I’ve been letting my mead ale condition in the fermenter hoping that the yeast might consume some more of the sugar as I was hoping for a drier finish. As I tasted some while checking the SG, it turned out to have a predominant taste of chocolate followed by the hops and honey. I’m trying to figure out where the chocolate flavor came from. The hops and yeast I used are as follows:
2oz. Pride of Australian Ringwood hops as bittering hops
2oz. El Dorado hops as bittering hops
4oz Cascade hops as aromatic hops
Wyeast 4347 Extreme Fermentation yeast
White Labs WLP099 Super High Gravity Ale yeast
When the must was at about 12% ABV, I dry hopped with heather tips for a floral flavor.
It is currently at about 14% ABV.
Any ideas?
mead ale?
A hopped mead brewed with an ale or beer yeast.
My guess would be a combo of flavors, with the biggest contributor being yeast fermentation byproducts.
I bet if you rack off of yeast and allow to further age, the choco will fall away.
BTW you can call it WUTever you want, obviously, as it’s your creation. It might be called a ‘braggot,’ though if you were to try to place it within a “style”
good luck
Thanks for the input. Racking off the yeast was my next step after adding fresh yeast and nutrient as fermentation had stalled and there was still a lot of sugar.
The name came out of a mead recipe book and from a few other places, and a braggot usually would have malt in addition to honey.
ah i got ya…didn’t notice there was no malt. That was my best guess. Alot of times yeast sediment, or yeast itself throws me off, early-on in a fresh beer. Then a few weeks later the beverage comes into its own. I think I read somewhere or tasted once, an beer that had sat on yeast for a few months, and some of the autolosys dead yeast flavor had a choco aspect to it.
