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Remember - that pic is the blended version with about 65% of a very lightly colored standard semi-sweet mead. It is about the same color as the pressure cooker faux-bochet I have fermenting right now.
Wish I still had some of the pure bochet to show - it was a very deep mahogany color. Making more this week if I can shake off last week and get motivated.
As for the wildflower - I spoke with a couple of mazers that are frustrated that people are burning out the varietal character of really expensive exotic honeys. They recommended getting the process down with wildflower and exploring from there.
Posted 34 days ago.
well UberG33k, you reminded me it was time to start another batch. I took some photos and videos and plan a blog post on the topic. Below are my color sheets I dotted along the way. I don't usually dot each minute, and I got a nasty blister taking a sample when the foam was way high.
Notes: 9# Wildflower Bochet / 3 Gallon Batch + 3# raw Wildflower (to bring up the gravity and step feed added daily after degass and nutrient feed). Using 71b-2122 rehydrated in GoFerm and a little must.
Total time on stove was about 2.5 hours. I start slow, ramp with a lot of heat through to 127C. At that point, I add a few grams of potassium bicarbonate to accelerate maillard reactions. You can see the quick change on the sheet there. Of course, the natural plateaus follow the balling of sugar. I come to just to hard crack and hold it for 15-20 minutes until I get the molten volcano eruptions through the thick foam. I spray the foam with mist (RO) to start taking down the heat. Cut the flame and let rest for just a few minutes, then carefully add in boiling water. The foam drops quickly and I stir to incorporate. Then I add more room temp water until I hit just below my target volume. Note: RO with minerals added, but still quite soft.
Note: I color corrected the sheets using a white balance card. The last two are simply zoomed in, but not color corre
Here's the first sheet:
The second sheet - after 15 minutes at hard crack. Decided to let it ride a bit longer as I hadn't seen the last big foam rise.
Close ups of the final and the must smear. Note the grainy looking bits. I pour through some cheese cloth in the funnel to catch the really big bits.
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Posted 34 days ago.
I do something similar although not quite as many samples.
Posted 34 days ago.
Edited 34 days ago by uberg33k
Those last dots look really dark. Hard to tell without a color balance. Do you know your finish temps? Last time I pushed past hard crack I wound up with a lot of carbonized honey which didn't taste good at all. I think I could push through the final foam and get a bit darker without "burning". Still nursing a few dozen micro blisters - and one good one. Wear gloves!
Posted 34 days ago.
It occurs to me that a "how to" mead/bochet article, with pictures, is something we are really missing here on this site. I wonder if I could get somebody to do one...
Posted 34 days ago.
Maybe a shorter version of my blog article... would be interesting (and I hope to get some) feedback from Uberg33k and others that have tried this. Otherwise a general mead article is fairly straightforward.
Posted 34 days ago.
Sure, a general mead article is pretty easy. But a good mead article with cool pics like in this thread, from an award winner brewer of said mead?
Oh, yeah.
Posted 34 days ago.
mchrispen - on the batch pictured ... no temps. I was trying the 1393 recipe that said to cook it till it just smokes when the bubbles pop and then rapidly chill it to stop the process.
I don't know what the hell that dude was huffing in terms of smoke, but do not do this. I mean, the bochet ended up really good after about two years, but in the time before that ... it tasted like burning and failure. I would have tossed it out if it hadn't been shoved in the back of a closet and forgotten about.
I also concur about wearing gloves. I don't mean little gloves, I mean like full welders sleeves. The blisters that you get from molten honey exploding on your skin are a special kind of painful.
Posted 34 days ago.