# Dark Braggot



## barls (14/8/09)

heres what ive been thinking of since im going to be away for a while on the boat.
im thinking of 2kg of bloodwood honey in this that ive had sitting in the cupboard and the yeast is still up in the air as i like the aweet mead in a braggot but i might use ether the 1388 belgian yeast or a british style. whats everyones thoughts.


> Recipe Overview
> Wort Volume Before Boil: 18.00 l Wort Volume After Boil: 15.30 l
> Volume Transferred: 15.30 l Water Added To Fermenter: 4.70 l
> Volume At Pitching: 20.00 l Volume Of Finished Beer: 19.00 l
> ...


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## syd_03 (14/8/09)

Never brewed one so no idea, sounds tasty to me though.


Are we still going to be brewing this tomorrow?


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## barls (14/8/09)

no most likely sunday now as i just want to relax tomorrow rather than worry about it.


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## Airgead (14/8/09)

Looks like a top idea. Let us know how it turns out.

Cheers
Dave


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## syd_03 (14/8/09)

No worries mate, and fair enough too (seeing you are being a top bloke and sharing the love). See you tomorrow.

No home made kebabs this time though, didn't get a chance. I'll have to pick upsomething to bring tomorrow morning.


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## barls (14/8/09)

will do i was thinking id put this one on then go away from sept till end of november so ill see how it goes.


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## Airgead (14/8/09)

barls said:


> will do i was thinking id put this one on then go away from sept till end of november so ill see how it goes.



Good plan. Braggots do like a bity of aging. I'm drinking one now that's only been in the keg a week and it really needs another 4-5 weeks before it comes really good. Its all I have at the moment though so I'll have to drink it before its prime.

Cheers
Dave


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## barls (14/8/09)

i find after about 3 months acceptable and 6 months excellent,


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## barls (26/8/09)

brewed and pitched the other day, currently sitting with 3 inches of krausen in the front room.
ended up having to scavange so honey as i was short 500g of the blood wood but found a nice one from up the coast.


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## raven19 (26/8/09)

Krausen is good!
(Maybe swap some notes with Brewer Pete who loves his braggots/meads/etc...)

Bloodwood honey sounds awesome.


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## barls (26/8/09)

actually been waiting for him to pipe up he must be busy. this is not my first braggot as ive got the one i do constantly anyway with only good comments about it


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## pdilley (27/8/09)

Sorry Barls,

Im out in the shed every night building beehives in a rush as global warming? has me caught with me pants down and with no hives and bees swarming in a week or two which is almost a month ahead of normal swarm season  I am ending up too tired after to even post new pictures or sit in front of the computer 

You got some good replies and as you say got some braggots under the belt so I can get time this Sunday to chat about it but looks good.

Cheers,
Brewer Pete


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## pdilley (27/8/09)

Curse you now you got me thinking about this recipe. I work on my mead program at luch when at work so if you give me the numbers for just the beer wort alone I'm curious as to what my program would put out as final volume and expected starting gravity.

As it stands you will get a 1.402 litre increase in volume from the honey addition but without the malt bill gravity value I wont be able to run a valid SG estimate. If I go on the after boil and pre pitch volume and gravity readings you'd shoot up to 1100 from 1078 given above. A good gravity for your average Mead to a wine like alcohol volume in the finished product.

I'm curious how the beer program calculates honey as there is a tiny fraction of sucrose in an average sample of honey. I'd see honey as 38.2% Fructose, 31% Glucose, 17.1% water, 7.2% Maltose, 4.2% Trissacharides and Higher Carbohydrates, 1.5% Sucrose with a 0.5% mix of minerals, vitamins and enzymes.


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## barls (27/8/09)

that could be right pete, the 1078 i posted is a reading from a refractometer at pitching. the beer component was only a 1049 after the boil and dilution to the final volume.
should be interesting as my brewery smells of peaches atm from the yeast. its strange really it is.


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## barls (12/9/09)

its down to 1020 at the moment so moving nicely. tastes great too.


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## pdilley (12/9/09)

Sounds Absa-bloody-lutely awesome! 

Brewing Meads has got to be one of the nicest smelling things you can do to your house ever when it comes to all fermented beverages.

Drinking them when all the planning and balancing comes out in the final product is even better but those initial aromas :icon_drool2: 


Gets a rag to mop up the drool 


Off to brew a North German Wheat Beer, so out for a few hours.

EDIT: Yeah your Refract won't be spot on as nothing is pure sucrose in solution. All the lovely sugars will skew the readings ever so slightly and a Braggot is a heady mix of both grain based and honey based sugars. If you give it a go again I can work out all the numbers and give you a go with calculating your own ethanol skew values so you can run the entire fermentation on refractometer alone. I have to admit I have not even opened my new high end hydrometer, even for my beers. I'm pretty much 100% hydrometer free brewing at this point.

Cheers,
Brewer Pete


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## barls (12/9/09)

its even better when they are packed in to champers bottles

might take you up on that offer next time pete and looking forward to the software your working on, so let me know if you need someone on a mac to test it for you,


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## pdilley (13/9/09)

Will do barls, though I'm typing this on a Macbook Pro right now 


I'll decide what to do as time permits. If I don't get a lot of free time. I might release it as-is in the basic state for free where you have to assemble all the pieces (install 2 other pieces of software) to run it and make it a free taste software for any future full version with printing, saving of recipes, fruit additions, spice additions, blending engine for Meads, blending engine for Beers, etc. etc. etc. that could be a pay-for version.


Cheers,
Brewer Pete


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## barls (13/9/09)

ill just keep waiting then. im using beeralchemy atm


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## barls (4/1/10)

just bottled this after a couple of months ageing in my fermentation fridge at 1 degree.
i did taste it while bottling, its a nice and chocolatety but has a small alcohol after taste which is ageing out.
looking forward to trying this in a couple of months.


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## Muggus (4/1/10)

Yum! Dark mead!
Why didn't I notice this thread earlier on!? (wasn't in the country...)

If it's anything like Thorgoods Dark Cider Beer, it should be awesome. Even though it was a cider based beer, it still had an awesome rich dark chocolate, roast malt character underneath the tart farmhouse cider taste.
Is the honey detectable?


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## barls (4/1/10)

lightly in the back ground is the blood wood honey. just as i wanted it. you have had my normal braggot this is very similar but with the dark and chocolate notes.
ill bring a bottle to the xmas swap if its ready by then.


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## pdilley (5/1/10)

You are making me thirsty barls  Good work!

I have my main 40 litres of Mead ageing out in room temperature at the moment and TempMate tied up in Sake rice production and dwindling supplies of my last beer I made  so I need to get my second TempMate up and running soon.


Cheers,
Brewer Pete


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## barls (5/1/10)

thats what i intended to to mate. you definitely should get the other one running, ive got 3 going.


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## pdilley (5/1/10)

I use a case from Bunnings and my local is all out of non-destroyed or defective made cases. They only have ones left with broken glue joints or large gaps in the joints.

This weekend I might head out on a tip to finding some proper Pizza Flour so I will be close enough to drive another 10 minutes from there to get to a second Bunnings. Fingers crossed I'll get the second TempMate running end of this up coming weekend.

I'm starting to get a need to do something more advanced than TempMate in its current form. A programmed fermentation with different set points and a smoothed curve between the points to design a perfect incubation environment. If TempMate MkII doesn't come out I'll have to get out my embedded micro-controller book and start programming my own embedded CPUs to run my own version of a TempMate but with full programmable option available along with the super simple dumb option that TempMate has as its only function.

Cheers,
Brewer Pete


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## barls (14/3/10)

opened a bottle the other night, even as a young braggot. its smooth. the choc note it has dropped off a bit now. this is really going to age up nicely.
i just acquired another 4kg of blood wood honey to remake this one.


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## pdilley (14/3/10)

Top job, I need to get a weekend free and build up a list of this years meads and get cracking. Braggot is one for sure 


Cheers,
Brewer Pete


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## barls (14/3/10)

im happy to swap a bottle of both braggots i make for a couple of meads pete if your interested


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## pdilley (14/3/10)

The canberra brewers drank all my current stock of mead 

I'll be making more but can swap in future for sure!


Cheers,
Brewer Pete


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## barls (14/3/10)

not a problem mate, i keep mine hidden so the isb boys havent found them yet. let me know when your ready and we can do it.


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## Edgecliff Brewer (14/3/10)

Not so fast Barls. You've been found out now.


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## pdilley (14/3/10)

hehe

Mead does not last long around brew clubs 

Been doing lots of croatian fruit mixes, the sour cherry one is yum. Wondering if I could incorporate some of those if I can not source some fruit.


Cheers,
Brewer Pete


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## Airgead (15/3/10)

Some trivia for you - The middle Sunday in lent (last Sunday) used to be known as Braggot Sunday in Wales around the late 1600s. Your opening of a bottle was very timely.

Apparently the word Braggot is derived from two welsh words - Brag (malt) and Gots (honeycomb).

There you go.


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## barls (30/3/10)

can i get a bit of feed back from the boy and girls that were at the special case swap as to this braggot


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## Stuster (30/3/10)

Yeah, why so much choc chit. h34r: 





Only joking. The chocolate flavours worked well with the honey. It probably did because the honey had a strong aroma. Very drinkable, especially on a night like tonight. :beerbang:


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## barls (30/3/10)

cheers stu, i might bring out a bottle at the xmas in july swap if they are lucky.
i agree with the drinkability of this it definitely doesnt seem that strong. but give me a weekend and ill give that a damn good try.


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## Gulpa (30/3/10)

barls said:


> can i get a bit of feed back from the boy and girls that were at the special case swap as to this braggot



Cant really give much critical feedback as its a long way from anything Ive experienced. All I know, it was delicious. Couldnt really pick the strength. Thought it had a very nice balance of honey and malt flavours.


cheers
Andrew


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