14th Century Bouchet / Burnt Honey Mead

[mr_wibble]

Temperature? Hard crack?! Degrees?!?

I was looking for those smokey bubbles, but smelt them before I saw them.
It was 14th century old-school that brew day.

Edit: well, except for the gas cooktop, stainless pot, and black death.

 

[Mardoo]

Absolutely. Temperature is the key. Unfortunately the types of transformations we're interested in are mostly outside the scope of the majority of candy making, so you may not find a lot of literature on it outside of brewing circles. If you're remotely serious about caramelizing honeys (Yeah Baby!) or making candi sugar (or candy for that matter) you need to get a good candy thermometer. You don't have to spend a lot, but go to a decent cooking store, not the $2 shop.

 

[TimT]

Good point about most thermometers not being good for these temperatures - our thermometer which I've used successful for anything from cheesemaking to brewing to making fudge probably wouldn't be good for this exercise, alas. It only goes up to just under 120 degrees celsius.

 

[jphowman]

My bochet just came out of the secondary. Fantastic flavours, very similar to a port.

I boiled the entire load of honey. I don't understand the concern about losing the honey aromatic, this it not a mead to showcase those but a mead to showcase the wonderful caramelised honey flavours. Unless the flower aromatic complement the caramel I would think they would be out of place.

I boiled my honey on the smallest burner on the stove for 60 min.
The colour consistently darkened through the hour and somewhere between 50 min and 60 min a slight acrid ness crept in which I thought ruined the flavour. The temperature at this stage was approaching 150c.

I will be making another one but will limit the boil to 50min.

 

[TimT]

I hear you on the caramel flavours and the possibility they may not go with the floral aromatics, etc. Maybe. It would vary from mead to mead, I think. (Might be a good idea doing a bochet braggot, actually - I think those burnt toffee/caramel flavours would go brilliantly in a stout, porter, or an old). But the other thing about boiling honey - it really changes and denatures the sugars. Weirdly, apparently, I hear it makes them *less* fermentable so it gives them a residual sweetness. But in the process I suspect you might lose some of the other distinctive flavours you get from those complex sugars being slowly fermented by the yeast? (Dunno. Speculating here).

I guess my grand conclusion is 'um yeah sort of'.....

Going to do a partial bochet mead tomorrow!

 

[mr_wibble]

How long did you ferment for Franks ?

I haven't checked mine today, but a few days ago (a week in) it was still very active, bits of <what?> swirling around and everything.

I don't really want to check the SG, because that's a waste of ~100ml, and there's only ~4 litres of it.

 

[Airgead]

refractometer dude... Only need one drop for a sample.

 

[TimT]

I almost only ever do in small bunches, 4-5 L at a time and I find one or two samples never sets me back too much. One at the start for an initial taste test and SG test, and one at the end - when all other signs of fermentation have died down and I'm going to bottle. If you don't check on it regularly how are you going to know how it's going?

 

[jphowman]

I hear you on the caramel flavours and the possibility they may not go with the floral aromatics, etc. Maybe. It would vary from mead to mead, I think. (Might be a good idea doing a bochet braggot, actually - I think those burnt toffee/caramel flavours would go brilliantly in a stout, porter, or an old). But the other thing about boiling honey - it really changes and denatures the sugars. Weirdly, apparently, I hear it makes them *less* fermentable so it gives them a residual sweetness. But in the process I suspect you might lose some of the other distinctive flavours you get from those complex sugars being slowly fermented by the yeast? (Dunno. Speculating here).

I guess my grand conclusion is 'um yeah sort of'.....

Going to do a partial bochet mead tomorrow!

I think there is already a commercial braggot out there. I drank St Peter's Honey Porter years ago and was amazed at the taste. Exactly like burnt marshmallows. I now suspect they may 'bochet' their honey before fermentation.

Mr Wibble:

Pitching rate was 2g/L of 71B. I also did a cyser of similar gravity but pitched 1g/L. I've been upping the rate over that last few batches. I think the higher pitching rate produces a better mead. The bochet has been the only mead so far that is drinkable straight out of the secondary (though the others have improved with age).

I did SNA for this.

0 hours - 1.128
72 hours - 1.123
102 hours - 1.077
174 hours - 1.068
200 hours - 1.054
224 hours - 1.054
248 hours - 1.049
296 hours - 1.031
Secondary - 1.027

 

[TimT]

Putting mine down now. I only set aside a small portion of honey as was my plan; the rest I just got usual style - soaking our wax that we had previously crushed to remove the residual honey that was trapped inside. I find this autumn honey to be quite fructosy and a little bit acidic; the taste reminds me of pear juice. So with the burnt honey added maybe it'll make a burnt honey and pear mead! Then again, I am boiling some bears right now for some burnt honey and pear dessert....
When mixed together - the original must and the burned honey must - the taste becomes more caramel like.

SG - about 1.104.

I only boiled my honey for about forty minutes but by that time it was taking on quite toffee-like colours and smells. So there you go. This one is going to be yum, I reckon

 

[mr_wibble]

refractometer dude... Only need one drop for a sample.

I started to read up on the conversion, found this: read this: http://www.thebeginningbrewer.com/tag/refractometer/

I'm gone from loving my refractometer to despising its inaccuracies.

So, so I need to use the Brix side, but divide the reading by (approx) 1.04 to account for Wort Vs Sugar

 

[Airgead]

Or just use the converter tool in beersmith.

 

[TimT]

Ha. I did mine last night to avoid the issue of bees flocking to the kitchen. Now this morning I wander into my study where it's fermenting and I see ants all over the demijohn, attracted by the toffee smells coming out of the fermenter.

 

[mr_wibble]

I looked at mine again Wednesday night, nearly 3 weeks in and it's still semi-vigorously swirling bits around the top.

Something's not right.

 

[TimT]

What's it taste like?

What was your starting gravity and your gravity now? What with the added difficulty yeast has in digesting honey sugars, fermentation in meads can have a long lag time after the initial peak ferment. Add to that the fact meads can have a much higher starting gravity than beers so most yeasts will take longer anyway.

Any temp fluctuations that could alter the yeast behaviour?

I wouldn't necessarily leap to the conclusion it's infected - it does sound like you've still got yeast activity.

A week and a half in and mine's still quite active.

 

[Dave70]

Here we go.

2 kg Mudgee honey boiled gently for about half an hour. Not as dark as some but I was happy with the flavor. Topped up with 5L of water and reduced to around 4.7.
To make things more interesting, added 200g of amber candi sugar I had sitting in the freezer and pitched a cup of 1214 slurry left over from a Dubbel which seemed excited to be there.
Weighed in at a healthy 1.100.

Purdy..

 

[TimT]

That's quite some bubbleator you've got going there Dave... Multiple bubble chambers and all. The doublebubbletroublebubbleator?

Mead looks nice too and all....

 

[Mardoo]

Bit of yeast there too...impressive.

 

[Dave70]

That's quite some bubbleator you've got going there Dave... Multiple bubble chambers and all. The doublebubbletroublebubbleator?

Mead looks nice too and all....

It bubbles in a fairly stable 2/4 signature actually.

Bit of yeast there too...impressive.

That shot was taken yesterday arvo and this morning the foam - erm, krausen - is about midway up the handle. I think the way everything's whizzing around in there, yeasty bits and so on are settling against the sides of the glass making it look like a yeast monster. Like I said, only pitched a cup o slurry.

 

[Vini2ton]

I had a vienna lager that bubbled in 3/4 time.