Lemon Bochet - A variation on the theme of Skeeter Pee.

[bernardsmith]

Recipe for large 1 gallon - You can increase the amount by increasing EVERY ingredient (including the yeast by the number of gallons you intend to bottle

2.5 lbs clover honey
1 gallon of water
US -05 yeast
peel of two lemons
20 oz of lemon juice
1/2 t nutrient
1/2 t tannin
K-meta
K-sorbate
6 oz sugar to back sweeten
1 pint of sweet elderflower wine (1.040)

Process:
1. Cooked honey 30 mins medium heat (cook more or less time for more caramelization)
2. Stopped cooking by mixing with warmed spring water (be careful - the honey will be at about 320 F and at that temperature the heat can vaporize the water and scald you).
3. Allowed the must to cool to room temperature and poured in to fermenting bucket
4. Checked SG: 1.085 (potentially 11% ABV )
5. Mixed in lemon peel, nutrients, tannin
6. Pitched yeast and allowed the must to ferment to 1.010 (bucket is loosely covered with lid - not sealed.
7. Degassed twice a day
8. Added lemon juice (lemon is very acidic and honey has no stabilizers so adding honey at close to the end of fermentation would ensure that the fermentation would not stall if pH dropped below 3.0)
8. Racked to carboy when gravity was about 1.002 (about 16 days) - There was another quart of mead which I placed in a quart bottle and sealed both carboy and bottle with bung and airlock
9. Aged 2 months. Mead is bright and clear.
10. Stabilized with K-meta and K-sorbate
11. Backsweetened with 6 oz of sugar dissolved in a little of the mead and a "large" pint of elderflower wine
12. Bottled (six 750 ml bottles)

 

[MakinMead]

Hey Bernard I really like this idea, and I’m going to start a batch today. I particularly like the bochet and the lemon aspect, but I’m not a fan of elderflower in general, I may omit that. How did the flavor turn out for you overall?

 

[bernardsmith]

The main reason why I backsweetened with this elderflower wine is that it stuck at 1.040 and is too sweet for me but it is fine for me to use this as a wine to blend with other wines to add sweetness and some flavor complexity.
The bochet is quite delicious (to date we sampled only the excess and have not cracked open a full bottle just yet - as I think that this wine is more suggestive of sunny spring days or warm summer afternoons and not bitterly cold January days when we are trudging through snow...

 

[MakinMead]

Glad to hear it turned out in your favor. I decided to take part of your idea, seeing how I wont be adding the elderflower, and I too want some bigger flavors in there. I carmelized roughly 3 lbs of honey(didn’t measure), got a nice color on it, threw it in the carboy with 5 cloves, yes 5.. I want this to be strong... and 2 cinnamon sticks. Ec1118 and some nutrient. I intend on adding a 15oz bottle of lemon juice and a little honey like you did at the end. Pretty excited about this one.