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King Arthur's Own

Classification: braggot, honey beer, mead

Source: Fred Hardy (fcmbh@access.digex.net), MLD Issue #500, 9/26/96

I was delighted to learn that King Arthur's Own braggot won the category at this year's Mazer Cup. For those who might be interested, here's the way it was made.

This is an all-grain recipe. I have included an extract approximation which will be close.

Ingredients: (6 gallons)

Procedure:

For both recipes, first make a pound of amber malt. Using pale malt, spread to a depth of 3/4 inch in a glass or aluminum foil lined baking dish. Preheat the oven to 100 degrees C (230 F) and bake for 45 minutes to dry the malt. Increase the temperature to 150 degrees C (300 F) and continue to bake for another 45 minutes. Cool and set aside for a week or so in an air-tight zip lock bag. This allows the malt to mellow and avoids possible harsh flavors.

Crush malts and mash in to stabilize at 60 degrees C (140 F). Hold for 20 minutes. Raise temperature to 68 degrees C (155 F) and hold for 60 minutes for full conversion. Mash out and sparge with 4 3/4 gallons (US) water.

Boil 60 minutes. Add 1 1/4 tsp. Irish Moss for the last 15 minutes of the boil. After 60 minutes, add 6 pounds of wildflower honey and boil for 15 minutes, constantly skimming and discarding the foam.

Force chill, aerate and pitch with 1 qt. yeast starter. I used (and recommend) Wyeast # 1728 (Scotch Ale).

Primary fermentation: 30 days at 18 degrees C (165 F) in glass
Secondary: 130 days (same temp, in glass)

At bottling, make up a cup of yeast starter, and inoculate with a pack of Wyeast # 1056 (Chico ale) a day before bottling. Adding this fresh yeast to the bottling bucket will get carbonation going faster. Carbonate with 1/2 cup white table sugar (sucrose) boiled for 5 minutes in 1 1/2 cups of water (cool before adding to bottling bucket). Sample after 2 weeks. Improves greatly with age.

For using malt extract:

Make and crush amber malt as above. Soak crushed amber malt in 1/2 gal. water at 65 degrees C (150 F) for 30 minutes. Pour the water and grains through a kitchen strainer into at least a 3 gallon pot. Rinse with 1/2 gallons of hot water, catching the rinse water in the pot. Discard the grains. Add another 1/2 gallon to the pot and bring to a boil. Remove from heat and add 7 3/4 pounds of amber dry malt extract and dissolve completely. Return the pot to heat and bring to a boil (watch for boil-over). When malt mixture has settled into a nice boil, add the honey, boil and skim for 15 minutes.

Have ready a fermenter with 3 gallons of cool water in it. Dump the honey/malt mixture into the cool water, aerate and pitch yeast when temperature is below 25 degrees C (77 F). It helps to cool the pot a bit before dumping into the fermenter. Proceed as above.

Specifics: