Brown sugar and molassess?
- Thread starter Bluedog
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You have to use enough of one or the other to have some residual sweetness, but it tastes like burnt sugar!
I've had some successful batches of spiced apple or cranberry with brown sugar, but never on its own.
Hello. I've once made a blackstrap molasses liqurice "mead/sodapop" based on what thoose little black liqurice things(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquorice_(confectionery)) are made of.
-------------Warning-------------
The recipe i've used for 2.5 gallon was:
~2lbs blackstrap molasses.
~2lbs honey(or sugar, the flavour will bee TOTALLY overpowered in this recipe anyway)
heaping teaspoons each of the spices: 4 fennel, 3 anis, 1 dried ginger.
Some wyeast ale yeast, then later added some lab culture.
started 21.05.2011 tasted it latest now(27.jan.2012)
Result: It is awful tasting, I can not even use it in cooking! The amount of blackstrap is a total overkill.
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I've used molasses on a couple other occations also. Usually just max a big tablespoon pr gallon. At the moment i've got a gallon of stout beer/(dark barley wine) going with about 150-200 g of blackstrap molasses in it(it's only about 7 days old and still fermenting so i have not tested it yet.).
I see gotmead refering to buckwheat honey as the blackstrap molasess of honey's.
Anyway some spices that might work with blackstrap molasess is:
coriander, anis, fennel, liqurice root, orange peel, lemon peel
and maybe Theses ones (coffe?,juniper?,star anis?,sassafras?).
In the book "sacred and herbal healing beers" by Stephen Buhner he refering(p.420) to molasses beer as: one of the primary "lower" class beers in Colonial america.
From my knowledge molasses is mostly fermented and distilled to make rum, probably a reson for it.
I've seen some stores sell cane sugar ale, but have never tested it.
I still have between 3-4 lbs of molasses that I dont know what to do with. I might make a hopped molasses beer out of it one day.
-------------Warning-------------
The recipe i've used for 2.5 gallon was:
~2lbs blackstrap molasses.
~2lbs honey(or sugar, the flavour will bee TOTALLY overpowered in this recipe anyway)
heaping teaspoons each of the spices: 4 fennel, 3 anis, 1 dried ginger.
Some wyeast ale yeast, then later added some lab culture.
started 21.05.2011 tasted it latest now(27.jan.2012)
Result: It is awful tasting, I can not even use it in cooking! The amount of blackstrap is a total overkill.
-----------------------------------
I've used molasses on a couple other occations also. Usually just max a big tablespoon pr gallon. At the moment i've got a gallon of stout beer/(dark barley wine) going with about 150-200 g of blackstrap molasses in it(it's only about 7 days old and still fermenting so i have not tested it yet.).
I see gotmead refering to buckwheat honey as the blackstrap molasess of honey's.
Anyway some spices that might work with blackstrap molasess is:
coriander, anis, fennel, liqurice root, orange peel, lemon peel
and maybe Theses ones (coffe?,juniper?,star anis?,sassafras?).
In the book "sacred and herbal healing beers" by Stephen Buhner he refering(p.420) to molasses beer as: one of the primary "lower" class beers in Colonial america.
From my knowledge molasses is mostly fermented and distilled to make rum, probably a reson for it.
I've seen some stores sell cane sugar ale, but have never tested it.
I still have between 3-4 lbs of molasses that I dont know what to do with. I might make a hopped molasses beer out of it one day.
Ha! Funny you should mention this. I have a brown sugar/black strap fermenting right now. I was inspired by rum to make something that isn't quite as expensive since I am new and curious and cheap.
I used about 1-1.5lbs black strap to five gallons. It tastes fine. I also used about 20lbs of brown sugar and I am shooting for 16-18% alcohol.
At the moment I am battling a stuck fermentation (it's stuck at 13.9%) but, thanks to the crowd at GotMead, I think I am on my way to getting it unstuck. Don't worry, though, I think it was a PEBKAC error and nothing to do with the use of Brown Sugar and black strap.
Anyhow, I think it will come out quite nice. Preliminary tasting isn't bad, however, it is still considerably sweet at the moment. I plan on oaking it, giving it a hint of vanilla, orange peel, ginger, and allspice.
I used about 1-1.5lbs black strap to five gallons. It tastes fine. I also used about 20lbs of brown sugar and I am shooting for 16-18% alcohol.
At the moment I am battling a stuck fermentation (it's stuck at 13.9%) but, thanks to the crowd at GotMead, I think I am on my way to getting it unstuck. Don't worry, though, I think it was a PEBKAC error and nothing to do with the use of Brown Sugar and black strap.
Anyhow, I think it will come out quite nice. Preliminary tasting isn't bad, however, it is still considerably sweet at the moment. I plan on oaking it, giving it a hint of vanilla, orange peel, ginger, and allspice.
Wow, that's exactly what I had in mind! I thought about adding coconut also. As for the brown sugar and molassess, I was wanting a burt sugar/ rummy flavor....Please keep me updated on how yours is doing, I think I'm going to start a 2.5 gal. batch today. What would be the best yeast to use? Thanks to all of you for your help. You folks are great.
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I used Red Star Premiere Cuvee. It can go up to 18% ABV, which for a pseudo-rum I thought to be reasonable ABV. It just seemed silly to make something rum-like with a low ABV. I suggest you step-feed.
I dumped some demerara (unwashed cane sugar) into one of my meads hoping to get some rum-like overtones.
It failed to do so. But that was probably a function of my not using enough it. Might actually be responsible for the slight cardboard taste upfront that is slowly aging its way out of the picture.
It failed to do so. But that was probably a function of my not using enough it. Might actually be responsible for the slight cardboard taste upfront that is slowly aging its way out of the picture.
