At a glance
- Style
- Bochet
- Alcohol
- About 12.1% ABV
- Finish
- Semi-sweet
- Difficulty
- Intermediate
- Honey
- Inexpensive wildflower or clover (cooking removes delicate aromas)
- Yeast
- Lalvin 71B
- Ready in
- 6 to 9 months
- Batch
- 1 gallon, scalable
Ingredients
Quantities are for one US gallon (3.8 liters). Pick a batch size and every amount updates; one packet of yeast covers up to six gallons. Not sure how much honey your own twist needs? Use the mead calculator.
- 3 lb Honey, wildflower or clover (cooked, see steps)
- 0.75 gallons Spring water (the first quart warm, the rest cool)
- 1 packet Lalvin 71B wine yeast (one packet covers up to 6 gallons)
- 6 g Go-Ferm (yeast rehydration nutrient) (optional but recommended)
- 5 g Fermaid O yeast nutrient (split into 4 doses, see steps)
- 2 oz Raw honey for adjusting sweetness (optional, at the end)
- 0.5 tsp Potassium sorbate
- 1 Campden tablet
This recipe ferments dry and is sweetened at the end: how to backsweeten mead has the stabilizing doses and a honey chart for any batch size.
Equipment
- Heavy stainless-steel stockpot of at least 8 quarts (the honey foams to three or four times its volume; use 20 quarts or cook in batches for 5 gallons)
- Long-handled stainless or silicone spoon
- Heat-resistant gloves, long sleeves and closed shoes
- White plate for color tests
- 2-gallon bucket, 1-gallon jug and airlock
- Hydrometer
- Auto-siphon
New to this? Our mead making kit checklist covers what each piece does and what you can skip.
Step-by-step method
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Set up safely
Cooking honey is candy-making: the syrup gets far hotter than boiling water and sticks to skin, so a splash causes a deep burn. Clear the kitchen of children and pets, wear long sleeves, closed shoes and heat-resistant gloves, and ventilate well because it smokes near the end. An outdoor side burner is ideal. If you do get burned, cool the area under cool running water for several minutes, do not peel off stuck sugar, and get medical help for anything larger than a small spot.
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Heat the honey
Pour the honey into the dry pot, which should be no more than a quarter full, and heat it over medium, stirring. As the water in the honey boils off it foams violently and can climb three or four times its starting depth. Turn the heat down if the foam rises fast and never walk away. Eventually the foam settles into large, slow bubbles and the color starts to change.
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Cook to color
Keep stirring and scraping the bottom. The honey moves from gold to amber to mahogany to near black over roughly 30 to 90 minutes, depending on your burner and how dark you go. Drip a little onto a cold white plate to judge the color, and taste it once cool. For a first bochet, stop at deep mahogany, when it smells of toffee and toasted marshmallow. Acrid smoke means it has gone too far.
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Add water off the heat
Turn off the burner, move the pot off it and let it rest 5 to 10 minutes. Wearing gloves and standing back, add warm water a cup at a time. It will spit, steam hard and seize into hard lumps: that is normal. Never pour water in while the pot is on the heat or all at once. Once the first quart is in and the spitting has stopped, return it to low heat and stir until the caramel dissolves.
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Cool and measure
Pour the syrup into the sanitized bucket, top up with cool water to 1 gallon and chill it to below 75°F (24°C), in an ice bath if needed. Expect about 1.095 to 1.100. Some of that sugar has become caramel the yeast cannot ferment, so this mead will finish sweeter than a traditional of the same gravity.
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Pitch and feed
Rehydrate the 71B with the Go-Ferm and pitch at 62 to 68°F (17 to 20°C). Bochets are known for slow ferments, so do not skip the nutrients: a quarter of the Fermaid O at 24, 48 and 72 hours and at the 1/3 sugar break (about 1.067). Degas gently before each addition.
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Rack and wait
When the gravity has been steady for a week, usually after 4 to 8 weeks and somewhere between 1.010 and 1.020, rack into a clean jug and top up. Leave it 3 to 4 months. A young bochet tastes harsh and slightly burnt; time rounds it off.
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Stabilize, adjust and bottle
Taste it. Many bochets need no sweetening at all. If yours does, add the Campden tablet and sorbate, wait 48 hours and stir in raw honey 1 oz at a time; about 2 oz takes a mead that finished at 1.012 to 1.016. Bottle and give it at least 3 more months.
Timeline
- Day 0Cook the honey, dilute, cool, pitch
- Days 1 to 7Four nutrient additions
- Weeks 4 to 8Fermentation finishes, often slowly
- Month 2Rack to clear and age
- Months 5 to 6Taste, stabilize if sweetening, bottle
- Month 9 and onDrink; keeps improving for a year or more
Why this recipe works
Cooking drives caramelization and Maillard browning, the same chemistry behind caramel and bread crust. It turns honey's sugars into new roasted, toffee and dark-fruit flavors and destroys the floral aromatics, which is why there is no point cooking an expensive varietal honey. Browning also uses up some of the little nitrogen honey has, one reason bochets ferment slowly.
Color is the main control. A light amber cook gives caramel and toffee; pushing toward black adds chocolate, coffee and toasted marshmallow, but also bitterness and more sugar the yeast cannot use. Deep mahogany is a safe first target. You can always cook a darker batch later and blend.
The safety rules come from how people actually get hurt. Honey boils over because water trapped in a thick syrup expands into foam, so the pot needs to be several times larger than the honey. Adding water to caramel is the most dangerous moment: the water flashes to steam and throws hot sugar, which is why it happens off the heat, with warm water, a little at a time.
71B handles a 1.100 must comfortably, tolerates about 14% alcohol and gives a soft, rounded result. The finishing gravity of around 1.016 is deliberate: sweetness balances the roasted bitterness, and a bone-dry bochet tends to taste burnt. The unfermentable caramel usually supplies most of that sweetness on its own.
Variations
- Vanilla and oak: add a split vanilla bean and 0.5 oz of medium-toast oak cubes in secondary for 2 to 4 weeks.
- Half bochet: caramelize half the honey and dissolve the other half raw. You keep some honey aroma and get a lighter caramel note.
- Bochet cyser: cook 1.75 lb of honey and dilute it with preservative-free apple juice instead of water, aiming for about 1.100 to 1.110.
Troubleshooting
| Problem | What to do |
|---|---|
| The honey boiled over | Turn off the heat and leave the pot where it is until the foam settles; do not carry a pot of foaming sugar. Let spills cool completely before cleaning. Next time use a bigger pot and lower heat. |
| Fermentation stopped around 1.020 to 1.030 | Some of that is caramel that will never ferment. If it tastes balanced, it is done. If it is cloying, warm it to 68°F (20°C), gently rouse the yeast and give it two more weeks before trying a restart. |
| It tastes bitter or burnt | The honey was cooked too far. Several months of aging helps, as does a little more sweetness. Blending with a plain traditional mead is the surest fix. |
More mead recipes to try
- Acerglyn (maple mead) recipe: Honey and dark maple syrup in primary, more maple to sweeten. Tastes of maple, not just sugar.
- Coffee mead (plus chocolate and vanilla) recipe: A finished traditional mead dosed with cold brew by taste. Chocolate and vanilla versions too.
- Spiced mead (metheglin) recipe: Cinnamon, clove, orange and vanilla added by taste in secondary. The holiday mead.
More specialty mead recipes: Braggot (honey and malt mead).
Or browse all our mead recipes. If this is your first batch, start with the traditional mead recipe or the step-by-step guide to making honey wine.
Frequently asked questions
What is a bochet?
A mead made from honey that has been cooked until it caramelizes before fermenting. It tastes of toffee, caramel, toasted marshmallow and dark fruit rather than fresh honey.
How do you bochet honey?
Heat the honey on its own in a pot at least four times its volume, over medium heat, stirring constantly. It foams hard as the water boils off, then darkens from gold to amber to mahogany. Stop at the color you want, take it off the heat, rest it a few minutes and add warm water a cup at a time, standing back.
Is caramel mead the same as bochet?
Yes. Caramel mead, burnt honey mead and caramelized honey mead are all descriptions of bochet. No caramel is added: the flavor comes from cooking the honey itself.
What is a bochet cyser?
A bochet made with apple juice instead of water. Cook 1.75 lb of honey, let it cool slightly, then dilute it with preservative-free apple juice to one gallon, aiming for a starting gravity of 1.100 to 1.110. It tastes like caramel apple.
Where does the name bochet come from?
It is usually traced to a recipe for bochet in Le Ménagier de Paris, a French household book written in the late 1300s. Modern bochets are a revival inspired by it, not a direct copy.
How long do you cook honey for a bochet?
Roughly 30 to 90 minutes, depending on your burner and how dark you want it. Judge by color and smell, not the clock: deep mahogany and a toffee smell is a good first target.
Is making a bochet dangerous?
It can be. Hot caramelized honey is far hotter than boiling water and sticks to skin. Use a pot at least four times the volume of the honey, wear gloves and long sleeves, and add water only off the heat, warm and a little at a time.
How long does a bochet take?
About 6 to 9 months to drink, and it keeps improving for a year or more. It needs longer than most meads because the roasted flavors are harsh when young.
How strong is a bochet?
This recipe lands around 12% ABV. Because caramel does not fully ferment, a bochet finishes sweeter and a little weaker than a traditional mead with the same starting gravity.