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Lack of Body in Mead

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bazza

NewBee
Registered Member
Jan 8, 2014
22
0
0
SE Wisconsin
Hello,
First post here.

I've made two dry meads now. Both were 12lbs of honey and enough water to get to 5 gallons. Yeast nutrient in both added over 3 days. Pure O2 over the first 2 days as well. I used 2 packs of rehydrated D47 for the first one and 2 packs of EC1118 for the second.

On the second one, I aged on medium toast French oak chips and vanilla beans.

Both turned out great and attenuated to just above 1.000. The taste in both meads is great. I'm very happy with that part. However, they both have a thin and watery mouthfeel. Is there something that is normally done to give the mead more body? Should I have added tannins or something to give it that extra something?

Thanks for any help you can provide. I plan to make another one shortly using the same base recipe and want to give it a little more mouthfeel like a white wine. The second mead was really modeled after my love of oaky Chardonnay. I feel like I nailed it except for that watery body.

Baz
 
To some degree, that is the nature of dry mead. The very lite nature makes it great for summer time consumption though.

You can do some things to try and improve it though. I'll list some options aside from the oak/vanilla you've already tried.

1. FT Tannin SP Blanc - Too much gets astringent.
2. Add more honey. It will be sweet though.
3. Steeping some caramel malt for some unfermentable sugars. This will make it a braggot though.
4. Polysaccharides such as Opti-White.
5. Different yeast also impart different mouthfeel. Wyeast Dry Mead is very buttery while KIV-1116 is very estery.

There are options! You will have to determine what your favorite one or combination is!
 
Well good. It sounds like I didn't really do anything wrong then. I think I just need an experienced mead maker to try my mead and critique it. Maybe it's just fine for the style.

Thanks for the reply.
 
I second the suggestion about white grape concentrate (or raisins), I use it when I make pear wine because otherwise it's just too thin.
 
I use booster blanc, tannin ST blanc soft (or whatever it's called), oak, and sur lie. A little oak and some lees contact can do wonders, and I don't ferment without blanc soft anymore (small 50ppm addition mostly).
 
The oak and vanilla mead definitely has more body than the first mead I did but even that could use a little more, at least to my tastes. I've only ever had one commercial mead so maybe dry meads just work that way.

For those of you using white grape concentrate, at what point do you add it and how much for 5 gallons, roughly? I was thinking of making a raspberry melomel next but this has me thinking maybe going back to square one to get the basic mead correct. Or maybe upping the honey to 16lbs to see what that does.

Was the 1118 a bad choice for yeast? Does that just dry it out even more as a champagne yeast?
 
bazza said:
The oak and vanilla mead definitely has more body than the first mead I did but even that could use a little more, at least to my tastes. I've only ever had one commercial mead so maybe dry meads just work that way.

For those of you using white grape concentrate, at what point do you add it and how much for 5 gallons, roughly? I was thinking of making a raspberry melomel next but this has me thinking maybe going back to square one to get the basic mead correct. Or maybe upping the honey to 16lbs to see what that does.

Was the 1118 a bad choice for yeast? Does that just dry it out even more as a champagne yeast?
Click to expand...
EC-1118 is a champagne yeast! I don't like it myself. It does have it's uses i.e. restarting stuck ferments and for what it was intended (IMO making bland, sparkling whites etc), but I find it just blows too much of the volatile aromatics straight out the airlock and some of the more subtle honey flavours too.

I prefer K1-V1116 for traditionals, or better still, D21 if you can find/obtain some for them. We all have different preferences.

For using grape concentrate, you can add it to the unfermented must if you wanted, or you can add some gradually afterward to help with back sweetening.......
 
bazza said:
Well good. It sounds like I didn't really do anything wrong then. I think I just need an experienced mead maker to try my mead and critique it. Maybe it's just fine for the style.

Thanks for the reply.
Click to expand...

See? This is why a mead trading system is going to help all of us become better mazers!
 
Allrighty then! We have MEAD! I've already received one sample of marinade and I am going to try it out this evening and see how it marinates my liver.
 
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Fatbloke. I think the acid test is best. Pm me your snail mail and I will add you to the mailing once the BOMM is clear. If it gets to to you, it will get to most! There's one already Destined for Oz. Which thinking about it is actually the real test. Heck if it gets there, it will get anywhere!


Sent from my galafreyan transdimensional communicator 100 years from now. G
 
How do you guys ship? I know USPS won't do it. I think FedEx will if you don't tell them what it is. I have homebrewing friends in the UK and we'd like to swap beers but the Customs on both ends have always scared me away from doing it.
 
mmclean said:
I shipped UPS to the Mazer Cup twice. No problems.
Click to expand...
I don't mean to take this thread even futher off-topic, but do you have any tips for packaging bottles of uh... flavor samples, when shipping? I'd hate for any of my packages to arrive all sharp and soggy.
 
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