Various Braggot Questions

[DeadYetiBrew]

So, it turns out I can get about 15lbs of Local Wildflower Honey for about $60. I've never made a mead and really only tasted 1 store bought mead. I love the thought of a hybrid beer/mead and saw the post on the front page with a Braggot recipe. However, being newly back into homebrewing I no longer have my AG equipment and have reverted back to extract brewing for a bit.

My thought was 5 lbs Honey and 5 lbs DME, steeping 1lb each of Honey Malt and Crystal 10L.
Kept the hop schedule from the recipe posted of 1oz Fuggles at 60, 10, flameout.
The recipe specifically says high ABV tolerant British Yeast and this is looking to go from 1.094 down to 1.014 abouts. I have a yeast cake that has brewed 3 consecutively bigger beers, a porter, an 'irish red/wee heavy', and an Old Ale. All three beers without thinking have had adjunct sugars added in some fashion whether it was Lyle's Black Treacle, Honey, or Brown Sugar.

The questions I'm getting to is would this yeast cake (WYeast 1335, btw) be strong enough to avoid a stepped fermentation? How much/Would I still need yeast nutrient?

 

[bernardsmith]

Hi DeadYetiBrew. A couple of thoughts from a certified contrarian.
1. Sounds like you are an experienced brewer but mead ain't beer and if you have never made a mead and have tasted only one you may be trying to swallow too much by making 5 gallons as your first attempt. I tend to recommend single gallon batches until you have the protocol blind and even then single gallon batches until you have the killer recipe. This recipe suggests that it's one part honey to one part DME but given the honey and given the generic quality of the DME is that really what will make this a killer recipe? It might but you know this ... how?
Sure , it's just as easy to make 5 gallons as it is to make 1 but swallowing 5 gallons of mediocre or worse mead is a great deal harder than drinking 1 gallon and at what...? 10% ABV you drink this by the glass not by the pint.
2. I don't see how you get the starting gravity of 1.094. One pound of honey mixed with water to make 1 gallon will raise the gravity of the water by 35 points. One pound of DME will raise the gravity of the same volume of water by about 40 points. So your recipe suggests a lower starting gravity. Don't know that honey malt or crystal 10L adds any fermentables, do they?
3. If you are planning on fermenting the honey and the malts together then I don't know that you need any nutrients. Grain typically has enough. If you are planning on fermenting the honey and the grain separately (you might and with a different yeast for the honey to highlight different aspects of the honey) then you do want to use nutrient.
4. Fermenting higher ABV drinks tends to stress yeast. so your yeast in the cake may have been quite stressed already. I would think that you would want to create a starter to help ensure that you have a large enough colony of viable yeast for this braggot given its higher ABV.
Good luck.

 

[DeadYetiBrew]

Thanks for the reply and input.
I think I may go ahead and cut it down as you suggested, and test out a few things.
The gravity estimates were from using brewer's friend, not sure as to why the gravity is off.
The Honey Malt and Crystal were to give more of a subtle accent and residual sweetness from unfermentables and give a more ale like mouthfeel, at least that was the idea, but the DME will probably do enough of that on it's own.

What would a good barebones braggot recipe look more like? I have a smaller 2.5 gal fermented I'll probably use instead, so i can easily scale down.

 

[bernardsmith]

I don't know that there is such a thing as a generic braggot recipe. You want to ask yourself what you want to dominate - the honey? the grain? for both to be in the spotlight together? And you want to ask yourself how you want to drink this - by the glass or by the pint or do you want to sip this like a scotch?

For me a braggot is a mead and not a beer, so it is about the honey. I've made braggots only a few times but the last time I made one (it was in August) because I like chocolate stouts so I used chocolate malt (4 oz) to flavor the honey and I cooked the honey to make this a bochet (used about 1 lb of caramelized clover honey and a half pound of the same honey raw). I used EKG hops (.5 oz) but boiled them for 15 minutes with the malt- there would be no real residual sweetness to balance the alpha acids so I was not looking to make this an IPA. I was looking for flavor from the hops.
My yeast was DV10. My starting gravity was about 1.040 (I ferment in a bucket so I aim for a heavy handed gallon) and before bottling I added some home made chocolate extract (made from vodka infused with roasted cocoa nibs) and some home made lemon extract (an infusion of lemon peel). I did not carbonate this - I should have.

 

[DeadYetiBrew]

Ok, that gives a bit more insight too. I tend to prefer stouts, porters, etc and was thinking of straight up blending a stout recipes with a mead at one point but had read stouts don't lend because of the roasted barley... I like the chocolate malt idea for sure... I have a couple weeks before I was thinking of making this. I think i'm going to take a look at more recipes and see if I can't find some commercial examples at other liquor stores.

 

[bernardsmith]

Braggots are a chimera and so a challenge as a commercial drink in the USA. Meaderies may not use grains and I don't know whether breweries can make wines. So, I think (but am not certain) that braggots can only legally be made by home wine/beer makers.
As for recipes you can do worse than looking at two books on mead making written by well recognized mead makers - Schramm's The Compleat Meadmaker and Piatz' The Complete Guide to Making Mead. They both, I think, have a couple of braggot recipes. The thing is that both Schramm and Piatz are well known in the world of mead making and their books are trade published - not self published and while Schramm's book is now a few years old he is considered the Papazian of mead making.

 

[DeadYetiBrew]

I mispoke, I meant I was going to try and find more commercial examples of mead so I can try and pinpoint which characteristics I'd like to come out in the braggot and what beer characteristics would meld well and compliment them.

 

[madscientist451]

Another method for braggots worth trying is to make a basic mead and your beer of choice separately and then run a blending trial to get the flavor profile you are looking for. One usual complaint I've heard with braggot(s) is that the honey taste doesn't come through. Grain and hops is a lot for a delicate flavor like honey to compete with. So for blending, you can make a sweet mead or pasteurize the beer and stabilize the mead with chemicals blend them together and then add honey to taste.
Note that if you sweeten with honey, pasteurize and stabilize, you won't be able to carbonate in the bottle.
So you can see you need to think about what you want to achieve as an end result and work backwards.
If you are just getting into mead, and don't want to wait a long time for aging, I would suggest a low ABV mead that can be drinkable in a relatively short time.
I'm in the middle of a braggot experiment of my own: using a 4 year old grapefruit mead to add flavor and complexity to a grapefruit/honey IPA.

 

[imasickboy]

Give this one a try. It's fantastic.

 

[bernardsmith]

That recipe may be "fantastic" but it makes a bizarre claim- no doubt written by a brewer. The recipe asks you to boil the honey to "remove proteins".. Yeah? But mead ain't beer and protein breaks are not part of mead making protocol. Barley has about 23 g of protein in a cup of the grains. Honey has 1.5 g in a cup. My meads ferment bright clear and I don't apply any heat. I make mead - I don't brew honey. The only reason to heat honey today is if your water isn't potable - or you are making a bochet.

 

[growlrr]

Give this one a try. It's fantastic.
View attachment 557087 View attachment 557088

Sold! Next on my brew list....

 

[imasickboy]

@growlrr
Some changes that I've made to the original recipe every time I've brewed it:
Yeast: Lalvin D-47
Malt: All-grain, just domestic 2-row

FWIW, if you have mead questions, I think @bernardsmith is your guy. But if you have braggot questions, they're better placed in the beer/brewing sections of the forum. Braggot is made via the brewing process, with honey added to the wort as an additional sugar source. Occasionally, it's added to the fermenter, and in even more rare occasions, finished mead is blended with a finished beer.

 

[bernardsmith]

Hey! imasickboy, I don't know that I agree with you on two counts. First, I don't know that I am the go to guy for any questions about meads. I make meads and I have some experience with meads but the real issue is not what someone knows - It's what they don't know and I don't know a great deal. And that ain't false modesty

The other thing I disagree with you about is the nature of braggot. Sure, brewers might claim that braggot is a beer and some mead makers might claim that braggot is a mead but IMO braggot is what is called sui generis. It's a unique creature - neither a beer nor a mead. It's a braggot.

 

[DeadYetiBrew]

From what I gather from everyone is that a braggot follows only certain guidelines and the profiles are as unique as the person brewing it. It will have as much character from each side as the person wishes. When I originally started brewing I would take a BJCP profile and do a general outline, then i'd research recipes other people had made and read their tasting notes, i would then tweak based on that.
I realize that mead is a lot like wine and a creature of it's own.
Just like each beer style comes from a different background and each is a different creature from Ale to Lager to Wheats.
A braggot being a Hybrid of mead and ale, the profile is really up to the consumers palate. More of a Mead or More of an Ale or somewhere in between.
Being a beer lover, and claiming dark ales as my second SWMBO, I feel I will probably end up initially going for a generic ale recipe with 50% of the fermentables being honey. I'll go from there to adjust things to my liking. Being a homebrewer, sometimes it's about a 'why not try' factor. Sometimes you do things just to see what happens and you learn from there.

No need to start a tiff, gentlemen.

 

[Metalchef1]

When I have brewed Braggot before I make a beer through and through.
My last one (which was years ago) was 9# of grain. Various flavorings (cardamom, jasmine, pink peppercorns). And the honey, which was around 9 or 10# if I remember, was added right at the end of the boil.
I basically treated it like a beer that I was spiking with honey to ramp up the ABV same as you would with those kits that come companies sell that has their 1# of alcohol booster (IE.. Sugar)..
The later you add the honey the more flavor you retain which is why most people don't heat the honey anymore than running the jugs under tap water to get it out of the jugs.
I did use nutrient and don't think a little could hurt even if you do not "need" it.
As far as yeast.... Mead or Braggot... I personally use mead yeast.

 

[VipperOfVipp]

@growlrr
Some changes that I've made to the original recipe every time I've brewed it:
Yeast: Lalvin D-47
Malt: All-grain, just domestic 2-row

Thanks for this. I have this book, but have been scared to commit 5gallons to this recipe. What fermentation temp do you use with this yeast?

 

[imasickboy]

Thanks for this. I have this book, but have been scared to commit 5gallons to this recipe. What fermentation temp do you use with this yeast?

I usually do 65 degrees. I'm primarily a beer guy, so I like to keep temps low as a habit. It's a lot of sugar, so I imagine it could get pretty hot if left unchecked.

 

[Metalchef1]

I'll second that... I do 68...

 

[VipperOfVipp]

Thanks guys. I am going to make a 1 gallon batch of this up for Thanksgiving this year. I figure it needs to condition a few months.

 

[Metalchef1]

Never hurts and ages well... Do 2 gallons and have some the following Thanksgiving as well...

 

[VipperOfVipp]

Oh good point. I am making some old ale with that in mind, so should just continue the trend.

 

[Metalchef1]

For me that's the most difficult part of homebrew.... Saving for the vintage... But when you do.... Very rewarding

 

[VipperOfVipp]

Any tips on water additions for this? I use RO water and build from there using bru’n water. Not sure how to treat the cherries and honey.

 

[Beerswimmer]

Just bottled my 3rd braggot, will have it in September. OG 1.121-->FG 1.002

 

[VipperOfVipp]

Finally getting around to making this soon. How do you handle the cranberries after the soak? Purée them in a blender and add the water and fruit into the boil?

It makes mention of putting them in the fermenter too, but no real directions.

Help?

 

[imasickboy]

After the soak, I toss them in the blender, then into the boil with about 7 minutes left.

 

[VipperOfVipp]

After the soak, I toss them in the blender, then into the boil with about 7 minutes left.

Ok. I have the digital deluxe version of this book and there is a typo in line 5 where they added the words grain bag.

In step 8 they added the line: “A bucket fermenter will assist in the transfer of cranberries.” But I don’t see any other reference of putting the cranberries into the fermentation. Weird.

I will just steep it the last few min of the boil and while chilling, like the original recipe.

Thanks!

 

[imasickboy]

Straining them out with a grain bag en route to the fermenter would be a wise choice. That may be what was intended. Because even though they were pureed, skins and such are still present.

 

[cmac62]

I have done a couple of meads and one braggot, the braggot was a bochet braggot. I caramelized 10 lb of honey for 45 minutes then brewed a standard ale and added the browned honey to it at FO. Right now I forget what yeast I used, but I'm pretty sure it was an alcohol tolerant ale yeast. I brewed this about 1.5 years ago and still have half a case in 12 oz bottles. The residual sugar from the bochet is a nice foil to the minimal hops and it definitely packs a wollop at about 14% abv. Cheers