I was taking a look at the old blog and found that this post never got published back in 2012... and now near 8 years later here it is...
Whelp, I've been lazy and haven't been posting here of late... It's not that I haven't been doing much, I swear....
Over on the home brew talk forums a bunch of the posters have been talking about this new beast of a mead, the Medieval burnt mead called Bochet.
That's right, burnt, it's where you take the honey and boil it lightly until it turns a deep black color and the boiling bubbles release puffs of smoke that smell like marshmallows.Though it seems that many don't take it that far and, depending on tastes, opt to cook the honey from a light or heavy caramel.
Now before anyone runs out to try this, boiling honey can quickly expand many times it's original size and has been described as "burning napalm of burning and misery" (or something like that). It also, if done outside, attracts all sorts of bees and wasps and will spit and splash all over the place if it is not diluted with water carefully (as water placed into a boiling substance will start immediately boiling itself).
So having a pot that's 4-5 times larger then the amount of honey your are boiling, a watchful eye, a long handled spoon, and a bee deterrent device are all things that come in handy.
For a gallon test batch I used:
4lbs honey
11 quart pot
71-B rehydrated with goferm
DAP and Fermaid K
Cooking time: 45 minutes
SG 1.080
I think that I cooked the honey too high, some of the estimations for time that I read on the forums was something like 2 hours and this only took 30-45 minutes at most. It's also possible that I carbonized a little of it as well.
The SG of 1.080 seem low as the amount of honey used should have had an SG of around 1.120. Thinking back I may have forgotten to shake and mix it after topping up with water... But I would like to think that I learned from the mistake that I made with the habanero mead, but who knows. I seem to remember thinking that the SG was low because I cooked it for too long.
I have no idea what it tastes like as that it's still in primary and I've been dragging my butt on racking it. Though it looks clear? at the very least like all the yeast has dropped out of it. So I may just bottle it from primary and hope that no lees drop in the bottles.
