Bochet

[WVMountaineerJack]

Has anyone tried a Bochet on here? You got one going fatbloke? I tasted a bottle of mead made from meadowfoam flowers, it had a light marshmellow taste, very nice since I didnt think that kind of taste would be good in a mead. We dont have meadowfoam around here but I read about Bochet, carmalizing honey to get an even more pronounced taste of caramel and roasted marshmellows. I am also thinking about using a pressure cooker to carmalize the honey, a lot safer and less mess than doing it on the stovetop.

Cracked

[fatbloke]

Has anyone tried a Bochet on here? You got one going fatbloke? I tasted a bottle of mead made from meadowfoam flowers, it had a light marshmellow taste, very nice since I didnt think that kind of taste would be good in a mead. We dont have meadowfoam around here but I read about Bochet, carmalizing honey to get an even more pronounced taste of caramel and roasted marshmellows. I am also thinking about using a pressure cooker to carmalize the honey, a lot safer and less mess than doing it on the stovetop.

Cracked

It's one of the things on the "to do" list. But I've been reading about using a pressure cooker too, but still would be concerned with flavour pollution from any seals on the lids of jars etc that might be used when trying to pressure cook a jar of honey.

If I could guarantee that the seals were silicone, then it'd be fine as that's got a hell of a lot of temperature tolerance, but I don't know what the seals on the jars that I have available are made of.

Hence I've been just thinking of doing the "burn" in a jam/jelly making pan and taking it from there.

I'd only be a gallon batch as a test to see how I get on......

Meadowfoam honey is one of the ones I dream about trying, but it's not available here. To make it worth my while I'd have to ship a 5 gallon drum/can over to make it less than £5 per lb for the honey and if I could be certain that they could use one of those screw topped cans it would be less of a worry, but if it was shipped in a plastic bucket type container, then I stand to lose the lot if the lid came off while shipping and that sort of money is a bit too much to risk......

So I'll probably just do a burn on some of the cheaper honey I've got here already.....

And yes, when (if) I get round to it, I'll post about it.....

[WVMountaineerJack]

FB, the canning jar lids are fine, no problem with them , we use them for tomatoes, a lot more acidic than honey. Carry on at HBT.

[Cellar_Rat]

Chaps. Do you have a bochet recipe please?

Sounds like I need to try this..

[fatbloke]

Chaps. Do you have a bochet recipe please?

Sounds like I need to try this..

Theres no "real" recipe Brian, unless you onow that you're gonna use some fruit too.

If you check out gotmead and homebrewtalk, theres a bit of guidance for colour and timings for caramelising the honey. I don't know whether the sugars will reduce in numbers or not while caramelising/burning. A quick google should give some guidance as I've read stuff that says about burning the honey until you see little puffs of smoke coming out of the burn but also those who do drip tests onto white paper to measure the darkness.

I've got a vague plan to burn about 5lb of honey for a first go, based on about 3.5 to 4lb of honey to the gallon with some left over for step feed or back sweetening. I also understand once burned the honey will set solid if its not at least partly diluted once its about 2/3rds cooled.

I'll just be mixing the batch up so I start with a gravity in the 1.100 sort of area, then take it from there......

{edit}here's a link to a youtube clip about doing the burn - it's worth watching as you can see the inherent hazards of making the must in the first place as well as how it's likely to turn out{/edit}

[Cellar_Rat]

what about an ancient Jo with burnt honey?

[fatbloke]

what about an ancient Jo with burnt honey?

Dunno. Not tried doing the honey burn yet.......

No reason why it shouldn't work though......

I found a small (out of production now) stirrer on ebay the other week and I'm gonna order a 5000 ml erlermeyer conical flask, hopefully tomorrow. So the first experiment will probably be a JAO stir plate batch.......

When I get 5 mins (again, maybe tomorrow) I will try and get the burn done too so I can get a bochet on the go, as it's over due on the "to do" list. Especially as I've still got 3 buckets of the cheap honey I got from the bloke in Oxford, via HBT.....

[WVMountaineerJack]

darkness.jpg

We did the pressure cooker thing and it worked very well, before and after pics, no valcanoes, no hot tar splattering the peasants, already got the yeast added, a little oak and we are off to the races. CC