thoughts on these two ideas?
im lazy and i can get really, really good honey for a decent price but its about 90 min trip there and back. ive had a very great, delicate mead from this before and would like to do it again
vs. me driving 5 mins to the store and buying the same amount of generic pretty flavourless honey for cheaper and cooking it to make a bochet?
does a bochet turn out really well? im interested in trying it or is it a kind of one-trick pony thing?
I have never made a Bouchet but intend to in the relatively near future.
Either way, this is an easy call for me. Take the drive and get the better honey. I would get a lot of it. I only buy honey in 5 gallon (60#) pails. The price per pound savings is staggering and honey never goes bad so if that much is a lifetime supply for you, so be it, you still saved at least a hundred bucks.
Here’s how I made a low-ish ABV (about 9%) mead/cyser that won a Best of Show:
https://www.homebrewersassociation.org/forum/index.php?topic=24611.msg314213#msg314213
I usually aim for 5-8% on my meads (maybe technically hydromels at those strengths), and I’ve done bochets a couple of times, and I still feel like I need to do a couple more iterations to get it dialed in. I think I’m still chickening out before it gets dark enough, but I think it does add some complexity to cheap Kirkland honey.
So I’d say: Make the drive and get some good honey … but save it for back-sweetening. Bochet the cheap honey since the heating will probably volatilize the delicate aromatics anyway, and add the good stuff after you’re done with the hot part.
Don’t forget that cheap honey has a good chance of being adulterated. Your making something out of just honey, yeast, and water. Buy good honey. Save money by buying in bulk.
i’m still planning to get that primo honey.
i had a little left in my cupboard - it was thistle honey and the taste is just truly another level. NOT heavy, but delicate, beautiful and herbal. it actually excites me.
I’m coming in late to this conversation, but I’ve made several different bochets, adding a number of spices, fruits and hemp (wink wink). While I would never use the cheap honey, I also would never use the most expensive hoiney. You do lose some of the character when you carmelize it.
My update to this was i actually used the cheapest liquid “unpasteurized” supermarket brand honey - thinking i would boil it and even add lye water to a portion to try to get mellanoidins (it was more measured than this sentence describes btw). but it was easily a top 3 worst alcoholic beverages i have ever made. i choked down part of a few bottles over a few weeks and just let it sit and then dumped it later.
it may not have been the honey itself tbh but the fermentation temps for the D47 i used. i found out later D47 needs to stay no higher than ~67 or it prodeuces awful flavours and fusels which is tbh what i experienced.
horrible, and every time i try to brew outside of beer i am reminded as to why beer is the most popular alcoholic beverage in the world (i think?).
Remember: an experiment is a failure only if you didn’t learn anything.
PS — I’ve had good luck making mead with ale yeast (US-05 and Voss worked well … Munich Classic not so much) … just be generous with your nutrients.