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How to Back sweeten my Mead

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miss_rach

NewBee
Registered Member
Feb 13, 2015
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Guys,
My 1 year old mead is dry...real dry (gravity 1.006) so I know it should be done working. Its to try for me. I've read where folks say to stabilize then add honey.
What do I add to the mead to "stabilize" and how much?
Once I add this do I have to let the mead sit for a few hours, days, weeks, etc...before I back sweeten it?
When I'm ready to sweeten do I have to pasturize the honey?
Whats the easiest way to sweeten it?
I was thinking about pulling x amount out (lets day 6 oz) add honey until I like the taste, once I like the test take a hydrometer reading then start adding honey to the close to 5 gals that I have until the hydrometer reading is at the one I took on the small sample?

Once back sweetened, how long do I have to wait until I can bottle? I assume it will onec again become cloudy so I figure I'll have to let it sit to let it clear again then bottle it.

Thoughts?


Cheers!
 
Stabilizing is done with potassium metabisulfite and potassium sorbate. Follow package directions, but typically it's 1/4 tsp K-meta for 5 gallons (or 1 crushed Campden tablet per gallon) and 1/2 tsp sorbate per gallon. Wait a week then add your honey. No need to pasteurize it. Your taste and measure plan is good.
 
Potassium sorbate is the go-to stabilizer, as well as a shot of potassium metabisulfite. Usually the combination of the two is more effective than the sorbate by itself. K-meat stops spoilage yeasts in their tracks and sorta stuns them, and K-sorb renders all yeast (wild and pitched) sterile so they can't reproduce.

Here's a page that explains their functions:
http://winemakersacademy.com/potassium-sorbate-wine-making/

I still haven't decided if K-sorb is something I want in my wines and meads, but I don't see how to keep fermentation from restarting if I backsweeten my stuff. :-(

I think you can just add them and bottle, BUT it's recommended that you wait 3 or 4 days first. I just don't relish that idea that it "puts a definite shelf life on my stuff". Grrr, I'm torn!!
 
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Those two plus the addition of the honey won't cloud the mead? Should I wait sometime before I bottle it?
 
EbonHawk said:
I still haven't decided if K-sorb is something I want in my wines and meads, but I don't see how to keep fermentation from restarting if I backsweeten my stuff. :-(

I think you can just add them and bottle, BUT it's recommended that you wait 3 or 4 days first. I just don't relish that idea that it "puts a definite shelf life on my stuff". Grrr, I'm torn!!
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That's the first I've heard that sorbate treatment isn't permanent. People use it all the time and nobody ever said diddly about it having a shelf life. This warrants further investigation.

There is an alternative, however - cold crash, clear, and force filter through 1 micron. No chemicals, no yeasties.
 
Another way to backsweeten is use about a 50/50 ratio water to honey, start with a cup of honey to a cup of water, heat to 160ish for about 15 minutes, put the lid on it, add it the next day when its cooled to your mead storage temp. Stir gently. Check in a week or so. You can sweeten again or stop when its just a tad less sweet than you want it to finish up. Give it a couple months to clear up again or fine it.
 
Adding honey to backsweeten my meads have all ended in failure thus far. Every one of them eventually restarted fermentation, and while some were okay with a little more fermentation, they still went drier than I liked again. Some, made bottle bombs (3 lost bottles). And the rest that didn't explode have made some of the tartest, driest mead I've ever tasted; more like a blueberry/blackberry champagne with tons of carbonation. Kinda neat at first, but it's gotten so dry and tart now that it's more useful as entertainment, to let people taste it and watch their reactions. :-)
 
I always keep an intentionally over sweet mead around for back sweetening. OG 1.150 FG 1.060ish I cold crash then add finnings to clear. Using a "finished" mead gives a better mouthfeel than using raw honey.
 
One T said:
Using a "finished" mead gives a better mouthfeel than using raw honey.
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I have a hard time understanding this, only cause I never tried it. Can someone explain the difference in flavor/mouthfeel between blending with a sweet finished mead that contains unfermented honey and simply using a honey/water mix of unfermented honey?
I have blended down for dryness and to combine flavors, but never blended up for sweetness.
 
kernel crush said:
I have a hard time understanding this, only cause I never tried it. Can someone explain the difference in flavor/mouthfeel between blending with a sweet finished mead that contains unfermented honey and simply using a honey/water mix of unfermented honey?
I have blended down for dryness and to combine flavors, but never blended up for sweetness.
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I just heard an interview with Michael Fairbrother from Moonlight Meadery on the MeadMakr podcast (episode 14, I think?), and if I remember correctly, he said that while mead backsweetened with honey might be good, it will taste like mead sweetened with honey, not like sweet mead. You lose (or rather, cover up) a lot of the finer flavors that result from fermentation.

That said, I've never tried blending up, either. Given current space issues, I don't really have anywhere to store surplus mead for blending, so I usually just try to feed the yeast more honey than it can eat if I want it to come out sweet.
 
It's not necessarily unfermented honey, just incompletely fermented honey (if that makes any sense). From what I understand, honey is made up of several different types of sugar and several trace nutrients. So, if the yeast eats 50% of the sugars and nutrients, it's not going to be 50% across the board. Some sugars and nutrients would have been eaten more, and some less. Basically, this means that the the makeup of the sugars and nutrients you are left with is not going to be the same as what you started with.

That's my very unscientific understanding of it, anyway.
 
kernel crush said:
Thanks but it still not meshing for me, you are using unfermented honey in both cases. Have to put this on my to do list.
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A sweet mead is not unfermented honey. They have a distinctly different taste and mouthfeel. With raw honey, you can actually feels its texture on the tongue. Raw honey also has a sharper flavor / sweetness. Fermentation "rounds out" the flavor and will also leave some of the yeast character.
 
I suspect the yeast takes the easiest sugars from the honey first, and works it's way up the ladder into more complex (require more energy to digest) sugars as it progresses. I also suspect that this process renders the flavor of the honey in the mead far less "candy sugar" and far more complex.

So adding two pounds of honey near the end of the primary to try to layer in some sweetness will not end with a raw honey taste, but a more finished character. Adding even a couple of cups of raw honey to a stabilized batch to backsweeten, contributes that candy sugar honey flavor that is so easily detectable.
 
I am not disagreeing with anyone, but I bet I have 50 sets of score sheets and all but 1 of those meads has had some degree of backsweet with pasteurized honey. Not one sheet has a comment of 'cloying' or 'raw honey' or 'tastes like its been backsweetened'. If blending is an improvement I am all for it.
 
kernel crush said:
So, any recommendations for a basic sweet mead recipe destined for blendsweetening?
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Formulate your recipe correctly from the get go and you won't have to sweeten anything.
Michael Fairbrother's analogy was ketchup on meatloaf. The ketchup that is cooked on the meatloaf tastes very different than the ketchup you add after it's already cooked.
 
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