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Blackberry Dessert Mead Question

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Golden Sun God

NewBee
Registered Member
Apr 1, 2011
52
0
0
Redmond, OR
When making my first melomel, I was aiming for a dessert mead and I forgot to take into account the sugars in the blackberries and I noticed that when I took a taste test right after it was finished fermenting(for quality control ;)) that it was way too sweet. Will aging help mellow the sweetness, or just make it taste even sweeter? Is there anything that I can do to make it less sweet, other than dividing, diluting, and restarting the fermentation?
 
Your best bet might be to blend it with a dry traditional if you have one, or brew another dry batch of the blackberry and blend those.
 
Clover Honey: 21.125 oz
Blackberries: 12 oz
Water to 1 Liter
1 Yeast Packet

~8:56 PM 05823/11: Pitched yeast ~70F.
~7:00 AM 05/24/11: Balloon used as airlock filled.
~1-2 PM 05/24/11: Moved ~1/2 to second bottle due to serious overflow.
~9:00 PM 05/28/11: Removed berries, mashed berries, transfered fermenting mead and mashed berries to 1 gallon bottle with balloon airlock.
~3:55 PM 06/15/11: Moved back to 1 liter bottle, with fermentation apparently ended. Moved bottle into fridge to clear & age. Down to around 750 ml.
 
Did you by chance take a gravity reading. If not, that is the root of your problem. To get something in the right range, you do need to measure the gravity. I don't think the blackberries are the issue. Starting with 21 ounces of honey in 1 liter probably gave you a staring gravity near 1.175. At that level, most any yeast will probably leave you syrupy sweet.

Since you went to this effort for one 750 cc bottle's worth, there isn't a lot to do. If you want to blend with a dry batch you could, but since you are talking about only a few sips worth here, I'd probably mix it with some seltzer water and try it as a spritzer.
 
I didn't take a gravity reading. Would it be possible to mix it with some water and yeast and let if ferment some more to reduce the sweetness? If so with a 12-14% yeast about how much water would be required to make it a dessesrt mead but not overpoweringly sweet and would I need to add more blackberries?
 
My mother(who the mead was made for) made the suggestion of fortifying it with some brandy, and we tried that and it came out great, so I would suggest if you ever make a mead that is too sweet just fortify it a little bit(to taste).
 
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