bochet batch yesterday; I threw a couple vanilla beans into the primary, otherwise it was all the (Costco) honey. It's already really interesting and tasty, about 13% abv, and I'm looking forward to seeing what happens to it after a year or three bottling.

But I already know I want to make another batch soon, and I saw some people had added cocoa nibs to bochet a while back so, I wondered if anyone had any reports of how it went, and how much cocoa people added to the batch. I'm thinking I'd want to use a sweet yeast for the mix in order for the cocoa not to make things too bitter, but I don't really know. Any help would... help, thanks!

 

[WVMJ]

LB, what is a sweet yeast? WVMJ

 

[Morit]

LB, what is a sweet yeast? WVMJ

Probably yeast that does not ferment that much, lowet alcohol % - higher sugar content...

 

[LouieBlue]

I meant one that doesn't have the highest alcohol tolerance, and so hopefully, the yeast will give up the ghost before converting all the sugars to alcohol. WLP720 maybe. I'm probably going to aim for a sweeter mead is what I was trying to say. May have to backsweeten it. (In other words, what Morit said)

 

[WVMJ]

Yeah I knew what you meant, the thing with Bochets is that the yeasts CAN'T digest all of the sugar in the first place since you caremalized some of them so its really easy to get a stuck ferment with a weak yeast, you are going to get some sweetness from caremalized sugars that cant be fermented so your SG is going to missguide you a little bit as to the potential. I would suggest a strong yeast that will ferment well, start low, step feed more caremalized honey, and maybe start off the ferment with a little bit of raw honey at the start to give the yeasts something easy to work on? WVMJ

(caint spell Can't, different from can)

 

[LouieBlue]

Good point, but this will be my second bochet. The one I bottled the other day did get stuck for a bit, though it turned out okay in the end. I'll think about what yeast I'm going to use; but do you have any insight as to the question I asked, about adding cacao?

 

[Morit]

...the thing with Bochets is that the yeasts can digest all of the sugar in the first place since you caremalized some of them so its really easy to get a stuck ferment with a weak yeast, you are going to get some sweetness from caremalized sugars that cant be fermented so your SG is going to missguide you a little bit as to the potential. I would suggest a strong yeast that will ferment well, start low, step feed more caremalized honey, and maybe start off the ferment with a little bit of raw honey at the start to give the yeasts something easy to work on? WVMJ

Sorry, but this looks like a probable teory of someone that did not do a bochet before.. There is not much differance between bochet and other kind of meads, and the SG differance is minimal.

 

[biochemedic]

Sorry, but this looks like a probable teory of someone that did not do a bochet before.. There is not much differance between bochet and other kind of meads, and the SG differance is minimal.

I would bet that WVMJ has made more mead and wine than most 5 or 6 of us put together, including bochet.

And it's not a "teory"... none of the bochet I have done has attenuated as far as would have been predicted if it was a 'normal' mead. If you've experienced otherwise, perhaps you have not caramelized the sugar as much as others have, or perhaps you have an infection with wild yeast or a bacteria that is able to metabolize the more complex sugars created by the caramelization process.

 

[LouieBlue]

For my first bochet, I used WLP735 (French White Wine Yeast), and I'm happy with the sweetness there. As I said, I did get a stuck fermentation for a bit, but managed to get things back on track. So the reminders to look out for this and beware are much appreciated, thanks! I may go for the same yeast on the next batch.

The reason I mentioned sweetness is if I use cacao to flavor the bochet, I don't want the flavor profile to lean too heavily towards the bitter side. Bio, I see that you have a cocobochet bulk aging right now. I'm sure it's too early to say for sure how it's turning out, but how much cocoa did you use (1 gal batch?), and in what form? How happy are you with it?

I started going through your posts, but you're prolific!

 

[biochemedic]

I used to post a lot more...life gets in the way...my cocobochet is meant to be a leap year mead, but I still need to get off my @ss and make a bottling plan....2016 is coming up fast!

For my palate, and I don't usually like sweet meads or drinks in general, you do still need some sweetness in a bochet...I have always back sweetened dispite the residual sweetness from the caramelization process.

I used dry cocoa powder, and I'd have to check my notes to remember how many ounces per gallon...

 

[WVMJ]

While I am NOT an expert on anything, mead or otherwise, last weekend we opened a bottle of Bochet we made and it was so smooth like good bourbon, colored a nice caramel brown and we have to put a mortitorium on drinking to quickly so it can age even more. If you can get your hands on some BeeCulture magazines we did a whole article on making Bochets as a way for beekeepers to use honey that might not be as attractive to sell fresh, we went to a brew your own place that had 25 gallon kettles and dumped a 5 gallon pail of honey in it and cooked it for hours, smelled the whole block, people coming into the shop seeking that compelling smell that they have never experienced before. We got it very dark, grey smoke puffing out the top, but stopped short of pitch black as we didnt know how hard it was going to be to clean the kettle (turns out it was very easy). So you are right, its a theory, might even be wrong, that the point about theories is you get to keep testing them over and over. WVMJ

Sorry, but this looks like a probable teory of someone that did not do a bochet before.. There is not much differance between bochet and other kind of meads, and the SG differance is minimal.

 

[WVMJ]

Yes on the nibs, we put ours in the secondary, it did get some bitterness that aged out in the secondary, adding vanilla beans and oak helped round things out, and we backsweetened with some more caremalized honey. The amount to add is going to be your personal preference, if you dont put in enough at the start you can always add more later and let it age some more on the nibs, we didnt want a chocolate mead with this, we wanted well rounded flavors that worked well together, burnt honey reaches out to vanialla, oak and chocolate as partners. We also have one with dried elderberries in it, that is a bit of an advanced bochetomel for us, its going to age for a couple years to let all those tannins dance. WVMJ

 

[Morit]

I would bet that WVMJ has made more mead and wine than most 5 or 6 of us put together, including bochet.

And it's not a "teory"... none of the bochet I have done has attenuated as far as would have been predicted if it was a 'normal' mead. If you've experienced otherwise, perhaps you have not caramelized the sugar as much as others have, or perhaps you have an infection with wild yeast or a bacteria that is able to metabolize the more complex sugars created by the caramelization process.

While I am NOT an expert on anything, mead or otherwise, last weekend we opened a bottle of Bochet we made and it was so smooth like good bourbon, colored a nice caramel brown and we have to put a mortitorium on drinking to quickly so it can age even more. If you can get your hands on some BeeCulture magazines we did a whole article on making Bochets as a way for beekeepers to use honey that might not be as attractive to sell fresh (...) We got it very dark, grey smoke puffing out the top, but stopped short of pitch black as we didnt know how hard it was going to be to clean the kettle (turns out it was very easy). So you are right, its a theory, might even be wrong, that the point about theories is you get to keep testing them over and over. WVMJ

Not ment to offend anyone. And by that answer I see that you are an expert, just a modest one
With my experience (and I have some with meads, less with bochets, including one that I burnet so much I think it is overburnt.. but I'll wait a year or two and return to it to see how it went) the differance was so minimal that I would not think about it for too long, certainly would not mention it to someone making it for a first time - unnessesarry information for some one having many, new informations at once.
Maybe it is becouse I try to have my meads sweet, so I add "too much honey" for yeast to handle or I backsweet afterwards. Maybe I use good yeast and good nourishments (cant find a better word, and english is not my primary, sorry)..

 

[biochemedic]

No worries Morit, my reply was kind of harsh too...apologies for that...
I would bet you are correct that the reason you've not noted any difference was that you intentionally started with a very high gravity that would stall the yeast before reaching a true terminal gravity.

I used dry cocoa powder, and I'd have to check my notes to remember how many ounces per gallon...

I used a little over 3 oz per gallon (20 oz total for a 6 gal batch.) It gets added after the first water additions but while still fairly warm, so that it's easier to "dissolve." Actually all you really get is a suspension, and lot of the cocoa powder eventually drops with the trub when the primary settles down...I eventually rack it into a secondary and let it bulk age...often there is another layer of settling after transfer. I have my current batch bulk aging in a corney keg...

 

[Morit]

I would bet you are correct that the reason you've not noted any difference was that you intentionally started with a very high gravity that would stall the yeast before reaching a true terminal gravity..

Yet still I always get to the alcohol content that my yeast are suppose to get.

 

[biochemedic]

Yet still I always get to the alcohol content that my yeast are suppose to get.

Right...you are reaching your yeast's tolerance before the sugar is running out, which is why you aren't seeing that potential difference in terminal gravity between a caramelized honey and regular honey...

 

[TeufelHundenM198]

Here's a glass from the bochet I posted about on post #258.

~15 months, not too shabby. I tried to get a shot in front of the sun, but the camera wasn't happy with me... no light penetrated it. I had a little wine tasting with 25 people attending, the bochet was one of 6 meads I had for everyone to try, and it came in a very close second behind a raspberry vanilla melomel. Most of the people who really like it didn't drink a whole lot, preferring to sip it and enjoy all the various flavors. 1-2 glasses each is all.

I'm going to do this one again, but I'm not going to use a blend of honey... just some of the wildflower honey from my own hives. I'm also going to take it off the heat and cool it the split second it turns black. Last time I let it boil for a while longer. I've got a gallon of the first batch left which I'll leave to age for another year or so. There's almost a bite to this before the sweetness and marshmallow and toffee come to you. I'd like to see if that calms down a bit, or if it's a matter of technique. If that's the case, I'll know in a year or so when my next batch is ready to drink.

Of all my wine tasting friends, exactly zero of them have even heard of Bochet before. I like that this tends to be kind of an oddball to folks outside of the mead world, and you just can't beat that jet black color in the glass. I'm going to keep some of this on hand at all times.

I opened up a bottle of that same batch, ~2 years old, plus or minus a bit of time.

The bite I first described really calmed down. It's no longer a sharpness followed by the sweet. The Toffee flavors have come to the front, nearly replacing the marshmallow. It's more of a well rounded wine... a bit less wild on the tongue.

I still have a couple bottles left. I'll open one per year from now on.

 

[nettekdl]

Well I think I may have over bolied my 1 gallon batch what do you all think, my whole house was pretty smoky and my 4lbs of wildflower looked like this after

 

[WVMJ]

Why did you stop halfwaythru? Looks like you did a good job, might need a little more headroom for your yeast to foam up, next winter this is going to taste good. WVMJ

 

[unclebrazzie]

Did not read through the entire thread but did anyone notice the resemblance to essentia bina? Essentially, this was first wort runnings which porter brewers would boil down and actually set on fire to create a black mas of caramelised goo, which would colour and flavour the brew.
This burnt honey looks very similar, idea-wise, but then again, I've never seen nor tasted essentia bina, so what do I know?

 

[nettekdl]

Well I stopped half way through because I made the mistake of making this inside out of fear of being swarmed by bees lol. Instead my whole downstairs filled with smoke, setting off all my smoke alarms, which automatically call the local fire department who then showed up at my door that is when I took it off heat

 

[rhoadsrage]

Well I stopped half way through because I made the mistake of making this inside out of fear of being swarmed by bees lol. Instead my whole downstairs filled with smoke, setting off all my smoke alarms, which automatically call the local fire department who then showed up at my door that is when I took it off heat

The only mistake was making 1 gal. I have some from a few years ago that is tasting even better. Because the fire dept. showed up does that mean they are coming back for samples?

 

[nettekdl]

They are right across the street so I suppose I could get them a sample if it comes out lol. However having never made this before I used wyeast dry mead on reccomendation of the mead guy at my lhbs, I pitched the whole thing into the 1 gallon batch and now after 48hrs there has been 0 activity. Common for this yeast or should I re pitch with a different yeast?

 

[techbrewie]

This makes me wonder if you can make belgian candi syrup, and ferment it in a similar process to mead to make a unique type of wine. What this guy is doing is more or less the process for making the syrup