In Episode 24, David Doucette from Hive Mind Mead joins us to tackle bochets. What are they? how do you make them? And what the heck is solera aging!?! Listen in to find out. And if you want to join in on the fun check out the links section below for where to follow Dave’s Bochet Solera project.
Right click here to download the mp3 directly.
Drinks in this Episode
- Allen: Pumpkin Apple Bochet
- Tysen: Rhodomel (Hilltop Berry Farm and Winery)
- Dave: Bochet Solera 1 and an unknown Sour Mead
Links in this Episode
- Learn more about Dave and his adventures:
- Hive Mind Mead
- Dave’s user profiles
- Dave’s favorite sources for honey:
- Flying Bee Ranch (also approved by us!)
- MVA Bee Punchers
- Making a Burnt Mead on youtube
- Oak Bottles on Kickstarter
- The Bochet Solera Project on HomeBrewTalk
- What is Solera Aging?
- Bochet discussion on twitter
Other Things
MeadMakr will be joining in the Bochet Solera fun soon. First, we’ll be starting a bochet trial to get some more info on how much unfermentable sugar is created and how the pH changes as a result of the caramelization. The goal is at least 4 batches, 1 control, one short cooked bochet, one long cooked bochet (burnt black), and one somewhere in between. We’ll ferment all of them with the same yeast, measuring pH at the start and gravity at the end. The plan is to ferment dry, so the residual sugars at the end will help approximate unfermentability of the sugars.
Once we know our target mead characteristics, we’ll make a 3 gallon batch with three solera steps. These will be added as separate blog posts, but we’ll link back to them here as they progress.
http://www.honey.com/honey-locator/
Good place to start finding near by local honey producers. They have a decent search engine.
Agreed! It is a great first start to find local honeys.