Medieval Burnt Mead!

[Freezeblade]

I think the nottingham will probably take it to 10-11% or so, depending on your oxygenization, nutrient and energizer schedule.

 

[travestyofnature]

Have you read the tasting notes by Charlie Papazan on the bochet mead he tried for the Beer Examiner?

 

[nealf]

Here is my response from Johnny Max about his mead:

Johnny Max - I am thinking it will smooth out in 100 years. LOL
It has a very strong roasted marshmallow flavor and it is black as tar.
I have not tasted it in a long time, I am waiting...

 

[Kauai_Kahuna]

OK, this I have got to try, I think I still have around 3lbs kiawe honey, now what other heavy and rich honey can I get without selling my first born, (still working on that BTW).

 

[GuitarBob]

Just brewed this earlier today. I used ec-1118 (atleast I think thats what it's called), and I had an OG of about 1.090. I hope I picked the the right yeast, I'm thinking about adding more honey, but I'm not sure.

I noticed some floating things when I took my hydrometer sample does anyone have any idea what those could be. Maybe pieces of burnt honey.

 

[KingBrianI]

Just brewed this earlier today. I used ec-1118 (atleast I think thats what it's called), and I had an OG of about 1.090. I hope I picked the the right yeast, I'm thinking about adding more honey, but I'm not sure.

I noticed some floating things when I took my hydrometer sample does anyone have any idea what those could be. Maybe pieces of burnt honey.

I had the same thing. You can see it in my gravity sample picture below. I'm not sure what they are either but assuming, like you, that they're either bit's of burnt honey or some protein in the honey that has clumped together and fallen out.

Oh yeah, here's how it looks for the curious. A bunch of small particles formed at some point during the caramelization, any ideas what they are?

 

[GuitarBob]

That's exactly what mine ended up looking like. I basically cooked it until it smelt like it was burning then paniced and started adding water.

By the way how much honey did you use? I got a much lower OG and I used 4 lbs per gallon.

 

[KingBrianI]

I used 4 lbs of clover honey. Final volume was slightly less than a gallon. Did you take the gravity while it was still hot?

 

[GuitarBob]

I used 4 lbs of clover honey. Final volume was slightly less than a gallon. Did you take the gravity while it was still hot?

I didn't measure the temperture with a thermometer but it felt cool to touch, so it had to be close to room temperture. I had a little bit of honey stuck to the sides of the pot that I wasn't able to dissolve into the water I added, I'm guessing that may have made a small difference. It's also possible that my final volume was slightly over a gallon.

Still even when considering all these factors a difference of almost 40 gravity points seems pretty high.

I did use wildflower honey (not the best choice for meads, but I figured since it was going to be burnt it wouldn't matter.) I wonder if the different type of honey made a difference.

 

[EvilTOJ]

I'm starting a batch of this as we speak. I'm starting out with 6 lbs of cheap CHEAP walmart honey. Although I've noticed something that wasn't mentioned in any instructions. You know what happens when you make a brochet mead outside? You get a ****ton of bees, that's what! It was not even boiling 5 minutes before a bee landed in it. mmmmm bee parts.....

 

[EvilTOJ]

Well it's done and cooling. I let it boil a little TOO long, and it turned into a solid black mass. I added water and it softened up again. The steam also turned my hand yellow! Seriously!

 

[KingBrianI]

yeah, beautiful hands. but show us the must!!

and i feel like the darker, nastier and more burnt this thing is now, the better it will be in 20 years.

 

[EvilTOJ]

Must you ask for more pics? Here's more!



That there is the #1 reason why you should do this outside. It's a black carbonized mess.



Mmmmm pitch black....



I'm going to be racking this onto an apfelwein yeast cake so it should pickup with gusto. I hope.

 

[bubbachunk]

Very cool pics, I plan on doing mine in about 3 weeks

 

[travestyofnature]

Sweet pics, keep us updated. Its one of the first on my list when i get home.

 

[wayneb]

Looks like the stuff I just drained out of the oil pan of my subaru!

 

[Ryno]

I think I'll be ok..............ferment that sucka. Think of it as a Stout Mead

 

[GuitarBob]

I tasted a hydrometer sample of this today, and the burnt taste is very subtle and seems to work well with the honey flavors. At first I wasn't sure about this recipe, but now I have high expectations it. I think this mead is going to taste awesome when it's finished, and I don't think it will need to be aged more then an average mead.

If anyone else is tasting samples of this I would be interested to hear their thoughts on it.

 

[talenos]

That looks interesting, but man, I do not want to have to clean my kettle after that.

 

[KingBrianI]

Whoa! Just tasted mine and it's good! Aren't young meads supposed to be gross? There was still a lot of sweetness left but I expected that. I didn't pull enough to gravity test it but I'd estimate it's in the 1.020-1.030 range. I added an eight of a teaspoon of both yeast energizer and DAP to help it out. The most interesting thing though, is that it wasn't harsh at all. The caramelly flavor was pretty balanced and together with the sweetness was very pleasant without being cloying. There was no alcohol warmth whatsoever. And the biggest surprise of all, is, if you remember my recipe, the flavors the fresh sage and rosemary are giving it. It's amazing! Somehow the sage and rosemary flavors and aroma have morphed into a wintergreeny-minty flavor with a bit of resinous pine. It's very good. I was a bit worried it would taste too medicinal/culinary herby, but that's not the case at all. I'm seriously going to have to explore that herb combination in a gruit. This could seriously be the next big thing -- it's that good! I can already imagine it, sage and rosemary porter. Trust me, it's 100 times better than it sounds.

 

[blackwaterbrewer]

i just watched the video. was that a goat in the background? anyway, this is very exciting. anything that old is worth trying. i noticed that eviltoj used a stainless pot. that is why it burnt. you need thick cast iron or steel to cook that without burning it. i am going to make this in the next week. i will update.

 

[EvilTOJ]

Ah no, it burned because I had it over an open flame for 30 minutes, not because it's in a SS pot. Plus, this thing is called BURNT mead, it's supposed to burn! It could also be because I used a rather thin bottomed pot, rather than my nice sandwich layered bottomed pot instead.

 

[Kittyfeet]

Does anyone have any updates on their burnt mead? I'm really curious to know how it's coming along.

I started a one gallon batch this weekend, but because I would probably burn the house down if I cooked the honey on the stove, I threw the honey in my slow cooker.

30 hours on low, and the honey was nice and black. It only ran over the sides a little; the honey really does expand when it boils, but it was easy enough to clean up with a bit of warm water.

I added boiling water slowly to the honey after it was done cooking (I thought using water closer to the temperature of the honey would cause less of a mess), and it boiled up a lot anyways. Not sure if cooler water would have caused more or less chaos in the pot, tho.

I don't have a whole lot of fermentation activity yet; I'm going to wait another day and see how it's doing before I add more nutrients. I can't wait to taste it in a year.

 

[KingBrianI]

I'll give mine a taste tonight, it really needs to be racked to secondary but I've been putting it off because I'm not sure the best way to top off. Do you top off with just boiled water or water with honey in it?

 

[Kittyfeet]

Probably just water if it won't affect your abv too much. If you add more honey, it may restart fermentation.

 

[KingBrianI]

Forgot to update everyone. Transferred mine to secondary and instead of topping off I just hit it with some CO2. Taste was excellent. If you remember, I kind of steeped some fresh rosemary and sage for a few minutes after flameout to make my bochet a bit of a metheglin too. Amazingly, the two rather savory herbs have become quite floral and sweet in the mead. Almost minty with a fresh herbal aroma. The mead was still quite sweet from my use of an ale yeast. I think I'll pitch a packet of wine yeast to get it to dry out a little more, though it is still very good sweet. Any recommendations on a wine yeast to pitch? Color was a dark dark brown with a bit of ruby highlights, slightly hazy. The caramelized flavor came through a bit, though to be honest, I was paying much more attention to the herbal qualities in the very small sample I took (didn't want to waste much of the one-gallon batch).

 

[salad 419]

I did my first mead as a "burnt mead" a month ago. Although, I didn't burn the honey or do the whole volume of honey, so I don't know what the heck I made.

My procedure was:
caramelizing 1 1/2 pounds of honey for about 15 minutes on low flame, then adding Water and 12 pounds of honey, cooking it for about 5 minutes on low flame with yeast nutrient, cool, pitch champagne yeast.

Not sure of the OG because, well, uh, we forgot.

I don't think it will be worth mentioning the taste results when the time comes since it's not BURNT and only a fraction of the honey was caramelized. I appreciate the video link. It's nice to see how you're "supposed" to do it.

 

[specter623]

Alright, well, brewed this one up last night. Ran into a couple of problems, not the least of which was catching my stove on fire. Everything's fine though, and the fiancee didn't hit me or anything so that's good. Anyway, I made a gallon batch, and started with 4 lbs. of clover honey. Figured it didn't need to be anything special since all the aromatics would be burned off anyway. Upon heating, it almost immediately began to foam up, and didn't stop foaming up the whole time. Therefore, for the hour and a half I was cooking it on the stove, I was constantly adjusting the stove temp, stirring, and pulling it off of the eye when boilover was inevitable. After the hour and a half, the honey had turned a very dark brown, but not black, and the smell was beginning to develop a bit of "burnt", though not in a bad way. At that point I was tired of stirring and the constant attention necessary, so I figured it was dark enough. I watched the video of the guy on youtube making it, and although I thought for sure the sudden vaporization of the water when it contacted the hot sugar and the subsequent steam would throw his honey everywhere in a violent explosion, no such thing happened... for him. So armed with false confidence, I casually dumped 4 cups of water straight onto the molten sugar. And guess what. Yeah, I shot liquid magma all over the stove, the walls, the floor and not least of all, myself. Go figure, that's the kind of week I've been having. Luckily, it looked like most of the honey/water mixture stayed in the pot, so not to be dissuaded, I trudged on. My plan was to bring the mixture up to a boil, boil for 10 minutes, then take it off the heat, add the handful of sage and rosemary I picked from the yard, then let it cool overnight. I only made it 7 minutes into the boil. That's when the honey mixture that exploded and collected under the eye decided to combust. Now I had been smelling the burning honey for some time, but I was more like "hey, cool, roasted marshmallows" while I should have been like "dude, the stove smells like a marshmallow right before it becomes a fireball." So whoosh, the flames came up and danced merrily around the pot of boiling honey water. So I pulled the pot off the stove, dumped some baking soda on the flames (which worked very well actually to smother them), tossed the herbs in the pot, put the lid on, and began the arduous task of cleaning up. Luckily the fiancee was understanding and didn't injure me anymore than the napalm honey already did.

So that's the story. At one point I opened up the lid to look at the must and the herbal smell almost knocked me down. So I panicked and thought I must have added too much, so sanitized a slotted spoon and scooped them out. Luckily, this morning when everything was cool, I gave it a taste and the herbiness is just right. The sage and rosemary actually blend with the deep toffee and roasty flavors quite well. I pitched Nottingham because I had some handy. Hope that works out. Anyway I'm pretty excited about this one. Should come in somewhere between 15 and 16% ABV. I'm getting married in December so I'll plan on having a bottle then, though it will probably still taste quite young. Then again on anniversaries in years to come.

Not to laugh at your misfortune, but I literally loled here at work.

 

[iddqd]

I did some googling and found this thread with some more info: Brewing to the MAX! - making a Medieval Burnt Honey Mead

The link to the original recipe is broken, but here I managed to find it: Le Menagier de Paris: Table of Contents (c)J. Hinson tr.

It's under "Beverages for invalids".

 

[eulipion2]

The guy in the vid uses fire, and many have said they used their stove tops (with varying degree of success). The one pic of the propane cooker looks like quite an unholy mess. Does the propane heat the honey too quickly and/or too hot? If any of you had to do this again, would you use propane or the stove?

Thanks in advance.