Brewing a braggot with a friend - Robobrew

[fury_tea]

Hi all,

I brew on a 35L Robobrew. Got a mate who likes mead but never brewed beer, he's coming round in a couple of weeks with a load of honey to brew a braggot (mead/beer cross, if you don't know), and i am providing the grain, hops and brewing equipment etc.

We want to end up with around 20L each, but I am unsure on how to do it with my 35L robo.

Grain bill is about 8kg which is a bit more than the robo can handle.

1. Should I split the grain and do a reiterated mash then add water back to it after the boil?
2. Will this mess with the IBUs etc (I've worked it out for 40L)?
3. What's the efficiency like on these kinds of brews and should I add a bit extra malt in case the SG ends up a bit low?
4. Would you add the honey to the fermenter or to the boil at flame out?

Thanks in advance

 

[An Ankoù]

My experience of Braggot is that it's quite strong, 7+% abv. DO you really want 20 litres each? Why not go for 10-15 litres each. It had quite a distinctive flavour, which I love, but you might not even like it. I also bottle mine in 33cl bottles. It improves for keeping several months or even a year.
I add my honey to the end of the boil, bring it back to the boil and then chill. But in retrospect, I don't think it's necessary to bring it back to the boil.

 

[Rwilts]

I think your asking a lot both with the grain bill and the desired volume.

Ignoring the first I would have thought your only option would be to liqueur back after boil but that would still be adding a lot of water into each 20l batch..

As discussed on a different thread last night anything north of 6kg will give you a very thick mash and push the capacity of a 35L boiler . I once did a 7.5 in my brewzilla NEVER AGAIN.

I think your better off just brewing as much as you can and if it works out and you both like it brew it again...

 

[Caramel Ox]

The only question I can answer is that the more you load in the lower your mash efficiency will be - and a brewing calculator won’t account for the change.

My question- does it make a difference to the end result if you blend before fermentation compared to both making your own product and blending later?

 

[fury_tea]

My experience of Braggot is that it's quite strong, 7+% abv. DO you really want 20 litres each? Why not go for 10-15 litres each. It had quite a distinctive flavour, which I love, but you might not even like it. I also bottle mine in 33cl bottles. It improves for keeping several months or even a year.
I add my honey to the end of the boil, bring it back to the boil and then chill. But in retrospect, I don't think it's necessary to bring it back to the boil.

I am aiming for about 8.5%. My plan is to keg it and bottle half from the keg to save for next Christmas then drink the rest whenever I feel like it over the next few months. My friend will be bottling the lot.

I love mead, I like barley wines etc, so I can't see myself not liking it really.

I think your asking a lot both with the grain bill and the desired volume.

Ignoring the first I would have thought your only option would be to liqueur back after boil but that would still be adding a lot of water into each 20l batch..

As discussed on a different thread last night anything north of 6kg will give you a very thick mash and push the capacity of a 35L boiler . I once did a 7.5 in my brewzilla NEVER AGAIN.

I think your better off just brewing as much as you can and if it works out and you both like it brew it again...

As it stands the plan in my head is reiterative, i.e. to mash 4-5kg, sparge, then mash the rest in the same wort ton sparge and boil. I know lots of people have done this for things like imperial stouts etc so I know it works but would be interested in hearing from someone who has tried it.

The other option is that I have a tea urn, think it's around 25L, I could use a brew bag and mash in that at the same time, then just mix them. It just means I will have the get my sparge water from elsewhere, and I don't know how well the tea urn boils so could be too much messing around.

 

[fury_tea]

The only question I can answer is that the more you load in the lower your mash efficiency will be - and a brewing calculator won’t account for the change.

My question- does it make a difference to the end result if you blend before fermentation compared to both making your own product and blending later?

If I have understood the question, I can't answer it, but my friend doesn't have any beer brewing equipment which is why we're doing it round mine.

I did have another idea, which is to do kind of a partial mash, and add DME or LME to bring the SG up...