I love to drink both mead and beer. Plus I’ve dedicated this site to brewing both of those. So I thought, lets go ahead and bridge the gap and brew a braggot! The problem is, beer and mead typically use different yeasts. So what is the best yeast for a braggot?
Kviek yeast is the best for making a traditional braggot. But, any highly alcohol tolerant ale yeast strain will work when fermenting a braggot. Wine or mead yeast is also acceptable, but your braggot may be overly sweet as wine yeast cannot ferment maltotriose present in grain.
Its important to choose a tolerant yeast strain when brewing a braggot, but not all braggots are created equally. Braggots are as wide a spectrum as craft beer.
This is because a braggot can utilize any beer base and there is no shortage to choose from. So choosing a yeast for your braggot really depends on the beer base you choose to go with.
Different Yeast Achieves Different Goals in A Braggot
A braggot is a hybrid beer/mead. Although its being referred to by homebrewers more and more as a beer. Which is interesting, since the United States government classifies it as a wine, but that’s another story.
The goal of a braggot is to balance honey with whatever beer style you are going for. Therefore the yeast depends a lot on what your base malt is and style of beer you are brewing.
After taking a look at a lot of braggot recipes I found from YouTube and around the web, I noticed most of them are actually brewed with ale yeast.
Take a look at these brewers and the yeast they used in their braggot recipes.
| Brewers | Yeast Choice |
|---|---|
| CS Mead and More | SA-04 Safale |
| Man Made Mead | Bry-97 West Coast Ale Yeast |
| Basic Brewing | Nottingham Yeast |
| Doin’ The Most | Kviek |
| Genus Brewing | Hornindal Kviek blended with French Saison |
It really depends on what style of base beer you are brewing and the type of yeast that you choose to use. For example if you wanted to brew a lager style braggot than you can even use a lager yeast.
However, if you are using a lager yeast it may attenuate or dry out the braggot and some back sweetening may be necessary.
Kviek and French Saison Yeast Blend
Doin’ the Most and Genus Brewing both mentioned using Kviek ale strains of yeast. Which intrigued me. Its ease of use and ancient origins both pair nicely with new braggot brewers.
Not only will Kviek ferment quickly but temperature control is not necessary and the flavor remains the same in any temperature range. These are great to have when fermenting honey, which usually takes a while to ferment.
I found it interesting that Genus Brewing added a French Saison yeast alongside the Kviek in their braggot. This is likely to get that last bit of attenuation. Balancing the two yeasts will also clean up the beer as the Kviek is highly flocculant, so it won’t result in as much haze.
It should be noted, that the use of Kviek yeast will impart a lot of flavor to your braggot, which might not be good according to many honey and mead aficionados.
Braggot Honey Flavor vs Beer Flavor
There are two schools of thought when it comes to brewing a braggot. One is that the yeast should be clean and contribute very little to the actual flavor of the beverage.
The other is that yeast flavor can co-exist with the subtle flavors of the malt and honey. However, it is important to keep your yeast tame and not impart too many esters.
Those are the ideas, that are driving many braggots today, but when it comes to when braggots were first created, they were likely very sweet and had all sorts of flavors.
They were brewed with multiple-strains and often open fermented. This is likely why Kviek yeast is gaining momentum in mead and braggot circles.
Braggots Made From Any Style of Base Beer
Braggots can be made from any base beer recipe that you want. And the yeast that you use will likely be the same as the style of beer you would be brewing otherwise. Here are some examples:
| Base Beer Style | Yeast Choice |
|---|---|
| Braggot IPA | American Ale Yeast |
| Braggot Stout | Irish Ale Yeast |
| Braggot Pilsner | Lager Yeast |
| Braggot pale ale | American Ale Yeast |
All of these braggots should be brewed with at least 50% honey, which could result in some interesting beer/honey flavors. I’m particularly interested in brewing a braggot stout as I type this. Stay tuned for the YouTube Video.
Lager yeasts are bottom fermenting yeast, but the lager brewing processes has only partly to do with the yeast being used, learn more in my ale yeast to make a lager article. So you can technically use a lager or clean and cold fermenting ale yeast.
Making a Braggot with Wine Yeast
While it is much more likely and common to ferment a braggot with an Ale yeast, making a braggot with wine yeast is not unheard of.
Randy Mosher and his book Radical Brewing describe making a braggot with wine yeast. Eckrause chronicles it on their website. But, essentially they use Lavlin D-47.
The ingredients used lend me to believe the braggot would be overly sweet, but the wintergreen and liquid smoke might be employed to balance those flavors. It should be noted, there are no hops, blasphemy!
Wine Yeast Can’t Fully Ferment Malt
At the end of the day, only half of the sugars in the wheat malt are likely to have been fermented, because of the low attenuation that wine yeast has when trying to ferment grains. This is because of the maltotriose present.
Beer yeast has developed the ability to digest maltotriose in greater quantities. It’s likely this happened over thousands of iterations of the yeast splitting over many years.
Which leads me to believe that beer used to actually be much sweeter, because of the unfermented sugars, hence the need for hops to balance it out.
Nevertheless, be aware of this fact when using wine yeast to ferment a braggot. Its not as much of a problem as fermenting a beer since its only 50% grain instead of 100%, but it will be a noticeable difference at around 25%.
This is also why many braggot recipes that call for a wine yeast likely have less malt and more honey and fruit sugars.
How Long To Ferment A Braggot
Fermenting a Braggot is not as difficult as fermenting a mead. This is because the nutrients contained in the malt will help ferment out the honey.
Meads can ferment fairly quickly with the use of yeast nutrients but still take a bit longer than beer and braggots. Most braggot brewers think its best to ferment dry and then back sweeten on top of potassium sorbate.
This creates a consistent level of sweetness and ensures optimal fermentation times. Braggots still will take a bit longer than beer to hit its peak though. Something more akin to a Belgian Tripel at about 3 weeks. Feel free to age your braggot, but depending on how many hops you decide to add, if any, don’t wait to long.