Bochet honey spirit/brandy

[Craisogaenus]

Dear forum,

I have done many a mead distillation with various types of honey e.g. heather, wildflower, manuka (more expensive than worth). I am thinking of doing a bochet (burnt/boiled/caramelised) mead brandy if anyone has done this could they be a gem and suggest whether or not it is worth my time? Anyone else who is interested in this is also welcome to put in their experience or ideas and if I do decide to do it I'll release my verdict asap . Many thanks for your help community.

[Craisogaenus]

Had a go at the caramelising this morning and it went well; it has to go a deep colour almost black but when thinned out on a a spoon it should look a ruby colour (I'm using a normal mixed flower amber coloured honey it may be different for other honeys). I put it all into a demi-john and am waiting on the ferment, the smell is like a roasted marshmallows with caramel hints and obviously honey. when I've finished I'll put a picture up of the demi-john so you can get a sense of the colour and say whether or not it is worth distilling or just keeping it as a mead.

[TOAD]

Once it ferments to dry (because its so expensive) pull out a half gallon and experiment with it. Sweeten a cup with the original honey. Another cup with carmalized honey. Figure out your best corse of action with small scale testing. And if none float your pallet, distill it and restart experimenting with the distillet. I recomend only single distilling in a pot still as the honey flavor carried over is easily lost on the second run. I accidentally turned 20gal of mead into clean neutral and had to reflavor with more honey. Best of luck and i cant wait to see pics.

[Craisogaenus]

It's not that expensive when you get the cheap honey to practice with (£1.32 a pound), should be even cheaper in the US. I've got a picture of how it looks in the demi-john (UK gallon). As you can see it is really dark but has not yet burnt the sugars so is still bubbling from the air-lock, I'll wait tills finished then I'll give a description of taste.

[TOAD]

Honey is $2.50 a pound here, and thats bargain barrel clove honey. Not sure what that in £

[Craisogaenus]

Whoa that's about 1.60-1.70 pounds, I thought with the huge farms and also because in a lot of places your bees can continually harvest that it'd be a lot cheaper (and also cheaper petrol/gas), I feel kinda lucky. It has a caramelly aroma to it now as well, I can't wait to hit the run on the still!

[TOAD]

Its something about a bacterial infection like aids for bees that hit american honey growers really bad. People were going out of business because all their bees would keep die'n. I have seen specialty honey go for $50+ for a 10oz jar

[TOAD]

Also i am Very interested in seein yer notes and knowing how this turns out. I love making burnt mead but never considered stilling it

[Craisogaenus]

Ahh colony collapse disorder (CCD) yeah it's a syndrome caused by a number of factors (I've helped my parents keep their bees) like parasites (e.g. vorroa) but you've got a new parasite that is really scary, it literally makes the bees fly around at night until they die. The UK was free of most diseases until they started bringing over new bee colonies from mainland Europe which carried disease and parasites so honey here is going up too :/. Yeah thanks for taking interest I keep forgetting to take OG's and FG's of things I'm distilling, I don't forget when making beer :S so I won't be able to put down the ABV after fermentation but everything else I will put down.

[Craisogaenus]

She's still bubbling but looks like it might take a bit longer as we've had a cold spell so it might not be ready this weekend . For making the Bochet mead what did you do/use? I've used 1.36 kg then boiled till the bubbles stopped and it was black to sight but not burnt. Apart from simple mead itself it is one of the easiest things I've done, I just hope it smells okay in the distillate. It shouldn't burn as the yeast would have converted any sugars so I have no worry of that in the still (as with normal mead). I am excited and fearful all at the same time: it might be my own Frankinstein's Monster.

[Craisogaenus]

Oh and if anyone is thinking that it would be hard to clean your stock pot after boiling the honey I'll just say it's not hard, it just melts away with the warm soapy water so don't let that idea put you off guys.

[TOAD]

I use a cast iron pot and a wood fire to burn 5lb of clover honey till it looks like fancy molasses. Add sugar to boost SG after its dissolved in water. I dont use a hidrometer for mead. When it tastes like malt soda its ready for yeast. Of corse there is an assortment of nutrient and such, everyone has there own blend. Dont feel bad about not taking readings of your meads i never do and they always drink just fine. And on the cleaning note: warm water took it right off the cast iron. Like the honey wanted nothing to do with the pot.

[Craisogaenus]

No I feel bad because I can't describe the process thoroughly to people if I forget. Adding sugar? Doesn't that give off flavours/dilute the flavour of the honey when put through the still?

Toad you might be interested in this new thread I've started and to anyone that is interested in putting in any recipes they think may be worlds firsts!

http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... 11&t=37672

[TOAD]

I use sugar to off set the ridicules cost of honey. The one time i stilled an all honey batch, the honey flavor carried over was noticeably more but not enough to justify cost considering i always add honey to the final product to make something like American Honey. Really i should be doing that with clean nutral but what else am i going to do with failed mead experiments

[Craisogaenus]

If you can get hold of it in the USA then maybe you should try Heather honey, it gives a much stronger flavour but takes longer to age as there are more complex esters.

[bcboyz86]

So does carmalizing the honey give it a different flavor? And do you carmalize the honey before fermenting, or carmalize the mead after its done fermenting? Also, will the mead mellow out a lot more than neutral with added honey for flavor? I plan to make 12 gallons total. Leave 5 gallons at 8-12% distill 5 gallons to get a bottle of 80 proof, and the last 2 gallons experiment with

[Craisogaenus]

Yes you have to caramelise the honey first because during fermentation the yeast break down sugar molecules into ethanol and CO2 (the same as plants do in boggy soils which is the reason they die when water logged), if you were to try and caramelise the resulting mead you would just end up evaporating the alcohol away. I suggest doing it in small amounts first rather then in one massive 5 gallon batch, the reasons being; one, honey rises a lot when being boiled ON ITS OWN, secondly, it is quite likely to burn and burn badly if you can't stir the bottom, thirdly, for a lot of people like TOAD said honey is expensive.

About the flavour; I haven't yet distilled mine so I do not know what flavours will come out at the end and I believe (not sure) that I am the first person to do it. On the mead itself and the flavours I am hoping to come through; it has a strong caramel note which developes the further fermentation is going on for, a slight honey hint (depending on the flavour of honey this will be stronger in some and lighter in others e.g. heavy in heather, light in rapeseed etc), if you're looking for more alcohol content then add a sugar boost like TOAD mentioned if you're looking for the flavour then leave it at a lower percentage and leave after the first run (honey scents and taste can be almost lost on a second run), it's a slower ferment but just leave in a place to go dry (don't add sweet mead yeast as you're going to lose sugar when you distill anyway a strong wine or mead yeast will do), also add some nutrients it may be surprising but honey can lack the nutrients that are needed for a good strong fermentation, and if you are going to use untreated honey then make sure you boil it good after you add your water to the stock pot as honey contains anti microbial properties especially heather and manuka.

My recipe.

1.36kg honey, boil till goes almost black and the froth stops rising.
Add water but not upto where you think a gallon is as you may go over, you can add but not take away,
put into your fermenting apparatus, put that into a bath of cold water if you are impatient like me,
when it hits around 20-30 degrees put your yeast and nutrient in,
pop in your air lock,
and leave for however long it takes to go dry,
the rest.... I don't know yet myself

Good luck guys and again if you have any world firsts or are interested in them then have a look at my other thread!!!

[blind drunk]

I find this thread fascinating but I'm a little confused about caramelizing the honey; doesn't caramelizing the honey reduce the available fermentable sugars? And if it's too dark, there's not fermentable sugar left. Can you elaborate? If you don't mind.

[Craisogaenus]

There is still a lot of residual sugar left, yes you do lose some but not as much as you think, caramelisation is a pyrolysis reaction whereby the energy from heat breaks down molecules such as disaccharides into its mono units such as glucose and fructose (like honey) so it actually becomes easier to ferment in theory but also a lot of the sugar that gets broken down even further can still be fermented, there are thousands of products made in caramelisation and the darker ones make it look really dark by absorbing a lot of light (such as aromatic carbon rings) even if most of the honey is still intact, if you had no sugar left you'd just be left with carbon that's why you take it off the heat before it starts to smell burnt, as with actual caramel itself. I hope this answers it well enough .

[Craisogaenus]

Aslong as a molecule has enough Carbon, Oxygen, and Hydrogen in its empirical formula it can still make alcohol, plus some enzymes can join molecules together (anabolic reactions and hydrolysis and condensation reactions) which then can allow them to be fermented also. So it isn't all straight forward as a yeast cell meets a glucose molecule they get funky and BAM! Little ethanol babies are born, there a lot of dirty affairs in the background which contribute to your off flavours and desired flavours and more little alcohols.

[bcboyz86]

So the burnt kinda weird nutty flavor I've been getting might be due to residual sugar in my wash getting scaulded in the boiler? I was kinda wondered if that was the case, but wasn't exactly sure... :/ and I was thinking of doing a 5gallon wash of mead, so it would only be about a gallon and a half of honey I would need to carmalize right? (18lbs worth) and the other 5 gallon batch I will probably use a little less honey as I'm going to run it through the still so the extra honey would be wasted anyway. But I plan to let all of it sit for a year to mellow out properly. So you would suggest seperating out the 5 gallons into smaller jugs? Like say 4L wine jugs or something like that? What about letting it age with any additives?(oak or fruits) have their been any good combinations, or is mead just good on its own? I've also head that of takes about a year to sweeten up, so should I wait till the end to add any extra honey for sweetener? I would hate to add some honey to my 80 proof bottle and in a year have it be too sickeningly sweet to drink :/

[blind drunk]

such as aromatic carbon rings

Is that like, onion rings?

Just kidding. Thanks for your post. Learn something new everyday.

[Craisogaenus]

Haha well if you left them in the oven too long then may be .

to bcboyz: a 5 gallon batch is fine for normal mead and bochet mead, aslong as you have a stock pot large enough to fit the bubbling over as well. If I were you I'd do a small one first just so you can gauge for the next time and I've done 1 UK gallon (larger than american) and that took 1.36 kg of honey for your gallon it would take 1.15kg of honey, so for a five gallon batch you'll need 5.75kg honey which is 12.7 lbs, you could add more if you want, you'll not get a much higher percentage of alcohol but you'll probably get more flavour in the end. As for other types of flavouring I do not know as of yet because this is the first time I am going to distill it and I've only made one batch of bochet mead before. But I'm all up for experimenting, spices, and flowers come out well in honey if you want to try .

[Craisogaenus]

also there would have to be a lot of residual sugar to caramelise in your boiler (needs to be concentrated) especially a five gallon one, it might be but my best guess is that it isn't.

[bcboyz86]

Hmmmmm. Yea I have a big enough stock pot to boil a couple gallons of liquid, so I shouldn't have an issue with that. And I was shooting for more flavor in the 5gal. wash of mead. The other wash for distilling I will try to stick to 8% to keep it clean(just 12lbs/1gallon of honey to 5gal wash. And since it doesn't ferment out fast I'm guessing I don't need to leave a lot of head room for foam and stuff? I would love to have a way of testing the differences Instead of waiting a year to try it. Kinda seems like a lot of eggs to put in one basket...especially if it doesn't turn out very good

[Craisogaenus]

Yeah the mead should be fine in taste for a big batch, and I haven't had much foaming in the ferment. I can't imagine a bad taste will come through off the run, and honey usually doesn't take to long to reach its full potential like other spirits, unlike mead which for me anyway just gets better and better with age.

[bcboyz86]

What is "not too long" for you? 6months-a year? Most everyone I've asked about it said it took a full year. But they also just made it from a mail order kit and didn't know what they were doing either. I was hoping to have it for Christmas this year, but don't think it would be mellowed by then unless your about to make my day and tell me a super secret speedy aging process for mead!

[Craisogaenus]

It really depends on what honey you have used; A honey with a more rich depth of flavours e.g. heather will take longer to age and mellow (but in my opinion worth it) and honeys such as balsam and rapeseed will reach their peak much faster (3 months to 6 months), as I said with meads the flavour just seems to keep improving with age but the same laws regarding the richness and age. Unfortunately there aren't many magical tips but there is a think called ageing potentials, it is based on the tannin content of a wine, but as honey has no tannins this can't really be related but the principle might work, wines that are left closed in heat will age faster but also risk deterioration, however wines stored at cold temperatures will take longer to age but won't deteriorate, so if you left it warm then at the right time put it in cold that would speed it up, plus there are methods such as electric fields which are being tested that might speed up reactions which help mellowness but not so much any other depth in flavour. Also aeration helps and any other way of increasing surface area to air but you risk infection setting in. But these theories don't exactly work in tandem with the wines/beers. My advise is just to let it age naturally in a place just under room temperature. The main thing is temperature though in short hotter and faster, colder and slower. Give small batches experiments and see what you feel is right.

[bcboyz86]

One thought I had was to get some cool old decoritive bottles and "hide it in plain sight" and just decorate the house with them here and there. Is mead affected by sunlight like some alcohols are? Or could I put them in window sills? And I guess I might just have 1 jug I take drinks out of every month or so to test the progression of flavor. The honey's you mentioned sound a bit foreign to me... Are Heather, rapeseed, and balsam different names for types or different pollens that the bees collect from? Around here they just call it _______ honey and whatever flower the bees collected from its that kind of honey(clover honey, blackberry honey, orange blossom honey, ext...) Also, all the honey around here is around $35/gallon ish... Some as high as $40 and places like Costco its about $27/gallon... But I don't want to buy un-expensive honey and skimp $20 and have all the time waiting and the $100+ invested to not be worth it too... :/ how would I be able to find this honey hierarchy for the honey around here?

[Craisogaenus]

haha the honey at costco in the Uk is cheaper that's ridiculous. But anyway yeah they are just different plant varieties, clover honey is alright, and orange blossom you can already imagine the flavour hints that that will produce that is also quite a quick one in tasting better faster due to the orange hint. Yes mead can be affected quite badly by UV so if you want decorative bottles get some brown, blue, black, or green ones. The lighter the mead is the more affected it is, this may seem odd to some people as they may think more light passes through, your right but only in the visible spectrum, the UV cannot be seen, and in for example the aromatic carbon rings in the bochet mead will help protect from UV by absorbing photons, but I am not saying that either should be left in sunlight really just putting stuff out there, plus don't put them in coloured plastics in direct sunlight as you see what happens to plastics with UV, it releases lots of nasty chemicals into your drink made worse via reactions with ethanol and other metabolites and secondary metabolites.