Medieval Burnt Mead!

[BargainFittings]

I would guess you did not have it stirred well if that was your gravity reading.

 

[qbst]

A very real possibility. I just wanted to make sure I'd made a mistake. Thanks!

 

[diablodawg]

Just put together a burnt pineapple mead. 3 lb of honey boiled for around 90 minutes, plus the juice of three cans of pineapple chunks (only pineapple, pineapple juice, and concentrate. Used wine yeast and intend to keep it for a year. Rack to secondary after a month or so? What do you think?

 

[dmomo]

It's hard to describe the taste, and equally as hard to say whether or not I like it. It smells amazing. To say it's complex is putting it lightly. It smells smokey and sweet at the same time. The taste is another thing all together. It almost tastes like flat cola, with a bit of rum in it. There are certainly notes of caramel apples and toasted marshmallows, but predominantly, flat cola.So, all in all, at this point in its age I'd say I doubt I'll be making this mead again. Though, it IS good, and in some weird way I AM enjoying it.

BTW, it looks like flat cola too.

Wow. It sounds like you're describing Moxie.

 

[polski]

We have seven hives and sell honey to our members at the golf club and with some of it have been making mead. Simple recipes producing strong, dry mead seems to be the most popular with our friends. We made 10 litres of burnt mead first of Jan/12 not knowing what to expect and later in the month made 2x10 more for a total of 30 litres. The video of the guy making burnt mead with his goat was our recipe and I have to say that we didn't let it get to the tar stage though we cooked it for 40 min over a turkey burner(propane).
Adding the water produced the expected fireworks which resulted in some overflowing in one batch but ok with the other two. Yeast addition, aeration and fermenting was as normal. Being very inquisitive we racked after a month and had to try it. Amazing taste with as mentioned above with caramel, coffee and black currant noted. A dozen people have tried it and they all love it...this after only seven week! So we are bottling and hiding it and this week making 20 more litres which we hope will turn out the same way.
If I can find the photo history we made while cooking the honey with the different colours I will post later...all in all a very enjoyable procedure...polski

 

[tdogg]

Man this sounds awesome! This thread was started quite a while ago, does anyone one have more pics or tasting notes? Is there anything such as a Bochet Melomel or a Bochet Metheglin?

 

[TheBrewingMedic]

tdogg you can make bochet anyway you like, your base flavors are going to be a smoky, slightly sweet, deep caramel, toasty marshmallow type flavor, so match up things you think would go with that. look for the "leap year 2012" thread, I think thats the title. A bunch of us are making a Cocobochet with cacao nibs and vanilla beans. guess that could fall into the metheglin bochet hybrid category.

 

[viking]

I am going to make another batch of this sometime this year. I boiled the honey for 45 minutes, and it caramelized the honey nicely! I did not get a smokey flavor, but it was good. There was the roasted marshmallow smell when the honey was boiling, but it did not come through with the finished mead. I might try adding vanilla to my next batch. Wish I could give a better description of the mead, but it is all gone!

 

[biochemedic]

Man this sounds awesome! This thread was started quite a while ago, does anyone one have more pics or tasting notes? Is there anything such as a Bochet Melomel or a Bochet Metheglin?

That's the great thing about homebrewing...limited mainly only by your imagination. I'm already trying to figure out how I can get SWMBO to agree to me doubling my annual apple cider acquisition this fall so I can make a bochet cyser along with my regular one, and some sort of Graff along with my regular spiced cider...

 

[Arpolis]

Man this sounds awesome! This thread was started quite a while ago, does anyone one have more pics or tasting notes? Is there anything such as a Bochet Melomel or a Bochet Metheglin?

This is my last gravity reading sample at day 31 of my Bochet Metheglin/Melomel triple hybrid. It is made from 1.75 hours of slow boiled Sams Club honey & 20 bags of Celestial Seasonings Raspberry Zinger herbal tea. 2 gallons total.





It was still pretty sweet then but was just racked at that point and I have not checked it since. It's about 2 months old now.

 

[gilliam]

Man this sounds awesome! This thread was started quite a while ago, does anyone one have more pics or tasting notes? Is there anything such as a Bochet Melomel or a Bochet Metheglin?

I set my winter mead about ten days ago, which is consists of boiled honey (ca 30 min on rather high heat), saffron, cinnamon, raisins and apples.
I have no idea how you would classify that one.

We'll see how it turns out...

 

[TheBrewingMedic]

consists of boiled honey (ca 30 min on rather high heat), saffron, cinnamon, raisins and apples. I have no idea how you would classify that one.

a melobochetheglin?

 

[Revvy]

Did the mods edit this thread and take the word Brochet out of the title? why?

 

[huesmann]

Maybe because there's no R in bochet?

 

[Revvy]

Maybe because there's no R in bochet?

That's why I can't find the threads.....Never realized I was spelling it wrong.

 

[Psychodrea]

I'm making this right now, and I turned my back. 2 seconds later I had a honey waterfall going down my stove. All clean and its going again with the simmer select set so it won't ever come to a boil.

 

[conpewter]

My bochet mead finally tastes good! It was hot for the first year after bottling. I now think it is pretty good. Just 2.5 years after brewing it. I suppose with an OG of 1.132 it would take a while to age.

Had a tasting this past weekend at a get-together with some great people. I got good reviews mostly. Some people thought it was too burned tasting, others thought it could use more burned notes. I feel that it is pretty good, I don't get burnt flavors, but get a lot of caramel flavors. Guess it is time to start the next batch...

Also... I thought it was brochet as well, not sure why

 

[Yooper]

Had a tasting this past weekend at a get-together with some great people. I got good reviews mostly. Some people thought it was too burned tasting, others thought it could use more burned notes. I feel that it is pretty good, I don't get burnt flavors, but get a lot of caramel flavors. Guess it is time to start the next batch...

I thought it was really good! But I'm one of the "too burned" tasting people. Yet others thought it could have more of that flavor, so it must be a matter of taste. My preference would be just a tiny bit less of the burnt flavor, because I really liked the rest of it. I think when it's so strongly burnt flavored that it detracts from the nuances and balance of the other flavors, if that makes sense.

Of course, I'm one of those who doesn't like "dark" sugar foods that much. By that I mean I don't care much for toffee or dark caramel. That's probably why I felt the burned taste was strong. My thought is that even that flavor would mellow and age and if you were a patient soul, in three-five years you would have a perfectly balanced and smooth bochet mead. But I know I could never wait five years!

 

[Aoife3Sheets]

The Bee Folks honey company has a Meadowfoam honey, made from mallow plants. It tastes like marshmallow fluff. Could be amazing as a backsweetener...

I'm going to try this soon, but am going old school with it. I already have all the spices needed, so why not?

 

[gizmodog51]

has anyone considered anise & ginger for the spices?

i'm gonna do a pilot 1 gallon batch using these spices and will give an AAR once fermented......

GD

update: 1/13/13 making a brochet as i type. using five pounds of honey from my food storage which came from the mormon farm here in central florida..palmetto flower from what I was told thirty some years ago. dark and rich! adding some cloudy cider to it after the boil and will spilt between 2 gallon jugs.

had a thousand or more bees buzzing while cooking out side! the honey rendered down to a darkish brown /black. when adding the cider the honey soildified into a cystralille mass. am heating up tp boil to melt before transfering into jugs...
well i finally got my camera charged and i can't seem to post a picture??


reheating did the trick and strained at least 35 bees from the must that had sacrificed themselved in the name of honey while this was being rendered down.
5lbs of honey
1 gal of cloudy cider
a pinch of ginger
and i now have two 1 gallon jugs filled half way. will add yeat nutrient when cool then measure out yeast evenly for both jugs hydrate and pitch tonite.

bees are a buzzing!

GD

 

[wrkrB]

Excellent post on this topic with great pics here: Stark Raven Mead. I regularly reference the image of the honey at different stages when I'm cooking my "Creme Brew".

I typically scorch 10# of Costco Clover to the color indicated at about 90 or 120 minutes in the above post, and then put 5# of raw honey in a 5 gallon batch with Lalvin 1116 yeast. Comes out pretty sweet, so I call it my Creme Brew since the flavor is reminiscent of creme brulee. In my last batch, I also added some tea (English Breakfast) to give it a little dryness/tannins as well as provide additional nutrients for the yeast since I don't use a yeast nutrient (migraine issues). That came out really well, although it is still definitely more of a dessert drink.

 

[HopHeadGrady]

I would need to taste this first. Some things are not well known for very good reasons sometimes

 

[fc36]

Subbed... Gotta brew some bochet mead for full flavor effect.

 

[MaynardX]

A fellow chef of mine accidentally came up with a sauce after he over caramelized a honey reduction. He called it burnt honey Sriracha, which is amazingly delicious. I am definitely going to to try this with a gallon of alfalfa honey I bought a few days ago. Maybe I will just caramelize half of the gallon.

 

[HopHeadGrady]

Excellent post on this topic with great pics here: Stark Raven Mead. I regularly reference the image of the honey at different stages when I'm cooking my "Creme Brew".

I typically scorch 10# of Costco Clover to the color indicated at about 90 or 120 minutes in the above post, and then put 5# of raw honey in a 5 gallon batch with Lalvin 1116 yeast. Comes out pretty sweet, so I call it my Creme Brew since the flavor is reminiscent of creme brulee. In my last batch, I also added some tea (English Breakfast) to give it a little dryness/tannins as well as provide additional nutrients for the yeast since I don't use a yeast nutrient (migraine issues). That came out really well, although it is still definitely more of a dessert drink.

You are on a completely different level...lol

 

[dannylerch]

I really want to try this, but i don't plan on scorching. I'm just gonna caramelize some, maybe to a redish brown, not black. I feel like some of the translation is lost. It says blackish, not black like tar. blackish probably means a dark redish brown. As I imagine they may not of had the word brown back then.

 

[gizmodog51]

the directions i read which was from a 1543 booklet said to cook till ye seeth black puffs breaking forth from the froth.

i went pretty darn close to this. the fumes were soo over powering and my pot somewhat deep, i really couldn't tell what color the steam/smoke was.

when it appeared to be bluish colored i decided it probably would appear black if in a shallower vessel so i cut heat.

good luck it has a great smell to it coming from the air lock.
though mine is a hybrid sort with barley malt mixed in.
i had a very difficult time getting fermentation going on this style.

GD

 

[centworthy]

The Bee Folks honey company has a Meadowfoam honey, made from mallow plants. It tastes like marshmallow fluff. Could be amazing as a backsweetener...

I'm going to try this soon, but am going old school with it. I already have all the spices needed, so why not?

Oooooo will have to keep this in mind, have a bochet in the carboy now (3 months old)

 

[ccabman]

This sounds amazing. I am most definitely going to add this to my todo list. Thanks for the info.

 

[rstanavech]

Hmm, toasted marshmallows you say? May have to jump on the wagon on this as well.