Bochet Mead

[seth8530]

Sounds really exciting to me!

 

[Polarhug]

It's STILL fermenting! Crazy...

 

[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.

 

[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?

 

[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..

 

[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 ( ;

 

[WVMountaineerJack]

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

 

[seth8530]

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

ROFL you arse!

 

[Downwards]

How's yours coming along?

 

[OldCanalBrewing]

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?

 

[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

 

[Polarhug]

Update: Bochet still bulk aging.

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

 

[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.

 

[Deezil]

1 quart / 3lbs honey per gallon, roughly.

 

[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.

 

[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.

 

[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!)

 

[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.

 

[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.

 

[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!