Suggestion needed for metheglin

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schlapppy

NewBee
Registered Member
Feb 28, 2010
287
2
0
Cranberry Twp., PA
I'm looking for a suggestion for an additional ingredient for one of my brews..

Primary fermenation:
Made a tea from
  • 13.5 TBSP of lemon balm
  • 8 TBSP of rose hips

10 pounds wild flower unprocessed honey
2 pounds orange clover honey
Balance water to 6 gallons
Bread yeast

This finished at 1.006 SG

After a few reracks.. i made the tea again.. but a much smaller quantity.
Backsweetened & added the tea. Only about 2 cups worth of the tea, as it seems the primary fermentation stripped the mead of a lot of it's herbal goodness.

This mead is very good.. but has just a bit of tartness to it. The sweetness if at a nice level...just a tad above semi-dry. Despite the minor tartness, the mead is very smooth. This is almost perfect. What can I add to balance the tartness?
 
Time.

If it is just slightly too tart, it will mellow with time. I'd personally hesitate to make any adjustments until I was sure that I'd given it enough time to naturally settle out.

But if you're really impatient about this batch, you can adjust the acidity in the same way that you'd adjust pH during fermentation - with a small potassium carbonate addition. I would only do this as a last resort, though, since you can easily overshoot the correction and end up with a mead that tastes slightly flat, or "flabby." You also risk adding a salty flavor if you add too much carbonate.
 
Thanks Wayne... All things get better with age, especially if in a carboy :-)

I think to clarify about what the tart taste is... i'm its tastes like tea without sugar. So maybe I just added a bit too much of the tea.
 
I sampled last night after letting it sit for 3 weeks... it smoothed out dramatically already. I imagine that with some serious aging, it will be really really smooth. Thanks for talking me out of adding anything to it.