My attempt at first Braggot (and first mead) - will it work?

[Rubes]

I picked up 6.6 pounds of honey from Costco the other day intending to make mead. Because of the high cost of honey around these parts, and my love of beer, I decided the 6.6 pounds would go further in a Braggot than in a regular mead. Therefore I put my very limited knowledge to work attempting to create a recipe.

6.6 lbs Honey (50%)
5.8 lbs Vienna (43.9%)
12.6 oz Crystal 40L (6.1%)

For a total of 13.2 lbs of fermentables. Beersmith estimates an OG of 1.098. I'm planning on use Lalvin EC-1118. Will this work? Am I missing something? Perhaps there's something I haven't considered, that could have catastrophic consequences?

Also, I'm having trouble deciding on hops. I don't really want hop flavour, basically just enough to balance the sweetness from the malt and to preserve it if I want to age a couple of bottles for a few years.

Thanks

 

[Rubes]

I've amended the recipe to use all Vienna as the base malt, instead of both 2-row and Vienna. I also thought I'd try an ounce of EKG for 60 minutes for 22 IBUs.

 

[Nyrkki]

You could use bog myrtle for bittering. ABout 5-10 g would be enough.

When are you planing to toss the honey in? Boiling will cause loss of flavour, but on the other hand you will want to sterilize it, since it contains all sorts of wild yeasts and nasty stuff. I would suggest that you do the honey addition at the last 15 min of the boil, but I'm not sure.

I'm a bit skeptical about the crystal malt, but if you are using a very powerful yeast strain, maybe it will give some sweetness to it. Sounds like an intresting project. I might attemp at something similar for next mayday.

 

[Rubes]

I was planning on throwing in the honey at the end of the boil. What negative effects could the crystal have?

 

[bk0]

I just did the Hefty Braggot recipe from The Compleat Meadmaker. It's less than two weeks old so it's way too early to know how it turned out, but...

1) It called for 5oz of Cascade hops, more than I would put in a normal beer. The book said you could even double that if you wanted.
2) I'm using EC-1118 also (not part of the recipe--it says D-47) hopefully to get it pretty dry.
3) I did a 60 minute boil like any other brew but I only added the honey AFTER it was cooled to pitching temp. Heat really destroys the delicate aromatics of honey. You don't really have to worry about contamination from honey, just make sure the rest of your sanitation technique is good.
4) I used raw honey that I had to order, not just grocery store honey.
5) Fermentation is taking a while. It's going on to it's third week and it's only about halfway to 2/3's done with primary fermentation. It will be months before it's ready to even begin tasting, let alone bottling.

EDIT: Oh and make sure your fermentation container has plenty of headspace and a blowoff valve.

 

[Rubes]

Thanks for the tips. My honey has already been pasteurized so I have no worries about adding it once the wort is already cooled. I'm also hoping to get the mead pretty dry, I don't like a lot of sweetness.