The podcast where I was interviewed about mine is finally up.
http://brewbubbas.com/Site/Brew_Bub...g_a_Bochette_&_Using_Nitrogen_Cavitation.html
Medieval Burnt Mead!
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It's been something over eight months. I went low effort and haven't racked it, just topped up the airlock now and again.
It's still as black as black.
http://i.imgur.com/D0Jxz7p.jpg
It's still as black as black.
http://i.imgur.com/D0Jxz7p.jpg
MarshmallowBlue
Well-Known Member
Put a flashlight up to it. I bet it's more deep ruby than black.
Go to your local brew your own shop and use their kettles to cook up your Bochet. These are 25 gallon kettles at Flying Barrel in Maryland, a 5 gallon bucket of honey tried to come out the top anyway but did a really good job. It does taste more roasted marshmellow then when we did it in a pressure cooker. WVMJ
TeufelHundenM198
Well-Known Member
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.
~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.
So I have 5 lbs of some sort of honey I got last year as part of our local home brew club's group project. I didn't use it to brew beer and ever since I started reading this thread, I've been wondering if I should use it to make this stuff. My question is -- how much Bochet can I make from 5# of honey that's been cooked down????
StefanK
Active Member
Read through the whole 5 years of this thread. Im making this one TODAY. I hope no fire ensues, but if it does, i'll post the story. I laughed a lot with this one, and at the same time I was almost drooling.
Great! Hope you enjoy the process. You should join in on the following thread, it would fun.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f30/bochet-group-brew-solera-style-481763/
Thanks. May give that a shot.
Might add a bit of frozen AJ concentrate to add flavor and sugar (not that it needs any extra sugar to convert to alcohol! )Ended up making a 1 gallon batch today, just waiting on it to cool down so that I can pitch the yeast.
Ended up cooking the honey for about 90 minutes and got it a pretty nice color:
It's not burned, but about as close to it as I felt comfortable
I might have gone a little bit heavy on the honey, ended up with a little over 4 lbs for the gallon of mead that I'm making. The OG was 1.135, so I'll have to see what it ferments down to.
It's a pain to get spices in and out of the gallon bottle, so I made tea out of the spices and let that steep for a couple hours and added that to the final mix together with a split vanilla bean. Looking forward to seeing how this turns out.
How long do you guys let it sit before you bottle it? Since it's only a gallon I'll probably bottle it in 6 oz bottles so that I can taste it as it ages.
Edit: Messed up my OG. Ended up with 1.135
Ended up cooking the honey for about 90 minutes and got it a pretty nice color:
It's not burned, but about as close to it as I felt comfortable
I might have gone a little bit heavy on the honey, ended up with a little over 4 lbs for the gallon of mead that I'm making. The OG was 1.135, so I'll have to see what it ferments down to.
It's a pain to get spices in and out of the gallon bottle, so I made tea out of the spices and let that steep for a couple hours and added that to the final mix together with a split vanilla bean. Looking forward to seeing how this turns out.
How long do you guys let it sit before you bottle it? Since it's only a gallon I'll probably bottle it in 6 oz bottles so that I can taste it as it ages.
Edit: Messed up my OG. Ended up with 1.135
Just went back and re-read the first couple pages of this thread and didn't see much mention of which yeast one should use. Is there a preferred yeast for making this stuff?
TeufelHundenM198
Well-Known Member
I used Lalvin D47 in mine.
I did a 0.1 gallon of wildflower just to add to another honey.. and I burned it. Overburned.
But I read the whole tread and I found noone that overburn their honey.
My taste like crap. It smells burnt, bitter.. really, really bad. A bit like fried pan also..
And it was done in a nice pot with thick bottom on small flame with stiring all the time.
I am shure nothing can be done from it.
Was it too much, or there was something with the honey?
And there was a smoke which lasted for like a minute or some till I realised "hey, it must be that black smoke they talk about, I will quit now"
Heres the movie from last part:
I did another just after, and quit much before the blackness, when it was still brown and it taste great..
But I read the whole tread and I found noone that overburn their honey.
My taste like crap. It smells burnt, bitter.. really, really bad. A bit like fried pan also..
And it was done in a nice pot with thick bottom on small flame with stiring all the time.
I am shure nothing can be done from it.
Was it too much, or there was something with the honey?
And there was a smoke which lasted for like a minute or some till I realised "hey, it must be that black smoke they talk about, I will quit now"
Heres the movie from last part:
I did another just after, and quit much before the blackness, when it was still brown and it taste great..
Last edited by a moderator:
TeufelHundenM198
Well-Known Member
It's going to depend a lot on personal tastes...
But for me, I doubt I'll ever oak this stuff. The complexity and the mouth feel of a "naked" bochet already leaves so much for the drinker to mull over, it's a conversation piece by itself. I probably won't add fruit or other flavors to my stuff either, though people do from time to time with good results.
If you decide to oak your bochet, be sure to post up about the results.
Oaking and fruit are further options to a Bochet. We have a dried elderberry Bochetomel going, with oak, its beautiful and its going to be backsweetened with some reserve caremalized honey we saved from caremalizing the honey at the start. We also added a few vanilla beans and some cocoa nibs. Everything in this special Bochetomel is aimed at amplifying the taste of the burnt honey. WVMJ
Here's the one I made back in January. Pretty decent. It isn't as dark as many folks do because I caramelized the honey additions separately in 5 steps ranging from black to raw. It was oaked, but I didn't use any spices.
It worked well enough. I don't recall ever seeing a standard anywhere and if I had, I'd have ignored it anyway.
Rambunctious
Well-Known Member
Burnt mine in the nesco slow cooker over the coarse of a Satuday. Clean up is pretty easy with hot soapy water. Amazing how water soluble that black goo still is. Started mine in March before the bees came out. It is done fermenting needs to age still pretty hot. My 1000 lumen lamp barely show through tho other side of my 1 gal fermenter.
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It's actually pretty easy.
Cleaning out hop sludge is harder.
It pretty much all disolves back into the water you add.
I just kept my burner on and stirred as i added water, within 5 minutes all the goo was reabsorbed into the liquid. As scary as it might seem to clean this stuff, it's a breeze.
Rambunctious
Well-Known Member
Blasphemy! Hops! No hops this is not beer but a fine wine! Lol... Ferment on to each his own.
Very dark room, very bright light.
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Very dark room, very bright light.Sent from my iPad using Home Brew
It's..........so.........pretty........
This pic reminds me of HAL from 2001 A Space Oddysey. "I'm sorry, I can't do that, Dave!"
I think your 'overburnt' one is the goal of a bochet... and you just don't like it. The less burnt one you did afterwards was actually not burnt and just caramelized most likely.
Several people on these forums brew beer and would be familliar with cleaning up hops. It was a comparison/refference for people. I didn't say that i used hops in a bochet.
Hops in a bochet might actually be an interesting thing!
Goofynewfie
Well-Known Member
My batch stalled at 1.050 and after attempting several different ways to get it restarted with no luck I threw it in a 5g carboy and topped up with water and 12lbs wildflower honey. 9 months later I have this. Caramelly and drinkable now. I think it will be amazing in a few years
I dont think it is a matter of liking.. it smells.. burnt. Bad. Really, like an old frying pan..
I kept the burnt honey so maybe I will make something with it and see what will it become then...
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