Newby with questions

[willey146]

so new to brewing and instead of starting small i went big.

My melomel is as fallows.

15lbs wildflower honey
12lbs of blueberry/raspberry/blackberry mix (frozen)
6lbs of strawberry/pineapple/melon mix (frozen)
1gal of blueberry wine base
1cup bee pollen
topped of with water to make 6gal
yeast EC-1118

OG 1.118

staggered yeast nutrients/energizer at 24/48/72 hrs after fermentation
added bentonite at the 24hr mark along with peptic enzyme

stirred for the first 6 days, everything is going/went great.

So here is the thing its SG is 1.000, i would like this to be sweet mead if at all possible. its been 13 days. what now? rack to secondary? suggestions on potassium bicarbonate and potassium sorbate additions. if you were in my position and wanted a sweeter mead how would you proceed from here? Thanks alot for any impute.

 

[Chevette Girl]

Welcome to the forum!

If your SG is 1.000, then the yeast have eaten almost all your sugars and it's probably time to rack to secondary.

If you want it strong and sweet, you can do something called step-feeding ,ad just keep adding small bits of honey until the SG stops changing, but this will increase the alcohol content. I like to keep the sweetness between 1.020 and 1.010 so if I step feed a batch, every time it goes below 1.010, I add honey until it's 1.020.

The other thing you can do is let it finish completely (will probably go below 1.000), rack it off all the lees, stabilize it and backsweeten it to where you like it, I'd start with 1.010 to 1.015. This is less work than step-feeding it till it's done, but do you need the chemicals otherwise there's a chance the yeast will just eat whatever honey you add. The chemicals you want are potassium sorbate and potassium metabisulphate. Potassium bicarbonate would just be used if you needed to adjust the pH.

 

[willey146]

Welcome to the forum!

If your SG is 1.000, then the yeast have eaten almost all your sugars and it's probably time to rack to secondary.

If you want it strong and sweet, you can do something called step-feeding ,ad just keep adding small bits of honey until the SG stops changing, but this will increase the alcohol content. I like to keep the sweetness between 1.020 and 1.010 so if I step feed a batch, every time it goes below 1.010, I add honey until it's 1.020.

The other thing you can do is let it finish completely (will probably go below 1.000), rack it off all the lees, stabilize it and backsweeten it to where you like it, I'd start with 1.010 to 1.015. This is less work than step-feeding it till it's done, but do you need the chemicals otherwise there's a chance the yeast will just eat whatever honey you add. The chemicals you want are potassium sorbate and potassium metabisulphate. Potassium bicarbonate would just be used if you needed to adjust the pH.

Thanks alot:0)
how long after adding potassium sorbate and potassium metabislphate would you wait to add additional honey? How much do you think i will need to bring 5 gals upt too 1.020.

 

[Chevette Girl]

You can try the Mead Calculator (to your left in the yellow panel) and get a ballpark idea (that's where I'd go), but start with 3/4 of what it recommends, you can always add more but you can't take it out again. If you can't make it work, ask and we'll help.

I usually give the stabilizing chemicals 24 hours to do their thing but you want to be sure it worked so you probably want to get 2 identical SG readings a week apart.