Smoked Honey Mead

[Atek]

Ok so this could be interesting. I have a friend who suggested I bring him some honey and he will cold smoke it with Pecan wood. I'll likely be doing a one gallon batch similar to the latest iteration of the BOMM mead. I am curious if anyone has tried anything similar to this, my only reference point would be a lapsang souchong tea.

Any ideas, thoughts, recommendations, or horror stories are more than welcome here. THanks!

 

[Zaffo]

I did a smoked braggot using cherrywood smoked malt with wildflower honey, finished carbonated. Final gravity was 1.020 and had a decent head.

It was absolutely delicious. I'm sad I only did one gallon. Time to get bigger beer brewing equipment!

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[Damgaard]

Sounds delicious as long as it is in moderation. German "Rauch Bier" (smoked beer) is really good...but I had a Rogue Smoked Maple beer that was un-drinkable IMO...too much smoke, tasted like I was drinking an ashtray.

Looking forward to seeing how it comes out!


American by Birth
Viking by the grace of Odin

Seeking peace through mead.

 

[Brann_mac_Finnchad]

Maybe start a mead with unflavoured honey and the same recipe, at the same time? And blend to taste when they are finished.

 

[loveofrose]

Maybe start a mead with unflavoured honey and the same recipe, at the same time? And blend to taste when they are finished.

I would highly suggest doing the above from the start. Smoke is really easy to overdo in a traditional mead.


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[Atek]

Maybe start a mead with unflavoured honey and the same recipe, at the same time? And blend to taste when they are finished.

Agreed!

 

[biochemedic]

Ok so this could be interesting. I have a friend who suggested I bring him some honey and he will cold smoke it with Pecan wood. I'll likely be doing a one gallon batch similar to the latest iteration of the BOMM mead. I am curious if anyone has tried anything similar to this, my only reference point would be a lapsang souchong tea.

Any ideas, thoughts, recommendations, or horror stories are more than welcome here. THanks!

This sounds like an awesome idea...I totally dig smoked brews, and have yet to taste a mead or braggot done with this flavor...

I did a smoked braggot using cherrywood smoked malt with wildflower honey, finished carbonated. Final gravity was 1.020 and had a decent head.

I have to admit when I saw the title of the thread this was my first though...make a braggot of sorts using either the Breiss cherrywood or a traditional Bamburg (beechwood) rauchmalt. I would *definitely* stay away from peat smoked malt...

I suppose if you wanted more of a mead than a braggot, you wouldn't even have to mash the malt if you didn't want to have any fermentable contribution from the malt...steeping would definitely get you the flavor. However, you might not need to use that much smoked malt, and a I don't think that a few lbs of mashed smoked malt would contribute enough malt character to the flavor to consider it a braggot.

Also, you could also consider using some lapsong souchong tea in there as well. One of my favorite homebrew recipes is a smoked beer that uses only 2 lbs of rauchmalt in the mash, and 2 oz of lapsong souchong at 5 min left in the boil. This recipe is very pleasantly smokey...you could probably steep the same ingredients in a few gallons of water and use this as your liquor and get a similar smoke level...

I am wondering how well the honey would take up smoke flavor...have you experimented with the honey smoking yet to see? I would just as easily believe that using 100% smoked honey to make a mead would be overwhelming, as I would that there is almost no smoke flavor left at the end...

Sounds delicious as long as it is in moderation. German "Rauch Bier" (smoked beer) is really good...but I had a Rogue Smoked Maple beer that was un-drinkable IMO...too much smoke, tasted like I was drinking an ashtray.

Don't ever judge what a smoked beer should be by a Rogue, especially if it was the Voodoo Maple Bacon...that was literally the only beer I have ever been physically unable to finish, and had to dump down the drain!

 

[Atek]

Interesting thoughts there. I agree that this could go either way over the top or nothing at all. I have zero experience with how well the honey would take to the smoke but I think its worth pioneering to find out. I see it this way, if it doesn't take to the smoke much, oh well, might be an interesting character I can blend with some oak. If its overly smokey honey then I can scale down the amount of smoked honey to use to get the flavor pleasantly smokey (this will take some playing around with).

 

[Damgaard]

Don't ever judge what a smoked beer should be by a Rogue, especially if it was the Voodoo Maple Bacon...that was literally the only beer I have ever been physically unable to finish, and had to dump down the drain!

Which is why I said I've had some great German Rauch Biers I had the same experience with the Maple Bacon Beer...simply **** in a bottle...


American by Birth
Viking by the grace of Odin

Seeking peace through mead.

 

[Ragnaroker]

I just racked 2 smoked meads into secondary today. The first was cold smoked over applewood, the second over peat moss. I simply took a large stprage container and placed it outside.

For the applewood mead, I poured a jug of honey that had been soaking in hot water into a glass baking pan. I put the baking pan in a larger glass pan filled with hot water and put everything into the storage bin. I heated up the applewood chip on my stovetop until smoking, then placed that in the bin, closed the top, and waited about 45 minutes.

For the peat smoked mead, I used the same storage bin and double glass pan setup, put the peat in a clay put, and snaked a soldering iron through the top of the bin into the clay pot before closing the lid on the storage bin.

The trick is to keep the honey very warm and liquidy to take in as much smoke as possible.

I searched all over the internet, but could not find an example of a cold smoked honey mead, so maybe this is a new thing. I will let you all know how it comes out.

 

[Atek]

I just racked 2 smoked meads into secondary today. The first was cold smoked over applewood, the second over peat moss. I simply took a large stprage container and placed it outside.

For the applewood mead, I poured a jug of honey that had been soaking in hot water into a glass baking pan. I put the baking pan in a larger glass pan filled with hot water and put everything into the storage bin. I heated up the applewood chip on my stovetop until smoking, then placed that in the bin, closed the top, and waited about 45 minutes.

For the peat smoked mead, I used the same storage bin and double glass pan setup, put the peat in a clay put, and snaked a soldering iron through the top of the bin into the clay pot before closing the lid on the storage bin.

The trick is to keep the honey very warm and liquidy to take in as much smoke as possible.

I searched all over the internet, but could not find an example of a cold smoked honey mead, so maybe this is a new thing. I will let you all know how it comes out.

I'm think the key would be to simply maximize the surface area of the honey to come in contact with as much smoke as possible.

 

[Ragnaroker]

I'm think the key would be to simply maximize the surface area of the honey to come in contact with as much smoke as possible.

Yeah. Honey is super dense, so the smoke does not permeate too far in. I did a one gallon batch of each, so I only used about 3 lbs of honey per batch. In the glass pan the honey was about 1 1/2 inches deep. Im going to look for a larger pan for next time.

 

[IJesusChrist]

Yeah you're going to want to use a pan. . . I was wondering how efficient the smoking will be. Too thin and you're going to have one hell of a smokey honey batch. I wouldn't go TOO thin...

I can see this would be very cumbersome for large amounts of honey.

 

[Ragnaroker]

Yeah you're going to want to use a pan. . . I was wondering how efficient the smoking will be. Too thin and you're going to have one hell of a smokey honey batch. I wouldn't go TOO thin...

I can see this would be very cumbersome for large amounts of honey.

Yeah, hence the small batches.

 

[Brann_mac_Finnchad]

Also, you could also consider using some lapsong souchong tea in there as well. One of my favorite homebrew recipes is a smoked beer that uses only 2 lbs of rauchmalt in the mash, and 2 oz of lapsong souchong at 5 min left in the boil. This recipe is very pleasantly smokey...you could probably steep the same ingredients in a few gallons of water and use this as your liquor and get a similar smoke level...

Lapsang souchong can be wonderful in mead--my Fireweed blossom has a touch (1.5 tsp, properly brewed) of the stuff, and it gave a nice, light smokiness. Not applicable in this case, though.