Braggot Mead Ale hybrid

[simon12]

It now just tastes of alcohol with very little honey, I hope it improves with age but at the moment I would say this is a failure unless you like carlsberg special brew.

[Rookie]

It now just tastes of alcohol with very little honey, I hope it improves with age but at the moment I would say this is a failure unless you like carlsberg special brew.

The last braggot I made was a bit stronger than yours (9%) and it took almost a year before it got really good. Your recipe looks good so give it time.

[Laripu]

For a 23L batch, if you use as much as 2 kg of honey, you need to balance with lots of malt or you end up with thin beer .... that is, if you think of it as beer.

If you think of it as mead, then it will have too much body.

So stop thinking about it as either beer or mead. As braggot, the body might be ... perfect.

I also like Rookie's advice about aging. I find anything with honey needs longer aging. When I make traditional mead, I age in glass carboys for a year before bottling, then another 2 months at least in the bottle before drinking. (Except for a sneaky little taste, one bottle, at one month. )

[simon12]

Cheers guys will leave the rest for a while.

[Fido97]

Simon12 how is it tasting now? I'm going to brew something similar but won't bother if it will turn out like special brew! I'm wondering about increasing the percentage of speciality malts to up the malt profile a bit.

[simon12]

Just tried it and its not good. The strong honey flavour without any sweetness is very medicinal I would try 20% honey at the most. I wish I had some lemonade as that could sweeten it enough but the flavour is very strong, maybe less alcohol more medicinal than before.

[Laripu]

Just tried it and its not good. The strong honey flavour without any sweetness is very medicinal I would try 20% honey at the most. I wish I had some lemonade as that could sweeten it enough but the flavour is very strong, maybe less alcohol more medicinal than before.

I wouldn't blame the honey. I've made beers with 4.5 lbs of honey (over 2kg) and 6 lbs DME, but also 2 lbs of dark crystal (1 lb each of 120L crystal malt and 80L rye crystal). It tasted great. The crystal sweetness balanced it.

[Laripu]

Duplicate post.

[simon12]

Just tried it mixed with sprite, even 50/50 the honey is very strong but it tastes nice now and not at all medicinal. So I would say the main problem was it finished far to low gravity even though I mashed it high. Mixed with sprite its still very beer like in looks and taste even though the honey is still strong and theres a lime flavour from the sprite.