Medieval Burnt Mead!

[PedalPirate]

Just happened along this thread by accident and read it all the way through salivating. I've never made mead before, but I think I'll try a 5 gallon batch this weekend. I don't have any experience with it, but has anybody considered distillers yeast?

 

[Newsman]

Just happened along this thread by accident and read it all the way through salivating. I've never made mead before, but I think I'll try a 5 gallon batch this weekend. I don't have any experience with it, but has anybody considered distillers yeast?

My first response to that is "why?" If you're already getting 12-15% alcohol (which seems reasonably possible) with regular yeast, why bother with distiller's yeast?

 

[PedalPirate]

Dunno. Just a thought. By caramelizing some of the sugars you don't have to worry about fermenting it too dry. Might bypass some of the issues I've read about some people's yeasts not converting the fermentables completely and ending with higher than desired FG's.

 

[NyQuil]

Just read through all 43 pages. Might give this a shot when I have a free fermenter.

 

[Arpolis]

You should. It is a fun twist on mead I think. And it is about all I do lack the few melomels I put together. Also I have noticed with orange blossom honey you get a surprising amount of citrous character to show through. Even if you cook the honey really dark. Makes a really cool mead. Just bottled a 5 gallon batch of that. My prior 1 gallon batch of it had people trying to guess the flavor and they asked if I added apples, oranges, lemons. But nope! Just burnt honey, 71b yeast and proper nutrients.

 

[Cedar1234]

Getting 5 kilos of honey that had just a little too much water content. It had started to ferment naturally but had been put into cold storage to stop it. Gonna do a bochet with it and have just read the whole thread. Some good info here. Here's to hoping I'll get the water content out quick enough and carmelization to happen so I don't have to stand there stiring it for all day haha. But I'm very excited to try this! Gonna just wing it. And if I have extra, I'll do a bochet cyser, a straight bochet, and a regular cyser and regular semi sweet mead with my other honey I have, well brewing a dunkelweisen on Sunday.... Busy day indeed! All well studying to take my bjcp tasting exam next weekend. Cheers!

 

[Awastatyme]

I didn't read through all 43 pages but the guy (Johnny Max) in the video was a co worker of mine. He started up a brewery call Texas Big Beer Brewery

 

[Paps]

Some pics when i did a Bochet long ago.
The glass carboy might actually be a hard cider as these pics are pretty old but it looks a bit too dark for a cider so indeed it may be this Bochet.

 

[Dr_Floyd]

I've made 3 versions of the same Bochet with varying results and the last one is the best alcohol I've ever made. First though I recommend cooking the honey indoors with no open access to the outside world because you will attract a lot of bees while boiling honey.

Batch 1: Boiled for around an hour, smell was toast and smokey. Boiled Honey Taste was Chocolate, Cherries and Toast. The mead itself tastes terrible for a while in Secondary but smooths out and turns delicious during finally clearing/aging.

Batch 2: I boiled it for less time so overall it was lighter color. Smelled like toasty honey. Boiled Honey Taste like Cherries and Toast. Final product was good but not as good as Batch 1.

Batch 3: about an hour boil, same taste and smell as Batch 1. This time though I dropped a Medium Toasted American Oak stick in for about a month. The final product was well rounded and tasted unique and amazing.

The boiling removes all original smells the honey once had so I wouldn't blow a bunch of money on anything fancy but still buy something quality.

 

[NyQuil]

So when you do this do you bring it to a boil and then maintain it for an hour? I want to try this but don't want to burn my house down.

 

[Dr_Floyd]

So when you do this do you bring it to a boil and then maintain it for an hour? I want to try this but don't want to burn my house down.

Yes, you keep it boiling for the entire time. Fair warning though, it boils over extremely easily and quadruples in volume. Stirring helps as well as air flow over the top of the pot (blowing on the foam gently will get it to calm down). And don't worry about clean up, all the honey cleans off with some hot water and soap after you finish.

You will want it to rapidly cool because that sucker will continue to cook for hours after you take it off the heat. In order to do this safely you need to have several Cups of water at the ready. Once you have finished cooking and removed it from the heat you will pour one cup of hot water (not boiling but hot) in to your cooked honey and slam a lid on it as quickly as possible because the temperature difference will create an almost explosive reaction! After it calms down dump another cup of hot water and close the lid. After this add a few cups of cold water until it stops reacting. Then continue your regular Mead Making routines once it reaches room temp. I personally recommend tasting a bit of the honey after it cools to see just how different it now tastes!

 

[nitack]

Yes, you keep it boiling for the entire time. Fair warning though, it boils over extremely easily and quadruples in volume. Stirring helps as well as air flow over the top of the pot (blowing on the foam gently will get it to calm down). And don't worry about clean up, all the honey cleans off with some hot water and soap after you finish.

Listen to this and go REALLY slow on the boil. It will start boiling fast, get very foamy, and will boil over if you are not careful. Start with the heat low and only turn it up slowly. It is going to take a long time, don't try to rush it by turning the heat too high.

 

[JunkCatsOnThePorch]

Whoa! This sounds like a nightmare! Anyone with some true stories?

 

[Johan__]

We didnt experiens problems besides the foam then boiling and we had alot of room in the kettle.

We lett the honey cool for 10 min before adding 1 liter of boiling hot water. Then we stird it in and lett it cool for a while before adding more cold water.

Will get back with tasting notes later this weekend.

View attachment 1458798693962.jpg

 

[Paps]

Whoa! This sounds like a nightmare! Anyone with some true stories?

Nothing too bad.....i made mine outside but lived in Roswell New Mexico at the time and thought "This is a desert, there's no bees around here."
I was so very,very wrong.
A few splatters of the stuff leaped out of the brewpot and onto the concrete in the side yard. I thought "Great. That's going to be a big arsepain to clean." Then every bee in a 5 mile radius showed up. Going from my vuage memory i want to say it was 50-100 or so bees that showed up and swarmed the ground of the hot gooey honey.Being allergic to them i went inside. (the brew kettle had allready been moved inside by this point) After an hour or so the bees had completely removed any honey from the ground so i guess it wasnt so hard to clean it off the concrete after all. Did not get stung once luckily. However now being in Arkansas and knowing that there are bee farmers within 15ish miles of me...I`ll not be doing this outside again.

 

[Morit]

Whoa! This sounds like a nightmare! Anyone with some true stories?

I live in a city, surrounded by the concrete. And I had a window just slighty open plus I had a ventilation hood to suck whatever is boiling...
I got like twenty bees in the house after just a couple of minutes...

 

[Dr_Floyd]

Alternative methods recommended to me have been Pressure Cooking (Canning Jars) and Crock Pots. Both supposedly are foamless and no boil-over clean-up! Now I've never tried these methods so I can't speak for their efficacy or quality of end product but they may be worth looking in to.
View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1458864007.012649.jpgView attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1458864051.448371.jpg

 

[bernardsmith]

Only made bochet once - Just bottled it the other day and I cooked my honey in the oven at 350 F inside the crock pot of a slow cooker. Cooked the honey for two hours and had no problems with boil over and had complete control over the temperature. Aim to make another batch cooked for 3 or 4 hours to see the difference that the time cooking makes to the flavor.

 

[nitack]

Whoa! This sounds like a nightmare! Anyone with some true stories?

Just think about this. That splattering that can happen with the honey, if it lands on you skin... It's basically like hot tar landing on you. Boiling hot, thick and sticky, stuck to your skin. Wear protective gear.

 

[Newsman]

Crock-pot sounds like a good idea... especially if you use one of those disposable crock-pot liners.

 

[bsjracing]

Whoa! This sounds like a nightmare! Anyone with some true stories?

Carmelized 3lbs of honey last weekend over a campstove....first there was one bee...then he brought a friend....and then they brought friends....and sure enough after awhile I had like 20 bees in a bit of a hover around my boil pot...

 

[Maylar]

Carmelized 3lbs of honey last weekend over a campstove....first there was one bee...then he brought a friend....and then they brought friends....and sure enough after awhile I had like 20 bees in a bit of a hover around my boil pot...

Did you share any with them? I think I would have let them lick the spoon at least.

 

[gnwy]

Just started a batch this morning, 22 pounds of honey in a 8 gallon pot, and we still almost had a boil over. Had to remove it from the heat a few times, and if we ever do it again we'll put newspaper down on the floor to catch all the little honey bombs that fly out of the bubbling pot. Didn't burn it black but it was damn dark, and started smelling a little burnt. Diluted it to 6 gallons and had a SG of 1.120, added yeast energizer, and nutrient, then pitched EC-1118. hope this works out because we're going to have a bunch to drink in 18 months or so.