Bochet Mead

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.

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?

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

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

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

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!

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.

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.

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

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

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

atek said:

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

Click to expand...

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

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!

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.

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....

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

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.

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

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*

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.