Bochet

Bochet (from Old French bouchet, meaning "burnt") is a distinct mead style in which all or part of the honey is caramelised before fermentation. The earliest recorded bochet recipes appear in fourteenth-century French manuscripts, most notably the Le Viandier de Taillevent and the household manual Le Ménagier de Paris(c. 1393), which gives detailed instructions for scorching honey over a fire.

Unlike plain heating, which can drive off volatile aromatics without transforming the sugars, caramelisation involves a chemical transformation. At temperatures above roughly 150°C, sugars begin to break down and recombine into hundreds of new compounds: caramels, furans, esters, and melanoidins. The result is a fundamentally different ingredient from the raw honey you started with.

Bochet sits alongside melomel, cyser, metheglin, and braggot as a recognised mead sub-style in the BJCP Mead Style Guidelines. It can be made with any honey variety, though darker varieties suit it best. It ferments and behaves like a traditional mead , and the bochet character comes entirely from the pre-fermentation caramelisation step.

Two distinct chemical processes happen when honey is heated at high temperature: Maillard reactions and caramelisation proper. They are often conflated but are chemically different.

Maillard reactions occur between reducing sugars and amino acids. They begin at temperatures as low as 140°C but accelerate above 155°C. These reactions produce hundreds of flavour-active compounds including pyrazines (nutty, roasted), furanones (caramel, sweet), and melanoidins (the brown polymers responsible for colour). Maillard products are key to the complexity that distinguishes a dark bochet from a light one.

Caramelisation proper is the thermal decomposition and polymerisation of sugars in the absence of protein. Fructose caramelises at approximately 110°C (lower than glucose at 150°C), which is why high-fructose honeys like acacia and tupelo begin to colour earlier. At ~160–170°C, sucrose breaks down into fructose and glucose and both begin caramelising rapidly. Above 180°C, bitter carbon compounds form and the sugar begins to taste acrid.

Why does it smell burnt before it smells like caramel? The volatile acrid compounds (acetaldehyde, acrolein) have much lower boiling points than the pleasant caramel-aroma compounds. They escape first. If you pull the honey off the heat when it first smells like caramel, you have likely undershot your target. Trust the thermometer, not your nose.

Effect on fermentability. Despite the dramatic colour and flavour transformation, the sugars in caramelised honey remain largely fermentable. The polymerised melanoidins are not fermentable, but they represent a small fraction of the total sugar mass. The main practical consequence of caramelisation is water loss: water evaporates during heating, reducing the effective mass of honey that contributes to OG. At light caramelisation (~150°C), water loss is approximately 7%. At dark caramelisation (~180°C), it reaches 15–20%.

Hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) is a degradation product of fructose that forms in heated honey. Very high HMF levels can inhibit yeast, but the concentrations produced during typical bochet caramelisation are diluted sufficiently in the full batch volume to be below inhibitory levels in normal practice.

Wyvern's calculator recognises four caramelisation levels. Each applies a water-loss factor to the honey's effective weight when calculating OG. The sugar fraction stays the same, only the weight changes.

Wyvern's calculator applies these factors automatically when you select Bochet as your mead style and set a caramelisation level on each honey slot. The OG display updates in real time as you change levels.

For a single large honey caramelisation where the entire batch is scorched to the same level, set all honey slots to that level. For a blended approach (some raw honey for aroma, some caramelised for character), set each slot independently.

Caramelising honey requires attention and the right equipment. Follow these steps in order.

1. 1

   Use a pot 4–5× larger than your honey volume. Honey foams dramatically during caramelisation and will overflow a pan that is only slightly larger than the honey. A pot that looks comically oversized is the right choice.

2. 2

   Heat the honey over medium-high heat, stirring constantly. Honey has poor thermal conductivity: without stirring, the bottom scorches while the top remains raw. Use a long-handled spoon or silicone spatula.

3. 3

   Expect dramatic foaming and an acrid smell. The honey will bubble up, sometimes violently. It will smell burnt before it smells like caramel, which is normal and does not mean you have ruined it. Keep stirring.

4. 4

   Use a candy thermometer. Judge the caramelisation level by temperature, not colour or smell. Insert the thermometer without touching the bottom of the pan. Target: 150°C (light), 165°C (medium), 180°C (dark).

5. 5

   Remove from heat immediately when your target temperature is reached. Residual heat in the pot will continue the caramelisation briefly, so if anything, pull it just slightly before the target.

6. 6

   Add water very slowly and carefully. Pour a small amount of water (or ice) in first: the honey will steam and splatter violently. Stand back. Continue adding water in small increments, stirring between additions, until you have added the full water volume.

7. 7

   Allow to cool to below 30°C before pitching yeast. The caramelised must can be pitched as normal once it reaches pitching temperature. Rehydrate your yeast and any GoFerm in the usual way.

The caramelisation process is powerful enough to work with almost any honey, but variety choice still matters because some honeys contribute complementary flavours to the caramel base while others are wasted or work against it.

Good choices for bochet: Darker, more flavourful varieties (buckwheat, chestnut, forest/honeydew) complement caramel naturally. Buckwheat's molasses and earthy notes deepen the roasted character. Chestnut's bitterness and tannin structure mirrors the bittersweet quality of dark caramel. Forest honey's mineral complexity adds backbone. Wildflower is a reliable all-purpose choice that caramelises predictably.

Varieties to approach with caution: Delicate florals (acacia, orange blossom, linden) lose most of their characteristic aroma during caramelisation. The subtlety that makes these varieties valuable in traditional mead is destroyed by the process. They will caramelise successfully, but you are paying premium prices for a character that will not survive into the final mead.

High-fructose honeys: Acacia and tupelo have very high fructose-to-glucose ratios. Fructose caramelises at a lower temperature than glucose (~110°C vs ~150°C), so these honeys begin to colour and foam earlier than expected. The caramelisation process itself is more unpredictable: they reach light caramelisation temperatures quickly and can overshoot before you react. If using acacia or tupelo in bochet, watch the thermometer closely and be ready to remove from heat promptly.

Partial bochet: You do not have to caramelise all the honey. A common approach is to caramelise a portion (say 60–70%) to the desired level, and leave the remainder raw to preserve some floral or varietal character. Add the raw honey after the caramelised must has cooled. The calculator supports mixed caramelisation levels across slots for exactly this purpose.

Bochet's caramel and roasted base creates a natural affinity with a range of adjuncts. The following pairings work particularly well.

Calculating the original gravity of a bochet requires accounting for the water lost during caramelisation. Raw honey is approximately 17–20% water by mass. At high temperatures, this water evaporates, meaning the batch of honey you put into the pot is heavier than the caramelised honey that comes out.

Wyvern applies a caramelisation factor to the honey's effective weight when computing OG:

For example: 3 kg of clover honey (sugar fraction 0.81) caramelised to medium level (factor 0.88) in a 10 L batch:

Without the caramelisation factor (using the raw weight) the same calculation gives OG 1.097. For a dark caramelisation on a large honey addition, the uncorrected estimate can overpredict OG by 10–15 gravity points, a meaningful difference for nutrient planning and ABV prediction.

The factors used (0.93 / 0.88 / 0.82) are empirical approximations based on water content of typical honey (~18% by mass) and the water-loss rates observed at each temperature range. If you weigh your honey before and after caramelisation, you can derive the exact factor for your batch: divide post-caramelisation weight by pre-caramelisation weight. Enter the caramelised honey weight directly in the slot and set the level to "None" to bypass the automatic factor.