# Bochet Mead



## Polarhug

My husband started his first batch of Bochet Mead (5 gal) on Saturday. It sound really yummy! "Bochet – a mead where the honey is burned to yield toffee, chocolate, marshmallow flavors..."

We took turns stirring and cooking the honey to a deep ruby color for over two hours. I will post a pic of the honey color changes when I get them off of my camera tonight. I hope the blisters were worth it?

Does anyone on the mead forum have experience with this variation? His yeast hasn't started up yet after 24 hours - he used SN9. May have to repitch tonight.


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## Deezil

Sounds interesting but i cant say i've done it - I do remember reading about it
I'm interested in seeing the pictures 

A thought that comes to mind, is that all that heating of the honey, lost a good portion of the delicate aromatics.. But your house must smell wonderful

If you took half the honey needed for the batch, and heated it for your caramel/chocolate/marshmellow flavors, you could use the other half to bring the original honey flavors + the delicate aromas lost during the heating process.. Just thinking "out loud" (mostly to myself - you've got my gears turning).. Would be a more-complex finish, than heating the whole batch of honey..

SN9 is a yeast i've never heard of.. Any idea who manufactures it?


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## Polarhug

Thanks for the thoughts, it is our first time for this mead also. We may end up adding back raw honey next go-round that is a great idea. The smell was PHENOMINAL!! The best vanilla/chocolate/toffee/carmelized marshmallow aroma ever


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## Polarhug

Vintners Harvest SN9 - Saccharomyces Bayanus – Very good all round strain, best choice for high alcohol and fortified wines but also excellent for most country wines, sweet sparkling wines and ciders and meads


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## Deezil

Ah, its a Bayanus strain.... Same as 1118 & 1116, and a few others..

Generally high-abv-tolerant yeast, and should ferment at a healthy speed.. Be careful, i imagine it'll ferment to 'dry' so dont start with an SG too high, cause it'll eat it all

If you just pitched last night & are hoping for signs of fermentation, and thinking about repitching tonight... I'd give it atleast another 24-48 hrs, to see if that first pitch works... Especially if you didnt make a yeast starter

I'd suggest aerating "the hell" out of the must, and dont skimp on the yeast nutrients


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## Polarhug

Here is the chart for carmelization. He was going to even go darker to 140 mins, but it was starting to taste overdone and more bitter. The yeast has finally kicked in, and it is producing a nice froth along the top!


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## Rampage4all

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f30/medieval-burnt-mead-112163/

This is a lot of information on it just read it couple days ago. I'll have to try it soon sounds so good but can get so messy.


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## robie

Ok, Polarhug, now that you have us all interested, it will be your responsibility to keep us all informed and taught, so we can follow. 

Good luck and keep us posted. Just use this same thread in the future.


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## WVMountaineerJack

We experimented with different ways to caramelize the mead after reading about people getting burned cooking it like you guys. A pressure cooker or canner does a great job in an hour and everything is contained in the canning jars, they retain their fluid so you dont have to add water to hot honey, a crock pot also works well but takes longer, about 4 hours. WVMJ


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## atek

You mention the crock pot, how much expansion is there in the crock pot versus tradition stove cooking?


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## WVMountaineerJack

Depends on how big the pot and the crock. If you get a big crock pot it can easily do a quart at a time, takes about 4 hours, stir it occasionally, its not going to burn like on the stop top and ours didnt go crazy like a lava pit throwing hot stuff all over the place when I added water to dilute it so it doesnt become a big piece of taffy. Somebody mentioned a slow cooker on another post or list somewhere, not sure what they meant by a slow cooker, I thought that is what crock pots were. WVMJ


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## seth8530

atek said:


> You mention the crock pot, how much expansion is there in the crock pot versus tradition stove cooking?



You could actually calculate that relatively easily  Atleast the expansion of the honey itself and not any kind of foaming.


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## Polarhug

The bochet has ramped up fermentation s l o w l y, but is really spitting hard now. I'll try to get a pic of her royal blackness when we open the fermenting bucket this weekend.

Also, my blood orange mead is going nuts - fermentation has not slowed down all week and it smells like a bee puked up orange juice in there. Delicious!


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## Polarhug

Testing after 2 weeks of slow and steady fermentation. It is down to around 1.060 so it has another 2 weeks at least on primary (guessing). Taste is very complex. Chocolate, toasted marshmallows, vanilla, caramel. Not a great picture but here is the color. Very opaque due to the yeast. In the hydrometer tube it is a dark ruby color.


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## fatbloke

Jacks idea of using a pressure cooker works well. I just put 4 x 1lb jars in (trivet in the base to keep the glass off the bottom of the pan), filled it up with water to about 3/4's of the way up the glass, then put it on.

Kept at pressure for about an hour, then turned off and Bingo!

4 x 1lb jars of nicely caramelised honey, about the colour of the last test dot in Polarhugs picture.

No mess, no hassle and no burning hazard either....


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## Polarhug

That sure would be easier than the stir and blistered hand method.


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## Bartman

Psst, here's a little hint: Ask for advice on the forum BEFORE starting a new experiment/batch. Nah, I'm just messin' with ya. I've been there a time or two myself. Sometimes you have to do something the "hard way" before you realize the "easy way" actually exists.
Sounds like a really good recipe, a little like cream sherry.


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## Polarhug

Well it was 20lbs of honey, so that would have taken several batches in the pressure cooker anyway. It really wasn't too bad to stir for 2 hours. My blisters have almost healed! lol


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## Polarhug

Update: the Bochet Mead has been fermenting for 4 weeks and 2 days. 4 weeks. This stuff is driving me crazy!

There is a slow and and gradual dropping of the gravity every week we've tested. By physical appearance it shows steady airlock movement, but we've been going by the hydrometer. Dropping 1-2 pts per week.

We decided to let it chug at a steady rate instead of trying to speed it up by warming and oxygen introductions. As long as it doesn't stall out we are letting it finish slowly. Has no bad odors, no fart smell or yeast stress aroma.

2 weeks ago it had a distinct "Dr. Pepper" burnt on the stove then fermented out taste. Last week the sweetness & cola taste had subsided and the toasted taste has come back to the forefront. 

Maybe it will be done this weekend! Then onward to bulk aging *sigh*


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## Downwards

Purchased 4 gallons of wildflower honey today, plan on making a really big batch of this. I'll be using a big old crawfish pot and gas burner outside. This will be going down this weekend! Can't wait.


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## seth8530

Sounds really exciting to me!


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## Polarhug

It's STILL fermenting! Crazy...


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## Downwards

Assuming the recipe is as simple as- Caramelize the honey, add water to the specific gravity desired, yeah? I will use a yeast nutrient and yeast energizer in three additions. I am planning on using 71B, unless anyone thinks that's a bad choice. I used it for my cyser and it went fully dry in 10 gallons (from 1.114) in just a few weeks.


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## seth8530

Sounds quite interisting, perhaps you should make your own thread on it where we may discuss it in fuller detail so as to not hijack this thread?


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## Downwards

Ok, sorry about that. I'm used to another board where they always ask, "Before making a new thread, please search for an existing thread on the topic". I will do so if there is anything else to say on it..


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## seth8530

Of course, I am pretty sure over hear it is perfectly fine to make your own personalized bochet thread even if 25 others do exist.. Now, making your own thread asking about say how to top off a carboy when 2 others are still alive might be another story but we still would not growl too loud I dont think ( ;


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## WVMountaineerJack

I heard one of the judges choked on a black currant port last week, you hear anything about that Seth? WVMJ


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## seth8530

WVMountaineerJack said:


> I heard one of the judges choked on a black currant port last week, you hear anything about that Seth? WVMJ



ROFL you arse!


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## Downwards

How's yours coming along?


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## OldCanalBrewing

WVMountaineerJack said:


> We experimented with different ways to caramelize the mead after reading about people getting burned cooking it like you guys. A pressure cooker or canner does a great job in an hour and everything is contained in the canning jars, they retain their fluid so you dont have to add water to hot honey, a crock pot also works well but takes longer, about 4 hours. WVMJ



So for the crock pot. Add the jars of honey into water in the pot, or dump honey into the pot?


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## WVMountaineerJack

Dump honey in pot, if you use jars of honey with lids they will explode or the honey will just foam out, if you want to use jars you need pressure canner. It reallyreally foams up, be careful. WVMJ


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## Polarhug

Update: Bochet still bulk aging.

At last taste the burnt Dr. Pepper taste is subsiding and the marshmallow taste is coming back.


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## IdahoWino

I am thinking that I might like to try this. Wondering about how much honey would be required to get 6 gallons of must to a good SG level. Probably going to use a crock pot to cook it. Seems like a safe and sane way to go.


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## Deezil

1 quart / 3lbs honey per gallon, roughly.


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## Hunt

Has this mead made it to bottle for anyone yet? I started a 3 gal batch about a week ago and its fermenting happily I just really want to know what ppl think.


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## ckassotis

Was looking into trying a batch of this, and was curious about some of the details. So how long are people cooking the honey? Are you just cooking it on low for that many hours? High? The videos seemed to go back and forth. Are you then diluting the cooked honey with water? The video had them adding water to the pot, but then said they were cooking the water off, which certainly doesn't help with volume or to dilute the SG. Straight honey would certainly never ferment. 

Deezil, I was reading up on your banana bochet wine to see about making a batch of that.


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## Deezil

There's a chart on the first page..
Shows the color of the caramelized honey as time goes on;
You just kinda have to pick a color

Then when you caramelize the honey that far, dilute with water to make it a liquid in the pot - then you can dump it into your primary and dilute it to the proper SG.


I've been meaning to update that Banana Bochet Port thread, but between being a full time college student and two puppies, I've been pretty short on free time lol
(Sorry Jericurl, I havent forgot, I promise!)


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## ckassotis

Yeah I had seen the time chart. Are you boiling the honey though, on high? Cooking it at a lower temp for those extended periods of time? The videos show you reducing the water after adding it, which didn't seem to make much sense. I've read about 6 threads on this now - though some directly contradict each other. Diluting and then adding to the primary seems to make more sense, rather than cooking it down again. Not sure what that would actually accomplish, though the videos are very clear on that point. 

At any rate, thanks! Going to start gathering some supplies to get to work on this one. And get the brandy sitting sooner rather than later! So did you end up using the full 1/2gal of the brandy? It looked like you used only a portion of the brandy in the gal container with the bananas, but then I didn't see any remaining brandy when you combined everything.


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## Deezil

Not high, but high enough to bring it to a boil.
It's something you come to understand very fast when it starts to warm up, lol.

Too hot, it'll boil itself out of the pot;
Too low, wont boil;
There's a sweet spot depending on how much honey you've got, the pan you're using, and the way you're heating it.
It's not High though lol

I never had all the spitting and overflowing issues people talk about, but I heated it somewhat slowly;
Took something like an 45-60 minutes to caramelize the honey to where I wanted it.

Meadmakers are unique in that some of them come from wine making and some come from home brewing.. So the whole dilute-boil down thing, that's a beer makers / wort making technique that isn't necessary unless you add too much water. Dont need to make it any harder than it already is.

The Banana-infused Brandy; I bought ~20 pounds of bananas and let them sit out until the peels were more black than any other color; I bought 1/2 gallon of E&J VSOP brandy. I took a 1-gallon jug, with accompanying airlock and bung, and poured in the 1/2 gallon of brandy. I then peeled the black-peel bananas, cut them into pieces and added the flesh of the fruit to the brandy until the 1-gallon jug was full. I'm pretty sure I added a little k-meta to the jug before the brandy, just to preserve the color of the bananas over time. This mixture sat for ~3 months.

Then strained the banana solids out, and ended up with the original 1/2 gallon + 375ml bottle full;
The 1/2 gallon went into the 3-gallon batch;
The 375ml was delicious all by itself.


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## ckassotis

Very good, thanks for all that info! Excited to give this a try. I'll pick up some bananas and brandy to get that going, then get the rest of the supplies ordered!


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## Sdave5

Most beekeepers sell what they refer to as "melter honey" it's the honey that sticks to the wax capping's and is run through a capping's melter. the wax is separated from the honey in its liquid state and is more or less a by product of the wax at that point. They will usually sell it for about half the going rate of their honey, it is sometimes called bakers honey. Already nice and dark brown and half the price.
Dave


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## Kittycat

Sounds like a good way to start, expsicaly since u r going to cook it farther I gather?


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## Country

This is why I love this board. I’d never even heard of Bochet Mead and now I can’t wait to make some.


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## meadmaker1

Pressure cooking in canning jars is the way to go. Clean and quick, and no burning. I lost track of all the places I researched but have three gallons going now and will start another five soon
Real has enhanced the honey flavor overall
Leave a little extra head space in jars. 
I followed cooker instructions and cooked about 20 min after regulator started rattling at 15psi may go 15 next time 
Will do an extra jar for back sweetening and to just use for food.


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## Country

I have my yeast starter going, 15lbs of honey and a big smile!


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## meadmaker1

I have bees
I started making mead to use up honey because I needed the bucket. Lol. 
Two more three gallon five five gallon a bunch of 1 , 3/4 and 1/2 gallon car boys a floor corker a steel press and so much more later.
I could have just gotten another bucket, ha I did. 2 more
Just got the press so this fall its a brute full of cyser bochet this fall


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## sour_grapes

meadmaker1 said:


> Pressure cooking in canning jars is the way to go. ...
> I followed cooker instructions and cooked about 20 min after regulator started rattling at 15psi may go 15 next time



Just be careful! (Look at ceiling.)


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## Deezil

You cant see what stage the caramelization is at when you pressure cook it.

There are different nuances at different stages in the process,
If you always set it and forget it for the same amount of time, you'll never experience this.

I always did it on the stove top, carefully. 
You need a pot with 4-5 times more volume than the amount of honey you're working with.


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## Country

What are your preferred yeasts for a Bochet?


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## BernardSmith

My preferred yeasts for a bochet are the same as my preferred for any mead - D47, 71B, and /or DV10. My preferred method of caramelization is in a crock pot (slow cooker). The idea is to caramelize the honey and not burn it. Burnt honey is carbon and tastes like crap. You want the honey to darken - not blacken.


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## Country

So it starts! In the wife’s instant pot.


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## Country

I made about half the honey uses canning jars in the pressure cooker (above). And then I made the second half on the stove top. Wow, that was fun. I wanted the second batch to get a little darker, but in the end, it all looks the same.


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