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First time mead

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stijn.aerts

NewBee
Registered Member
May 17, 2018
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Recipe:

- looking for 12 liters of mead

- Target OG: 1.101

- 4.15 kg honey from the beekeeper

- M05 yeast from mangrove jacks


The intention is to dissolve the honey in 12 liters of warm water (30 degrees celsius) and to ferment this in a 30-liter bucket. I would like to add yeast food in several steps, someone who can recommend which food and when to add it?


After the end of fermentation (which I'm doing at 18 ° C) I can rack to a bucket of 12 liters, to keep as little headspace as possible. I would put it in this bucket for another 2 weeks before bottling.


I would like to backsweeten everything back with honey. In order to stop the fermentation I would then use potassium sorbate.

The question I have, however, when should I backsweeten again? For racking? Before bottling?
 
Hi stijn.aerts - and welcome. Back sweetening is usually done once and it is done before bottling to sweeten your mead (or wine). Not sure how easy it is to stop an active fermentation. I tend to think of that much like trying to stop a bullet between your teeth. It's a great trick when you watch an illusionist do this but most people who try this at home end up ... disappointed.
That said, you can try to overfeed the yeast with honey so that the alcohol level exceeds the yeast's tolerance for alcohol and so you end up with a sweet mead but published tolerance levels are guides and not promises and Murphy's Law suggests that if you need the yeast to crash at the published level that colony will exceed it by many points without any problem - and if you really want the yeast to exceed that level by even a couple of points it will almost certainly collapse a few points earlier... But that said, such feeding is not called "back sweetening" . It is referred to as "step feeding".
Backfeeding is typically done after all fermentation has ceased and you have stabilized the mead either chemically with the addition of BOTH K-sorbate and K-meta (not just the sorbate), or mechanically, by filtering out every last yeast cell using very, very fine filters (sterile filters) fine enough to trap every yeast cell - but for that your mead needs to be spectacularly clear.
 
Just to be clear: There are no filters fine enough for home brewers which can remove all the yeast. Those are used commercially and are quite expensive ($20,000 starting price I think?).
Food or nutrients: Ideally I'd go for Goferm to rehydrate and Fermaid O as a yeast nutrient. Dosing and timing can be found on meadmaderight.com and the protocol is called Tosna.
Those ingredients can be hard to come by and you might need to order online depending where you live but I can assure you that it's worth the hassle and money. Good job on asking before you dive in. Most people do things 1st and try fixing later which is much more difficult and costly than doing it right off the bat :)
 
stijn.aerts said:
Recipe:

- looking for 12 liters of mead

- Target OG: 1.101

- 4.15 kg honey from the beekeeper

- M05 yeast from mangrove jacks


The intention is to dissolve the honey in 12 liters of warm water (30 degrees celsius) and to ferment this in a 30-liter bucket. I would like to add yeast food in several steps, someone who can recommend which food and when to add it?


After the end of fermentation (which I'm doing at 18 ° C) I can rack to a bucket of 12 liters, to keep as little headspace as possible. I would put it in this bucket for another 2 weeks before bottling.


I would like to backsweeten everything back with honey. In order to stop the fermentation I would then use potassium sorbate.

The question I have, however, when should I backsweeten again? For racking? Before bottling?
Click to expand...

I think the sorbate is to keep a second ferment from starting, not to stop an active ferment.
 
Chilkat said:
I think the sorbate is to keep a second ferment from starting, not to stop an active ferment.
Click to expand...

Sorbate stops the yeast from budding new daughter cells. But the biomass continues to live. You really can't stop an active ferment very effectively.
 
Thanks for the tips, I meant indeed prevent a second ferment and not to stop an active ferment. I would add the sorbate and meta 2 weeks (more or less) after reaching stable OG.
So, I can also do it the easy way and use sorbitol. Is this recommended or what would you guys advise?

Also for the yeast feeding: I live in Belgium and was planning to use this https://www.brouwland.com/en/our-products/winemaking/yeast-nutrients/d/nutrivit-vinoferm-1-kg
Would this work? I'm willing to go the extra mile for next batches but as this is something I'm just planning to do maybe one time, I don't want to build up alot of stock of things I maybe never need again.
 
stijn.aerts said:
Thanks for the tips, I meant indeed prevent a second ferment and not to stop an active ferment. I would add the sorbate and meta 2 weeks (more or less) after reaching stable OG.
So, I can also do it the easy way and use sorbitol. Is this recommended or what would you guys advise?

Also for the yeast feeding: I live in Belgium and was planning to use this https://www.brouwland.com/en/our-products/winemaking/yeast-nutrients/d/nutrivit-vinoferm-1-kg
Would this work? I'm willing to go the extra mile for next batches but as this is something I'm just planning to do maybe one time, I don't want to build up alot of stock of things I maybe never need again.
Click to expand...

So you might as well use it. The problem with this, and so many others is they don't tell you whats in it or how much YAN it provides. So that leads us to guess how to use it.

It says top add before the yeast. I never would suggest that. I am a staunch believer to add food once you see proof that the yeast have moved past the lag phase. Otherwise, your feeding all the other microorganisms in the must and giving them a head start to compete with your desired strain of yeast.

I'm lost about the sorbitol. Why would you use it?
 
Okay thanks, sorbitol just to sweeten it up but I won't use it.

Its done fermenting now. Is it required to rack to another vessel or can i let it sit in primary untill bottling?
 
You really need to let the yeast settle to the bottom and then rack off the sediment onto your stabilizers.
 
I'm going to rack tomorrow. The fg is 0.996. Its allready pretty clear now. It tastes very sharp / boozy. The only mead i have drank until now is the superstition mead and this does not resemble it. Will the taste be much different when i backsweeten?
 
Well. It will taste sweeter. But you probably have fusell alcohols in it from your fermentation. Did you manage your temps? Did you feed your yeast? Fusells will make it sharp and hard to drink. Sugar will mask a little bit of that. But mostly it takes time aging. Even then it might still remain sharp. You might want to learn better science before you start your next batch. Go listen to the podcast and start on 9/5/17.
 
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