Random Brew 3: Caramel coffee and vanilla mead

I had a few hours to kill yesterday and thought "what the hell, lets do a quick and simple mead". So, similarly to the mead this post will be the same, quick and simple!

1700g of honey, approx 4litres water, ground caramel flavoured coffee (around 4 tablespoons I just threw some in) and 2 vanilla pods, slit and seeds removed and added separately. All of these were added together (holding back 2 liters of water) and brought up to the boil then simmered for 15 minutes. Adding in the extra water I then measured the SG which gave 1.090 which would yield around 12% added a small amount of nutrient (around half a teaspoon) and transferred to the demijohn.

After getting it all set up I felt the mix was still too warm to pitch the yeast into so I dropped it into a water bath for around 20 minutes while the yeast was re-hydrating. I still fear I pitched it too early however. After leaving it for several hours and coming back there was still no activity so I added a second lot of yeast to the must. This morning there seems to be some activity however it is very slow and laboured. 

Updates:

The bochet is still going well... I have added 1/2 teaspoon of nutrient at this point.

The banana melomel has now settled down considerably so the airlock has now been added back onto it. Interestingly the water from the blowoff smelt highly of bananas however the mead itself just smells strongly of alcohol. Strange how exactly the same thing can have two different smells.

Random Brew 2: Banana Melomel

I was persuaded into making this mead courtesy of my girlfriend. If there is one item of food she would happily live on and forego all other foods, it would be bananas. So off I went to the great library of the internet for some research to find if people had already been making this and how to get the banana flavour into mead. I stumbled upon a thread where someone else had been in a similar situation to me and various posts had been left referencing other attempts people had done and their processes. I had my start.

On a random trip out to Tesco's last week I happened across some bananas that were still really really good but reduced in price beyond belief. Not even sure why they were reduced in all honesty: maybe excess stock. Who knows. I picked up 2.5kg of bananas for 28p and considered myself rather lucky! Onto the cooking...

The bananas were sliced with skin on and placed into a pan with 4 pints of water. The "stew" was brought up to the boil and then simmered for around 30/45 minutes. At this point your house will begin to smell of bananas. Also, unless I had done something wrong at this point, boiled bananas turned the water a yellowy-grey colour which, to say this is something to be drunk as a pleasant aperitif, is not one of the most attractive colours. This concoction was then sieved and strained to remove all the pulp leaving only the banana flavoured water. To this, around 1700g of honey was added and dissolved thoroughly. I opted for the extra honey in this batch as I wanted more of a dessert mead for this batch with such sweet flavours from the banana. Next I did all of the usual preparations and sterilising before transferring the mead to the demijohn and topping up with cold water to 1 gallon. I pitched my yeast; the same yeast from the bochet and sealed her up. This batch also has 1tsp of yeast nutrient added due to the high alcohol potential. I'd rather have my yeast live a little longer before they get too drunk.

On the science side, the batch was tested for SG and yielded 1.095 or in terms of potential alcohol, 12.7%. I am hoping that while fermenting the melomel will clear up a bit and give a more pleasant colour to look at rather than the swamp water that there is in there currently. Taste-wise however it is lovely. Obviously non alcoholic and the honey flavour should reduce somewhat but the banana taste is great yet subtle. So far it has been fermenting for a day and the CO2 production is going like a trooper.

...And after one day of fermenting I wish I hadn't said it was going like a trooper! I got home from work last night to a demijohn that was bubbling through its airlock. Never a good sight.I look the airlock off, cleaned and re-sterilized it and attached it back on after pouring out some of the liquid in the demijohn to give it a little more room. After a few hours everything seemed to have been solved up till the point I wanted to go to bed and it began to do the same again. Obviously no shops are really open at this time to help me so I had to make an emergency blow-off tube with what I had lying around.I've put a picture up to show the job I had to do... please forgive the looks of it! I melted an airlock and plastic tubing together and sealed any holes with wax. Seems to do the trick though.

To update with the bochet, it is still going strong after little over a week. The yeast doesn't really show any signs of slowing up just yet but I am anticipating a possible restart being needed... we shall see. It now has one friend to go with it and next week it should be going by another. 3 day weekends seem to be a great excuse to do some brewing!

Random Brew: Bochet

After my original "playful" batches as I will call them, I did copious amounts of research and had improved how I both plan and execute my brewing. I have decided to plan my meads and brew them in such a way that the entire brew, from start to finish, is an entirely repeatable exercise so I can improve them for later trials. Originally I was going to start the plain meads last weekend however I stumbled upon the road block of funds (As I wanted to do 4Gal rather than 1 simultaneously) and opted instead for a Bochet.

I've been wanting to do this mead for a while now after reading about it on Homebrew Talk and decided that this should be the one to start the December brew off with. I already had most of the ingredients for this and even ordered in some vanilla pods to add into the mix too. For those who don't know a Bochet is a "burnt mead". You boil down the mead for over 2 hours until the whole lot becomes black and thicker and doesnt even really bubble up any more. It should give flavours that resemble deep caramels, toffee and even toasted marshmallows (so vanilla should be right at home!).

So here's where I began:

Equipment: 1gal demijohn, 2m plastic tubing for siphoning, airlock and bung, pan for preparing the must, hydrometer, measuring cylinder, very long spoon, cleaning and sterilising powder

Ingredients: Approx 1360g honey, tap water up to 4.5 liters, 2 vanilla pods, high alcohol/dessert yeast.

*Note: The yeast I have been using as advertised as written above. In subsequent brews I shall be using Lalvin yeasts to note the difference between the strains more clearly.

Method: Begin with the obvious and most important step of sterilising everything thoroughly. Next, as said in the opening paragraphs you literally do just dive straight into the seemingly endless process of boiling down all the honey for over 2 hours.

  A constant and vigil watch is required over this. If you've ever boiled milk before and let it go a bit too much you'll know how quickly your hob can be covered in frothy, hot milk. Imagine a similar case with honey except it's hotter and stickier and you really really really do not want it touching you... Trust me.

After it has been reduced down I added (gradually <= This is very important too) water to dissolve with the reduced honey and create my must. After I added up to around 1 liter or so I added the vanilla pods too, opened up and seeds scraped out. Siphoning into the demijohn is next. When siphoning at this point I always leave the end of the tube high up in the demijohn and let the must fall freely into it. This aerates the must and gives the yeast more oxygen to begin their fermentation. If you can, even shaking the demijohn can be beneficial; just please ensure the demijohn is properly sealed and you maintain a good grip. After the adding I topped up to level with cold water to balance out the temperature to match the water that I would use to activate the yeast and, after waiting 20 minutes for it, I pitched the yeast giving as an end product what you can see below. This is definitely the darkest coloured mead I will ever make! I haven't been home to check on it since setting it up but I have been informed it is fermenting nicely.

Tests were also conducted on this batch to boot. Before putting into the demijohn I tested the batch with a hydrometer for specific gravity which gave 1.085 (a potential alcohol of 11.3%) however after putting it into the demijohn the fluid level wasn't quite enough. More water was added and SG was retested yielding 1.070/1.075 (a potential alcohol of 9.5%).

As a side note to this post, I have received some post from Italy too... My new oak barrel has arrived ready for me to start using as soon as I get the mead ready for it! Really looking forward to drinking the results before I've even begun! Thanks for reading :)