Medieval Burnt Mead!

[Newsman]

Probably 2 - 3 gallons depending on the ABV you want. If you made an apple bochet and used 100% juice and even cooked down juice mixed with the honey you can probably stretch it to 5 gallons.

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! )

 

[d-usa]

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

 

[d-usa]

And the final product in the carboy:

 

[Arpolis]

My meads/bochet go at a minimum of 3 months before bottling normally. I could bottle earlier but I usually forget about the gallon or get busy and it takes me a couple months to get around to it.

 

[d-usa]

Do you do a secondary and get it off the yeast before bottling?

 

[Arpolis]

Yes I do, I usually rack at about 30 days and sometimes rack a second time at 60 days but not always. Depends on how clear it was at first racking.

 

[Newsman]

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]

I used Lalvin D47 in mine.

 

[ncredneck]

Does this style age well with oak?

 

[Morit]

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..

 

[TeufelHundenM198]

Does this style age well with oak?

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.

 

[Arpolis]

I have a Bochet on oak now. It is planned to go 30 days on .5oz medium toast French oak and another 5 months on 1/4 oz medium toasted French oak. (1 gallon batch) I'll post how it goes.

 

[WVMJ]

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

 

[W0GWT]

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.

 

[WVMJ]

Thats the wrong kind of glass for a Bochet! WVMJ

 

[W0GWT]

Thats the wrong kind of glass for a Bochet! WVMJ

It worked well enough. I don't recall ever seeing a standard anywhere and if I had, I'd have ignored it anyway.

 

[WVMJ]

No, I mean its just not big enough!! WVMJ

 

[thecad]

going to be trying this soon. How hard is to clean the brew pot after burning the honey? Is it doable or should I try to find a cheap one and just toss it after i'm done?

 

[Rambunctious]

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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[thecad]

thanks for the reply. I'm currently engaged in a epic battle with the wasps, but have seen few actual honey bees.

 

[Paps]

How hard is to clean the brew pot after burning the honey? Is it doable or should I try to find a cheap one and just toss it after i'm done?

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]

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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[BigGoat]

Blasphemy! Hops! No hops this is not beer but a fine wine! Lol... Ferment on to each his own.
View attachment 218690 Very dark room, very bright light.


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It's..........so.........pretty........

 

[Newsman]

Blasphemy! Hops! No hops this is not beer but a fine wine! Lol... Ferment on to each his own.
View attachment 218690 Very dark room, very bright light.


Sent from my iPad using Home Brew

This pic reminds me of HAL from 2001 A Space Oddysey. "I'm sorry, I can't do that, Dave!"

 

[Morit]

So noone burnt theirs mead too much, to make it bad like I wrote in post 340 ?

 

[mors]

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.

 

[Paps]

Blasphemy! Hops! No hops this is not beer but a fine wine! Lol... Ferment on to each his own.

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.

 

[biochemedic]

Hops in a bochet might actually be an interesting thing!

 

[Goofynewfie]

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

 

[Morit]

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.

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...