Bochet mead

[Alex.Tas]

hello

I was going through some old photos and found this on my memory card. its a photo of when i was making something along the lines of bochet mead. I didnt go all the way to black and burnt honey, but i was getting close. Apparently, a true bochet requires you to cook the honey until you burn it and it smokes and get black flakes in the smoke.
That didnt sound appealing to me, but i did want to give my mead a darker colour and have some more caramel/toffee flavour.

Anyway in case this can help other brewers out there who are looking to add something along these lines to their mead, here are a few samples i took after cooking my honey. the change in colour between 20-35 minutes is staggering, so if you are going to do this be mindful, and don't leave the honey unattended. Actually, never leave the honey unattended as it will boil over and you will have ants everywhere tomorrow...

Mine pretty much came out black in the end unfortunately. I probably got too carried away. I would suggest something along the lines of 25 min max.
Also, you need to realise that, even though all meads need a decent amount of time before they reach drinking potential, cooking the honey can impart some harsh flavours. Therefore this style of mead needs to cellaar for longer unfortunately.

I haven't been able to taste mine yet as i only made it at the start of the year, but the small bit i tasted when i made it was awful. It tasted - surprisingly enough like burnt honey.

Time will tell.

Take it easy,

Alex

 

[carpedaym]

Thanks dude, that is interesting. I certainly imagine it is a case of "it tastes like it looks" and I've got friends who can butcher a beautiful piece of steak on the bbq. There's an analogy in there somewhere.

Out of interest, how big was your batch?

 

[Alex.Tas]

this was only a small one. i didnt want to fork out big dollars for a batch which might taste terrible. around 2L.

 

[kevo]

Would those caramel/toffee flavours carry over nicely into a beer?

Wondering if it might be a useful technique to combine with a braggot perhaps?

Cheers for sharing

Kev

 

[carpedaym]

Kev, funnily enough I had the opposite thought and wondered about steeping some crystal to get caramel flavours in a mead! I found one forum thread where somebody tried this with unremarkable results.

I'd be interested to try your idea... another thing to add to my to-brew list.

 

[kevo]

Kev, funnily enough I had the opposite thought and wondered about steeping some crystal to get caramel flavours in a mead! I found one forum thread where somebody tried this with unremarkable results.

I'd be interested to try your idea... another thing to add to my to-brew list.

Thought it could be interesting in something along the lines of an English ale which I find often has honey/toffee/caramel flavours...

 

[Airgead]

I once managed to get hold of some honey from a hive that had been neglected for a number of years (a bee keeper friend of mine inherioted it from an old guy who hadn't been able to looks after it). the honey was thick and nearly black like treacle. Tasted fantastic. Turned a lot of it into mead. It took about 3 years to become drinkable and afyer 5 it was fantastic. Burned honey mead would probbaly require similar time.

Cheers
Dave

 

[Bubba Q]

One tip I can share about bochet is to make it at night or in the dead of winter otherwise you will attract bees. Dear God! So many bees!