Batch 134: Orange Blossom Bochet
Another shot at a bochet, since our first attempt was no particularly wonderful success. (Though neither was it terrible, to be fair. Still, I'd like to do better.)
Ingredients in this batch
- 2.2 lb orange blossom honey from Bennett's Honey Farm, moderately caramelized by heating, covered, for 130 minutes in our Crock-Pot on
high
. - 1.8 lb orange blossom honey from Bennett's Honey Farm, uncaramelized.
- untreated tap water to just over 1 gallon.
- ½ tsp. Wyeast beer yeast nutrient.
- ½ tsp. Fermaid K, added late, on 8 Sept 2018.
- ½ packet Lalvin 71B-1122 wine yeast, rehydrated in ½ cup untreated tap water at 95℉, and split with batch 138.
- approx. ⅕ packet Super Kleer, added on 9 August 2019.
Procedure
Heated a little over two pounds of honey in the Crock-Pot for a little over two hours. Poured in enough honey to bring the total to four pounds, then cooled further by adding some warm water when the temperature dropped. Poured into a carboy with some water already in it, then added yeast nutrient and water to just over a gallon. Agitated obsessively and repeatedly and intermittently for over an hour, then measured the gravity and pitched the yeast.
Brew date: 30 August 2018.
Original gravity: 1.120.
Bottling date: 30 September 2019
Final gravity: 1.055.
Estimated ABV: Approx. 9%.
Yield:
- 7 x 500mL wine bottles
Total: 3.5 liters.
Observations
- 2018-08-31T10:49: There's already plenty of bubbling in the carboy.
- 2019-08-09: Added approximately one-fifth of the first packet of Super Kleer to the carboy.
- 2019-09-30: Bottled, yielding three and a half liters of mead.