Blueberry mead = champagne?

stinkiestbink · 02-06-2008, 02:22 PM

hello folks,
i made a blueberry mead in hopes of it actually tasting like blueberries, but it does not. it is very dry and tastes exactly like champagne. (i realize that i used champagne yeast). how can i sweeten this up and get some blueberry flavor added? i was thinking about adding more honey and wymans blueberry juice. The recipe is as follows:

1 gallon batch
3lbs honey
1lbs blueberries
handful of raspberries
pectic enzyme
acid blend
yeast nutrient
champagne yeast

thanks

Tusch · 02-06-2008, 03:02 PM

Well there are a few options.
Sweeten it by either killing the yeast and backsweetening with whatever sugar you want, honey would be great in this case. Or you could feed it so much sugar that the yeast reaches its alcohol tolerance and than any other sugar would be beyond its capability, leaving a very high ABV sweet mead. But this option would be hard to do since you would have to just keep adding honey until the yeast die out, than add to taste. Or you could sweeten with non-fermentable sugars, either lactose or splenda. This would leave a sweet mead that you could still naturally carbonate.

Or you could up the blueberry taste by just adding more blueberries. If you rack into secondary with more blueberries, than you could leave a dry mead with a stronger blueberry flavor to it. Though the fruit flavor will always come out easier if the mead is sweeter, so the first few options are probably better for you case.

stinkiestbink · 02-06-2008, 03:05 PM

will a campden tablet kill the yeast or do i need something else? I want a still mead.

**Yooper** · 02-06-2008, 08:15 PM

One campden tablet per gallon along with 1/4 tsp per gallon of potassium sorbate together. Crush the campden, and dissolve it in a little hot water or mead. Then add the sorbate and stir, stir, stir. Put that into a carboy and rack the mead into it. Wait about a week, and then you can sweeten. I'd wait another week or two before bottling, though, just to ensure fermentation doesn't restart. Better safe than sorry!

And you can sweeten with some blueberry juice if you want, or more honey, or sugar, or whatever you'd like. I'd suggest pulling out a sample, and testing it with different sweetening levels and see what you like best. When I sweeten, I do a small glass until it's right. Then, I take the sg and sweeten the whole batch to that sg. Now, a word of advice here- I recommend sweetening a little less than you actually like. It seems like it gets sweeter in the bottle, and then it's too sweet. As an example- say you like it at 1.010, but 1.008 is not quite sweet enough. I'd suggest sweetening it to 1.008 then.

malkore · 02-06-2008, 09:16 PM

add more blueberries. and honey. champagne yeast will make 3lbs of honey into a dry mead.
or kill the yeast adn then backsweeten.

**Yooper** · 02-06-2008, 09:22 PM

You didn't say when you started this mead or what the sg is now. One thing to be aware of is that sometimes mead ferments very slowly, so I wouldn't do anything until the mead is at least 6 months old.

stinkiestbink · 02-08-2008, 01:24 PM

it is about 1.5 months old and i did not take a gravity reading at this racking. i knew it had a long ways to go, but could already tell that i wanted it to be sweeter. sounds like adding more honey until the yeast cant take it anymore might be the way to go.