How is pyment usually bottled? I have only ever had one example and it was still and semi-dry. I have a concord pyment that I made in 2009 sitting in a secondary (actually it's been racked about 4 times). It was 15 pounds of grapes at around 12 B and 11 lbs of honey. It finished at at 0.996 and I backsweetened it to 1.005. I would like to bottle it soon and was curious as to what level pyments are normally carbonated if at all.
Pyment
- Thread starter Bluedog52
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You can carbonate them if you like. I have done a few, but all mine have been still and bottled in typical wine bottles.
If you have already sweetened this one, you probably won't be able to carbonate it without using a keg and force carbonation. That's because backsweetening usually requires stabilizing which will prevent the yeast from fermenting more. Did you stabilize this batch?
You can carbonate them if you like. I have done a few, but all mine have been still and bottled in typical wine bottles.
If you have already sweetened this one, you probably won't be able to carbonate it without using a keg and force carbonation. That's because backsweetening usually requires stabilizing which will prevent the yeast from fermenting more. Did you stabilize this batch?
Yes this pyment was stabilized. The plan was to keg carbonate and bottle if the advice was to do so. This pyment is also just barely on the semi-dry side. Are pyments usually on the dry side? What are typical finishing gravities for pyments?
That's more a matter of personal taste. I haven't really had experience with pyments, but to me, they are like wine. If you like the level of sweetness it's at, then that's what it should be at. At least, that's how I like to approach mead making.
I think most commercial pyments are sweeter than the one you have, so really there's no necessity to shoot for a target FG other than your personal taste.
Hey Bluedog, welcome to the forum, looks like you already suffer from the addiction!
That's the fun thing about meadmaking and winemaking, make it into whatever you like to drink! If you're not sure what you like, given the amount of pyment you've made you could experiment a bit, try carbonating some of it and leave some of it still... you could sweeten some of it more, and see how carbonation changes the taste and perceived sweetness...
That's the fun thing about meadmaking and winemaking, make it into whatever you like to drink! If you're not sure what you like, given the amount of pyment you've made you could experiment a bit, try carbonating some of it and leave some of it still... you could sweeten some of it more, and see how carbonation changes the taste and perceived sweetness...
That's my advice as well. Pyment is a style that is at least as variable as "wine" is a style, more so in fact because there's not just the wine component but the mead component. Just like wines it could be still to highly sparkling, totally dry to totally sweet. Depends on your personal tastes, what kind of grapes were making up the wine component, what kind of honey you used, the ratio of honey to grapes, so forth and so on.
There's simply no way for anyone other than you to make the call.
There's simply no way for anyone other than you to make the call.
When I tell people I make mead, they either don't know what it is or they think they know what it is--and are often wrong. They tell me that yeah, I've had some of that, it's really sweet, isn't it? When I way that it can be, but not necessarily, they look at me like "huh?" It's made of honey, of course it's sweet. They have a hard time understanding tha, like any other wine, it can be as sweet or as dry as you want to make it.
Then they ask how, and it takes a week's answer or none (to paraphrase JRR Tolkein).
Then they ask how, and it takes a week's answer or none (to paraphrase JRR Tolkein).
When I tell people I make mead, they either don't know what it is or they think they know what it is--and are often wrong. They tell me that yeah, I've had some of that, it's really sweet, isn't it? When I way that it can be, but not necessarily, they look at me like "huh?" It's made of honey, of course it's sweet. They have a hard time understanding tha, like any other wine, it can be as sweet or as dry as you want to make it.
Then they ask how, and it takes a week's answer or none (to paraphrase JRR Tolkein).
I'm plagued by the tautological statements " Oh yeah, you make honey mead don't you? "
and in response to your "it can be, but not necessarily" I get "yeah, but real mead's meant to be sweet, and served warm"
ARRRRGH!
The last I heard from a home wine-maker! So he knows it can be dry, just wont accept that it's still mead if it is!
Well then that's his problem, not yours, right?
I've found that the best way to convert the skeptics is to serve them some dry meads. Most will accept that meads can be dry, can be quite good, and can still be "mead," once they've tried a few. There will always be those who pretend to know better, but since you've done your homework (in part by discovering this site), you'll know them for the pseudo-intellectuals that they are.
