Sweet Malted Mead (Braggot) recipe..

[Whitehrs]

Ok, so I'm wanting to try this, and I've new fermented with malted grains before.. I decided to make up a recipe, and see if it was worth the time to type it. So here it is.. I welcome suggestions. Please, please give me suggestions.. I am new and I'm pretty stupid..

Malted Sweet Mead, test
1 Gallon
OG: 1.100 FG: 1.015

1 pound Castle Pilsner Malt – Crushed Grain (Ok, maybe I'll try a nice German malted Wheat)

1 Pkg Red Star Cote Des Blanc

One Gallon Sterile water
1 or 3 clove crushed
About 2 to 3 pounds Honey (Local sweet floral honey about 1 quart)

Wort:
Boil water to 150 degrees F, add pound of malted grain. boil for 60 minutes, and Take SG reading. let cool to 100 – 110 degrees f. Take SG reading, and add honey to 1.100-1.120 SG. Cool to 68 to 72 degrees F. Add wort to primary, and shack to aerate..
Pinch Yeast. Aerate again.

Fermentation:
at about 65 to 74 degrees add a stopper with hole, and a blow o ff tube.. Braggot ferments vigorously. About 1 week. SG of about 1.030.
Rack it off the lees to a secondary for about 2 to 4 weeks at 55 – 65 degrees F, temperature and yeast dependant. until about 1.020-1.010 FG, Bottle or keg.. Age another two months or so at 45 degrees F. no need to prime, as residual sugars from the honey will retain an effervescence.
Could be Kegged I guess, use Nitro maybe, like a stout..

Enjoy.

 

[CGish]

Your recipe will lean more toward a mead, since 2/3 to 3/4 of your fermentables will come from honey. A braggot is usually a little closer to 50/50. However, since this is not a popular style you can do anything you like. I would recommend some kind of bittering agent. Hops are traditional, but you can use others.

In the end, it is your experiment. What do you like? Are you will to wait six to nine months while it ages? More honey will mean longer to maturity. For a gallon batch, I would just try it. Your recipe will likely make an interesting, sweet mead with some malt depth. Is that what you are after?

I have a braggot in the keg right now. I used Defalco's recipe. I did the all-grain version and used US-05 yeast. O.G. was 1.065 and F.G. is 1.010. I brewed on 11-29-15, kegged it on 12-25-15, and it just keeps getting better.

 

[Whitehrs]

So, I'm going for a sweet, spiced, malted grain flavor. I realize it will keep a little fiz from the residual fermentation, would you recommend a small keg to store it or would bottling be ok.. Or just bulk age it, in 72 degree closet and mini keg it when ready? or bulk age it for 4 to 6 months... then put in some priming sugars before bottling? I guess either way would work, and the sugars would cost less than buying a mini keg..

 

[CGish]

If you are like me, it will last longer if it is bottled. There is something about having a keg tapped that seems to accelerate consumption ...

However, If you run the yeast out to their alcohol limit and bulk age the batch you will likely have very little effervescence and very tired yeast. A keg allows you to fine tune the CO2 level.

I don't know if priming sugar would do anything if the yeast has already eaten itself to death.

 

[Whitehrs]

thanks again..

Went to Brewniverse today. found it awesome.. Found a mini-keg full of real german wheat.. beer I'll empty it and reuse it.. somehow.... and all the ingreeds I need. I am using D-47 and some milled malted wheat.. just about a 1/4 once of hops, and about 3 pounds of honey.. if I start at about 1.110 and end about 1.030... I should still have a little life left in my yeast.. And a slightly lower ABV of about 12%.. then some carbonation drops.. in the 1.5 ltr bottles should get it right.. I asked the guy at the store, these guys are always full of common sense knowledge.. We discussed my experiment.. great guy, knows beer not wine.. we talked flavor and he said I should get a very sweet orange, and peel some pieces.. sterilize them in a vodka or something for a little bit.. before adding.. I get that.and some clove. 2 maybe 3 cloves.. and the very little hops for a balance as someone suggested before.. about a 1/4 once..then we talked about not going to much spice, as it is mean to be just light and even "notes" of flavor.. and to not filter.. I agree.. I say let it be cloudy, and then carbonate it with drops.. a light malty sweet spicy sparkling mead.. he said that splitting out bottles would help to check the aging. I agree. I might bottle a few beer bottles full for aging tests.. and to enjoy it as it grows up.. that probably doesn't sound right to most ears.. I bet about 3 to 4 months total will be legal drinking age.. I'm also bottling my 2nd batch, a mango peach this weekend.. it is about 3.5 months I think that bottle aging will do it better. it has been setting on those less for 3.25 months.. it smelled like rotten eggs, 4 weeks ago.. should be clear now.. will bottle and let it age for 6 months before testing a bottle.. I need to build a rack for all these bottles.. maybe sunday..I will find a way to build a rack.. This German wheat beer is making me ramble on..

 

[Rampage4all]

I'd like to try some of that braggot when it's done can trade you a bottle of my Mead or Dragonblood. Mead won't be bottled for several more months . Dragonblood is ready for bottling just need a day off work . I'm just 45 miles from Shreveport

 

[sour_grapes]

I am using D-47 and some milled malted wheat.. just about a 1/4 once of hops, and about 3 pounds of honey.. if I start at about 1.110 and end about 1.030... I should still have a little life left in my yeast.. And a slightly lower ABV of about 12%..

How do you propose to stop this fermentation? That is generally not an easy thing to do.

 

[Whitehrs]

I'd like to try some of that braggot when it's done can trade you a bottle of my Mead or Dragonblood. Mead won't be bottled for several more months . Dragonblood is ready for bottling just need a day off work . I'm just 45 miles from Shreveport

45 minutes which way? I'm 1.5 hours north east.

 

[Rampage4all]

I'm South of Shreveport in Logansport

 

[Whitehrs]

How do you propose to stop this fermentation? That is generally not an easy thing to do.

I misspoke. What I meant to say would be inhibit.. by use of a very small amount of potassium sorbate.. the Carbonation drops I have are also non-fermentable sugars. should work. at least that's what the internet says.. It couldn't be wrong?
I am new to this. I got 4 batches in (3 in bottles)... well, 5 with the yeast just being pinched on this recipe.. I could be that I'm completely wrong.. It has happened before..

 

[Whitehrs]

I'm South of Shreveport in Logansport

Maybe, When it's "done" I can meet you at Brewniverse.. an swap.. the Guy there stated that he wouldn't mind a taste.. I will probably be buying for a 5 gallon batch if it works..

So to update, I used a standard malted wheat milled, and I decided to go with the 1/4 once of German hops pellets. 4 cloves, and about 1/2 the peal of a naval orange. I sterilized the peal by soaking for about 30 minutes in a small bowl with some fine Polish vanilla vodka. Mainly because I didn't have another vodka. I also decided that D47 yeast would be the one to go with.. Because of quality of yeast and the alcohol tolerance. I figured after deep thought and contemplation, and hours of internet study, that a very small bit of bitter will even it out little. It is in 1.5 gallon bucket, with a blow off tube, in pint glass of sterilizer water.. After the boil, and sparging the grains with the honey water... I read OG: 1.105. I figure about 3 days read again.. Since i like to taste everything to get a feel for the flavor at milestones.. So I taste the must. it was so incredibly sweet but it had nice grain flavors.. Then I tasted the grains.. It was actually something like rolled oats.. but way sweeter.. then the orange infused vanilla vodka was very nice.. to put the remaining peal pieces and vodka in in a jar and sealed it in the liquor cabinet. there is my update.. I will update you all again, as it progresses..

 

[BernardSmith]

I misspoke. What I meant to say would be inhibit.. by use of a very small amount of potassium sorbate.. the Carbonation drops I have are also non-fermentable sugars. should work. at least that's what the internet says.. It couldn't be wrong?

Hi Whitehrs - and welcome.
Carbonation drops must contain fermentable sugars otherwise where is the carbon dioxide coming from (unless the drops used some other chemical process to produce CO2 but that would presumably add something to the flavor).
K -sorbate is unlikely to "inhibit" an active fermentation. It'll work when there are a few straggling but active yeast cells but if you have a few billion cells I think that you will find that the only things that will stop fermentation is either when the yeast have no more access to fermentables OR when you actively remove the cells either through filtration or by pasteurization. The latter impacts the flavor and the former is not always so simple (your wine needs to be perfectly clear - no particles, no haze - nothing to clog a sterile filter) so most home wine makers use time - and rack the wine off the yeast periodically, reducing the size of the colony until there is both no more yeast and no more sugar. With braggot you will have unfermentable sugars from the grain so there will be residual sweetness that yeast cannot ferment (as with beer)... But even when K-sorbate is used to prevent yeast cells from replicating it is always added with K-meta (they work in tandem) but if you add K-meta and K-sorbate with the idea that this will inhibit fermentation (and as I say my money is on the other horse) then if you are right you can kiss the carbonation drops good bye because while they will add fermentables by your own account there will be no active yeast to ferment that sugar... Bottom line - your plan is fighting itself. Either you need the yeast to ferment the drops in which case that yeast will eat whatever it can and won't simply stop at the carbonation drops OR you will have prevented the yeast from reproducing and the yeast that are present will die out and they will be unable to ferment the carbonation drops... leaving you with a still braggot.

 

[Whitehrs]

Bernardsmith, or anyone..
SO, I'm guessing that I bottle without inhibiting at all, with a FG: 1.010 - 1.020 and let the residual fermentation do the trick.. And/or add the drops and help carbonation that way? What you do?

Sorry, like I said I'm new and trying to learn.. Experimenting.. Thank you all for the information.

 

[BernardSmith]

Happy to let others with more experience than I respond but my two cents is that bottling without being pretty certain that a) you know how much CO2 is going to be captured by the glass and cork or cap and b) that that volume of CO2 and so that amount of pressure created by the gas will be within the tolerance of the capping or corking process and within the tolerance of the glass is asking for very serious trouble. Best case you will have bottles popping their corks and volcanoes of wine (or mead or braggot) erupting creating enough damage to walls, floors and ceilings that you will need to repaint and perhaps re-floor or carpet the room. Worst case - is exploding bottles and flying shards of glass are really very dangerous. That is the reason for the use of carbonation drops. They provide a fixed and known amount of fermentable sugar to a stabilized wine or beer that absent those drops will ferment not one more molecule of CO2.
My advice would be to allow your braggot to ferment to a level as dry as it will reach (and it will still be "sweet" given the fact that it will contain complex sugars that come from the grain that yeast cannot digest) , then you can add those carbonation drops. To determine when to add the drops I would measure the specific gravity of your braggot and take a reading two or three days apart. When the reading has not dropped one iota in three days and the reading is what you would expect would be coming from ONLY the use of the grains then you can view the braggot as ready to be carbonated.

Now, if you feel that that level of sweetness is too dry for you then I would stabilize the braggot, so that no further fermentation can take place (and that may mean allowing the braggot to age for several months (6 -9 months or longer BEFORE you stabilize the mead); add enough sugar or honey to produce a level of sweetness that you prefer and then force carbonate the braggot (much like brewers do by pumping CO2 into the braggot ) but then I think you need to use a keg (I have never had any success using soda stream carbonaters. They are great for force carbonating water but not, I think wine or mead or beer). Brewers might argue that you could always pasteurize your braggot and so kill the yeast and its action by heat but brewers like fire. Wine makers, I think, prefer to avoid heat as much as possible...

 

[Whitehrs]

Thank you, BernardSmith, You just taught me some great stuff.. I will do just as you have advised. Let it ferment to as dry as it is going, as you said. Then taste it and decide from their which way I need to do the carbonation. Thank you for knowledge. Thank you.

 

[Whitehrs]

Update SG: 1.105 to 1.030 in 2 days.. yes it's true.. I racked to secondary, and tasted.. It was really nice. I will leave it for 2 weeks and test again. The attached image is the stuff. I think it even needs a touch more clove. I may add one clove at the two week check.. Anyway.. that is the update..

 

[Whitehrs]

Just made another batch I went a little crazy with the Honey and wound up with 1.5 Gallons. It should be fine. I added ground cloves 3, a pinch of cinnamon ground. I used the Malted grains, and yeast in the recipe as post they finally came from Northern brewer. And a full 3 pounds honey. OG: 1.110.. It's in my 1.5 gallon bucket, top snapped on, about 4 inches of headroom and went right for the blow off glass this time. I'll put it in secondary into a one gallon and a 1.5 liter. I'll find a bottle to put whatever else is left in.. I'm going to leave this one until it slows this time.. Stick to the 5-7 day plan.

The first one is clearing, and still bubbling pretty good.

I have enough honey and such to make a batch of JAOM, I may just do that.. It is quick returns... 2 months..and then I can try some and let it age..
Who knows.. I might just wait a month or so and let what I got in right now work out..

 

[Whitehrs]

I went ahead and rack off the the Sweet Malted Mead on friday, SG .990. I measured it today and hydrometer doesn't go lower and it sat right at the same .990. It settled pretty clear already. I have the second batch and racked it today, the lees were about 1.5 inches think, and it was pretty clear. Measured out at .990.. Neither has had any action in a week. They are both pretty clear. you can taste the honey, and malt, the color is like a very dark white. They are both probably going to need a little back sweetening. They are both in the 16% area.
I did put in a gallon of JAOM, slight spicing mods, at 1.115. and it is still very cloudy, and bubbling about once every 2 -3 seconds. I could not find redstar bread yeast, except the rapid rise. So, I used Fleischmann's active dry, It has been in 2 weeks? I need to look at my papers. first week it went down to sg1.001. I racked it to glass 1 gallon. it was pretty tasty, I guess. if I find the redstar I'll try it again.. Unless the brand does not matter..

Just an update.

 

[Whitehrs]

UPdate- the first two are done. I actually drankls some saturday. They both have a beer feel, and a quit a bit of heet. I believe they are all of the 13% tolerance.. But the back sweetening I did with honey, Like 1/2 cup for a gallon. Make this a very nice dangerous drink. I still have the JAO(B)M. it is still aging. I will have it out by the weekend. it about clear. I'm sure it will be all of the 11 or 12% tolence of the Fleschmen's active dry yeast.. I'll let you know..