Not your average Braggot?

[Tiber_Brew]

I've brewed a few batches of mead, but I'm relatively new to it.

So I wanted to brew a batch a little differently, later to find out that the closest thing to what I had in mind was called a braggot. I wasn't satisfied with the recipes I found all over the internet. Not that they didn't sound good, but I wanted to go a slightly different direction. I'm sure this has been done before in some way or another, but I couldn't find anything like it.

Most braggot recipes I find are around 50% honey, 50% malt (extract or grains). I wanted a braggot that was more mead, and less beer, and treated my new recipe more like a mead. Instead of starting out with water, I started out with the runnings of a weak mash, boiled shortly with a small amount of hops, then added the honey as usual.

I wanted something like a traditional mead, but with some amount of protein, slight head, and faint hop presence -something that you serve sparkling and slightly chilled.

Enough already; I'll give you the recipe and the process and you'll get the idea!

10 gallons final volume

5 lb 2-row
1 lb Munich

Mash at 153 for 60 minutes
Sparge about 7.5-8 gal into kettle

.75 oz. Saaz 3.4%AA (first wort hop) 30 minutes
Irish Moss 15 minutes
35 lb honey after flame out ~160-180F, steeped for around 20 minutes, scraped off pollen etc. off top

Chilled with CF chiller to 72, split into two fivers, aerated

rehydrated US-05 into one carboy, rehydrated Lalvin D-47 into the other

OG: 1.121

Tasted and smelled wonderful at original gravity reading. I'm looking forward to the final product from both of these yeasts.

Comments? Critiques?

 

[Tiber_Brew]

After some violent kraeusen, the fermentation is still steady but slower. Smells wonderful.

 

[BillyGHusk]

I only know enough to know I want a glass or two of it.

 

[Tiber_Brew]

You and me both. I'm dying to get a taste of this stuff. As always with mead, patience is a virtue.

 

[Tiber_Brew]

Reviving this to say that this turned out fantastic! I would reduce the amount of honey to around 25-30 lbs next time, though.

TB

 

[Fathand]

What makes you say you'd reduce the amount of honey next time?

I just made a braggot with a lot less honey. I just racked to 2ndary and it has the mead alcohol heat to it.

5 Gallon
7 lbs 2-Row
½ lb Carmel malt 40L
6 lbs Honey (5 lbs Clover/1 lbs Buckwheat)
1 oz hops (whole cone Cascade)
Nottingham Dry Yeast

 

[Tiber_Brew]

I say that because, even though it finished at 15% ABV, the final gravity was still a bit high and it's a little sweeter than I like. It's not overly sweet, but on your second or third glass you start to wish it was a bit more crisp.

Your braggot recipe looks more like the usual recipes than mine. I kind of shifted the sugar sources towards honey, rather than going around 50/50. Mine doesn't taste very much like beer, but you can pick up on the noble hops and a bit of malt, though very subtle.

Hope yours turns out, sounds pretty good to me.

TB

 

[biochemedic]

Out of curiosity, what was the final gravity? By my calculator, the FG should have gotten down to ~1.009 at 15%, which doesn't sound terribly sweet to me...granted, I also usually like even dryer for most meads, but 1.009 is barely semi-sweet...

Also, another point of curiosity: why the two yeasts? Did you blend the two carboys back together at the end? With the US-05, I'm not surprised you had a higher FG...doesn't that yeast tend to poop out at ~ 11%? I'd expect the D-47 to handle a bit more... By any chance do you have FG numbers for the individual carboys?

Perhaps next time you could just use a more tolerant yeast for the whole schebang, and rely on your mash temp to leave you some unfermentables to give some body and small amount of residual sweetness...

Overall, I like your recipe idea...almost as much of a "barley hop metheglin" as a braggot...I may have to put this one on the long list, as I've been wanting to eventually do another braggot.

 

[Tiber_Brew]

Out of curiosity, what was the final gravity? By my calculator, the FG should have gotten down to ~1.009 at 15%, which doesn't sound terribly sweet to me...granted, I also usually like even dryer for most meads, but 1.009 is barely semi-sweet...

I had to bring out my brew log to check the numbers. I was off a bit in the O.P. Here are the final numbers:

The original gravity of the whole 10 gallon wort: 1.125
The final gravity of the US-05 carboy: 1.044
The final gravity of the D-47 carboy: 1.012

That gives an ABV of 15% for the D-47, and 10.8% for the US-05.

The US-05 batch is very sweet, but makes for a great after dinner drink. The girls seem to love it, too. The D-47 isn't overly sweet, like I said, but I tend to like my mead a bit drier than that. No complaints, though, really, since they are both very very good. I think next time I'd add a bit less honey to the wort, and skip the US-05 and sub maybe the EC-1118 strain.

Also, another point of curiosity: why the two yeasts? Did you blend the two carboys back together at the end? With the US-05, I'm not surprised you had a higher FG...doesn't that yeast tend to poop out at ~ 11%? I'd expect the D-47 to handle a bit more... By any chance do you have FG numbers for the individual carboys?

Yep, see above.

Perhaps next time you could just use a more tolerant yeast for the whole schebang, and rely on your mash temp to leave you some unfermentables to give some body and small amount of residual sweetness...

What yeast would you suggest? Is there a good one that attenuates better than the D-47 or EC-1118? Like I said, I'm going to skip the US-05 for meads from now on, since that was just too sweet for my taste. As for mash temp, I don't think there's enough sugars from the mash to affect the residual sweetness in this recipe. An overwhelming amount of sugars come from the honey, and a slightly more dextronous wort won't give me much sweetness if the honey ferments out to a higher attenuation. I think the key here is tinkering with the amount of honey.

Overall, I like your recipe idea...almost as much of a "barley hop metheglin" as a braggot...I may have to put this one on the long list, as I've been wanting to eventually do another braggot.

Thanks. I wasn't sure what to expect, really, but I was pleasantly surprised. It's a great starting point. I guess I'm not even sure if I could legitimately call it a braggot or not...

If you brew up a recipe similar to this, post up what you brewed and how it turns out; I'm curious to know.

Thanks for the input

TB

 

[biochemedic]

Thanks for the detailed reply. Your numbers make a lot of sense to me from what I'd expect of those yeasts. I think the US-05 would be all but undrinkable for me...that's really sweet!

What yeast would you suggest? Is there a good one that attenuates better than the D-47 or EC-1118? Like I said, I'm going to skip the US-05 for meads from now on, since that was just too sweet for my taste. As for mash temp, I don't think there's enough sugars from the mash to affect the residual sweetness in this recipe. An overwhelming amount of sugars come from the honey, and a slightly more dextronous wort won't give me much sweetness if the honey ferments out to a higher attenuation. I think the key here is tinkering with the amount of honey.

You may be right about the small amount of barley. I'm sure D-47 or EC-1118 would be fine. Personally, I tend to use Wyeast Dry Mead strain (4632) as my "go to" yeast for mead. I just have a lot of experience with it, as I was on a liquid yeast kick when I started brewing, and I made all of my first batches of mead with it. From what I can tell, it is a variety of a champagne yeast, tolerant to 18%, and is just a slow and steady fermenter. It sometimes takes a little longer to finish than some others (especially 71B, which is pretty lickety split) but I've never had a bad ferment...it doesn't seem to put off many fuesels or off flavors, even with slightly higher ferm temps (I don't have a way to accurately regulate that other than being in my basement which is 66-69 in the winter, and 70-72 in the summer.)
Incidentally, I actually just did my own first experiment using an ale yeast for a mead...a metheglin with bitter orange, corriander seed and a saison yeast (3711)...not quite done fermenting, but smells good.

Thanks. I wasn't sure what to expect, really, but I was pleasantly surprised. It's a great starting point. I guess I'm not even sure if I could legitimately call it a braggot or not...

If you brew up a recipe similar to this, post up what you brewed and how it turns out; I'm curious to know.

Thanks for the input

Right on...I do 6 gal mead batches, so I think I'd plan ~2.5 lbs 2-row and 1lb Vienna and 15 lbs honey. This should yield around 1.120 OG. I'd probably have to do a BIAB technique in one of my little coolers...my regular mash tun is a 60 qt and I think this would be a little small of a grain volume for that. The ratios for fermentable sugar put me at about 19% from malt, which seems to be about where you were at when I ran your numbers through ProMash...

Just for Ha-Ha's (not like it really matters), I looked up the BJCP description for Braggot, and they actually don't specify what percentage of fermentable needs to come from malt vs honey. They do simply state: "A Braggot is a mead made with malt." Further though: "Displays a balanced character identifiable as both a beer and a mead, although the relative intensity of flavors is greatly affected by the sweetness, strength, base style of beer, and variety of honey used.," and: "A harmonious blend of mead and beer, with the distinctive characteristics of both. A wide range of results are possible...." Finally: "The fermentable sugars come from a balance of malt or malt extract and honey, although the specific balance is open to creative interpretation by brewers." (emphasis added)

So I guess as long as you can still perceive some of that malt character, it's still a braggot....

One other question regarding your recipe...did you really use 35 lbs honey? As I mentioned, I ran your numbers through ProMash to get an idea of the ratios, and 35 lbs should have put your OG up above 1.160! 25 lbs seems to come in about right...

 

[Tiber_Brew]

Yeah, 35 lbs of honey. I can double check my old brew log when I get home from work today. When I run the malt and honey through my brew software at 10 gal final volume and 83% efficiency, it predicts an OG of 1.126. Maybe you entered an incorrect constant, or different volumes in your software?

I'll have to give that Wyeast a try; I've always used rehydrated dry yeast for meads. Do you make a starter?

It might be a couple months before I get my next mead going, since I've got some Belgian beers aging or in the lineup that will take up some of my carboy availability. I do want to do another methyglyn or straight mead again.

Cheers,
TB

 

[biochemedic]

I do make starters for my liquid yeast. For the mead yeast, I target a little higher than average starter OG, and I put around 3/4 of a pound of honey in 2 quarts. Gives me somewhere around 1.060ish. I do use nutrients just like I would with a actual batch for the starter as well...

Honey certainly can vary in terms of it's actual sugar content, but I still can't quite rectify the numbers when I played around with them again. I actually used a lower efficiency for the grain (70%), and I did use a 10 gal volume. Even without the malt, 35 lbs of honey in a total volume of 10 gal calculates to 1.147 using a pppg of 1.042

Whatever though...it was what it was...I too have way too many ideas for batches to fit into my time and/or carboy space!

 

[Tiber_Brew]

I do make starters for my liquid yeast. For the mead yeast, I target a little higher than average starter OG, and I put around 3/4 of a pound of honey in 2 quarts. Gives me somewhere around 1.060ish. I do use nutrients just like I would with a actual batch for the starter as well...

Interesting idea, using honey in the starter. I'll give that a shot.

Honey certainly can vary in terms of it's actual sugar content, but I still can't quite rectify the numbers when I played around with them again. I actually used a lower efficiency for the grain (70%), and I did use a 10 gal volume. Even without the malt, 35 lbs of honey in a total volume of 10 gal calculates to 1.147 using a pppg of 1.042

Hmmm, weird. I don't know what else to tell you. My brewing software predicts 1.126 and I measured 1.125. I will double check on the 35 lbs when I get home, but I'm just about positive it was 35 lbs. I measured by weighing myself, then filling and holding the bucket as I poured from the large container if bulk honey.

Whatever though...it was what it was...I too have way too many ideas for batches to fit into my time and/or carboy space!

Yeah, I already have 8 carboys and 12 kegs, so I'm trying not to convince myself that buying any more is a good idea. I guess the alternative would be patience. :cross:

Cheers,
TB

 

[biochemedic]

Hmmm, weird. I don't know what else to tell you. My brewing software predicts 1.126 and I measured 1.125. I will double check on the 35 lbs when I get home, but I'm just about positive it was 35 lbs. I measured by weighing myself, then filling and holding the bucket as I poured from the large container if bulk honey.

I was playing around with the numbers, and I think it really just matters what you use as PPPG for the honey, as as I mentioned, this probably varies widely. My ProMash has it set at 1.042, and I downloaded a trial of BeerSmith just to play with, and it came up with a totally different OG number...until I edited the pppg to be 1.042, and then the numbers were identical.

Working backwards, your software is probably set to about 1.031 pppg for honey...like I said, it is what it is...I'm used to the actual numbers for honey varying a bit...

 

[Tiber_Brew]

I was playing around with the numbers, and I think it really just matters what you use as PPPG for the honey, as as I mentioned, this probably varies widely. My ProMash has it set at 1.042, and I downloaded a trial of BeerSmith just to play with, and it came up with a totally different OG number...until I edited the pppg to be 1.042, and then the numbers were identical.

Working backwards, your software is probably set to about 1.031 pppg for honey...like I said, it is what it is...I'm used to the actual numbers for honey varying a bit...

Good catch. I just looked up the pppg on my software: 1.035



/strange that it actually closely matched my honey source...