Back sweetening?

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claphamsa

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So everyone seems to like the sweet meade better.... figure that!

I have 2 batches that are approaching 6 months, the plan is to medicate them (campden and um the other yeast killer :) ) then back sweeten... ideally I would like to bottle them this weekend.

how do yalls go about back sweetening? Can I medicate today, then back sweeten with honey in the bottling bucket? and just hit it with the wine whip? Or do i need to let it sit on it till it naturally absorbs?
 
I've heard of some people using Splenda to back sweeten. No personal experience, though.
 
I've heard of some people using Splenda to back sweeten. No personal experience, though.

AAAGGGGHHHHHHHH NOOOOOOOOOO!!!! :)

People this is mead. Using anything other than honey to sweeten the nearly finished product is anathema, seriously so.

This is a really good question Clap. If you don't ensure that the honey dissolves you have uneven sweetening; if you stir with a wine whip you add in too much oxygen. What to do?

Perhaps dissolve the honey in a small amount of warm/hot water then add to the container for a few weeks before bottling?
 
I would assume that
1) you'd want to dissolve the honey in a solution
2) You'd want to ensure that it's mixed up.

I would do like priming sugar for bottling brew - mix the honey in water and then put in the bottling bucket when cool enough then rack the mead onto it and do a nice steady non-aerating stir like we did to mix the priming sugar back before we were keggers. :)
 
Well, the best way to answer your question is to explain how the yeast terminators do their jobs. Metabisulfite (Campden is just potassium or sodium metabisulfite pressed into tablet form) produces sulfur dioxide in the mead. Molecular SO2 in the mead will, at a high enough level, kill all the yeast (and most other spoilage organisms) in there. The amount of SO2 actually available to do the dirty deed really depends on a couple of things in the mead -- first and foremost is pH. Generally speaking the lower the pH the more SO2 is able to function as a yeast killer. The other factor to consider is how much of that SO2 becomes "bound" by organic chemicals in the mead -- the more that is bound, the less is "free" to finish off your yeast.

That said, figuring out exactly how much metabisulfite to add can be an exercise in analytical chemistry, or you can choose to add typical "rule of thumb" amounts of Campden tabs, which often are conservatively adjusted assuming your pH is relatively high, and most of the time you're good to go.

The other yeast terminator isn't actually a killer -- it is more like "the Pill" for yeast. Potassium sorbate naturally inhibits the production of hormones in yeast that cause them to bud, and thus prevents them from reproducing. So a complete stabilization of your mead involves adding metabisulfite to kill outright nearly all the yeast cells in there, and sorbate to prevent any stragglers from starting a whole new yeast colony.

You want to be sure to add your metabisulfite relatively soon before bottling. The effect is nearly immediate (yeast are terminated about as quickly as a can of Raid works on houseflies), and then an immediate addition of sorbate will keep everything nice and stable. You don't want to wait too long before the sorbate is added, since the free SO2 in your mead will dissipate as SO2 gas starts coming out of solution almost as soon as you add metabisulfite. SO2 levels will naturally drop with time. SO2, in addition to killing yeast, also eliminates malolactic bacteria. If you happen to get some wild malolactic culture in your mead, and if there isn't enough SO2 to eliminate it, then the bacteria will, along with converting malic acid to lactic acid, also start "eating" the sorbate, turning it into a vile organic chemical that smells a lot like rotten geraniums. There's no way to remove that geranium odor once it is in there, so it is best to do the one-two punch of sulfite and sorbate just before you bottle.

Hope that makes some sense.
 
I would assume that
1) you'd want to dissolve the honey in a solution
2) You'd want to ensure that it's mixed up.

I would do like priming sugar for bottling brew - mix the honey in water and then put in the bottling bucket when cool enough then rack the mead onto it and do a nice steady non-aerating stir like we did to mix the priming sugar back before we were keggers. :)


you remember how high quality my bottles were ;)
 
Well, the best way to answer your question is to explain how the yeast terminators do their jobs. Metabisulfite (Campden is just potassium or sodium metabisulfite pressed into tablet form) produces sulfur dioxide in the mead. Molecular SO2 in the mead will, at a high enough level, kill all the yeast (and most other spoilage organisms) in there. The amount of SO2 actually available to do the dirty deed really depends on a couple of things in the mead -- first and foremost is pH. Generally speaking the lower the pH the more SO2 is able to function as a yeast killer. The other factor to consider is how much of that SO2 becomes "bound" by organic chemicals in the mead -- the more that is bound, the less is "free" to finish off your yeast.

That said, figuring out exactly how much metabisulfite to add can be an exercise in analytical chemistry, or you can choose to add typical "rule of thumb" amounts of Campden tabs, which often are conservatively adjusted assuming your pH is relatively high, and most of the time you're good to go.

The other yeast terminator isn't actually a killer -- it is more like "the Pill" for yeast. Potassium sorbate naturally inhibits the production of hormones in yeast that cause them to bud, and thus prevents them from reproducing. So a complete stabilization of your mead involves adding metabisulfite to kill outright nearly all the yeast cells in there, and sorbate to prevent any stragglers from starting a whole new yeast colony.

You want to be sure to add your metabisulfite relatively soon before bottling. The effect is nearly immediate (yeast are terminated about as quickly as a can of Raid works on houseflies), and then an immediate addition of sorbate will keep everything nice and stable. You don't want to wait too long before the sorbate is added, since the free SO2 in your mead will dissipate as SO2 gas starts coming out of solution almost as soon as you add metabisulfite. SO2 levels will naturally drop with time. SO2, in addition to killing yeast, also eliminates malolactic bacteria. If you happen to get some wild malolactic culture in your mead, and if there isn't enough SO2 to eliminate it, then the bacteria will, along with converting malic acid to lactic acid, also start "eating" the sorbate, turning it into a vile organic chemical that smells a lot like rotten geraniums. There's no way to remove that geranium odor once it is in there, so it is best to do the one-two punch of sulfite and sorbate just before you bottle.

Hope that makes some sense.

it does... so add the killers right before I sweeten... but I do need to sweeten in there.

Good info on the killers though :)

and welcome!
 
So Wayne - what's your backsweetening process?

For others... WayneB is a widely respected gotmead dot com member/mentor.

A gotmead search for "how to backsweeten" gives some insight:

How to Backsweeten

Clap - I would use the gotmead calculator (do a google) and set it up so that your volume and F.G. are inputs and let the calculator tell you how much honey it would take to get to a certain F.G. I give a list of typical F.G.'s below.


From: Ken Schramm's The Compleat Meadmaker:

Dry Mead: 0.099 to 1.006 (or lower)
Medium Mead: 1.006 to 1.015
Sweet Mead: 1.015 to 1.020
Dessert Mead: 1.020+
 
As an addendum to my prior post:

From:A few pointers please.

"Do keep in mind that sweetness is not just of function of gravity and residual sugar. For any particular level of residual sugar, alcohol will tend to enhance the sweetness, while acids and tannins will tend to reduce it. In an extreme example I have made meads with a final gravity of around 1.070 that tasted only a little sweet due to large acid load- nice though, and great body."
 
So Wayne - what's your backsweetening process?

For others... WayneB is a widely respected gotmead dot com member/mentor.
Uh, oh. I'm not incognito any more. ;)

Well, I guess it's nice to be recognized. :D

Anyway, here's what I do when I'm going to backsweeten.

Basic backsweetening process:
1) Figure out how much you want to sweeten, by taste (see below).

2) On sweetening day, add enough metabisulfite to bring the free SO2 level up to around 100 ppm. (Again, this depends on pH and whether there's anything in the must that will bind sulfite -- or you can just rule-of-thumb it.) NOTE: This is higher than hightest's recommended 50 ppm level, but as I said earlier, SO2 will eventually dissipate with time (even in a corked bottle), so I rather err on the side of caution and include enough to be sure all yeast and/or ML bacteria are wiped out. If memory serves, commercial wineries are allowed to add significantly more than that (350 ppm), and the sensory threshold for most people is even higher than that.

3) Immediately add potassium sorbate; about 125-150 ppm, to provide effective yeast birth control. That's around 3/4 of a gram to 1 gram per gallon.

4) Add my backsweetening solution, and then airlock the carboy and allow the mead to re-clarify.

5) Once it is clear again, before transferring to a keg or bottles, add enough additional metabisulfite to bring the free SO2 level back up to 50 ppm. I do this by measuring free sulfite with a sulfite measurement kit, but you can wing it by assuming that nearly all the initial sulfite that you added has either been bound or has dissipated in the time you allow the mead to clear again.

6) Then bottle or keg it -- it will be stable at that time, and immune from any wild ML bacteria or yeast that may find their way in while you're bottling.


Anyway, my method to figure out how much to sweeten is pretty basic. As was noted in earlier postings in this thread, the actual perceived sweetness of any beverage is influenced a lot by what else is in there, so I don't try to hit a given SG target as much as I just sweeten to taste. That involves drawing off a small, measured volume sample of the mead, and then slowly adding a honey-water solution of known gravity (just enough water to get the honey to flow easily, around 1.300-ish net gravity), added in small measured increments, tasting the mix between each addition until I get the sweetness level that I'm satisfied with. If you always add the same amount of sweetening solution in between each tasting, and you count the number of additions up to the sweetness that you desire, then you can either figure out the net SG of the sweetened mix (or measure it directly if you have a big enough sample) and simply add enough honey to the main bulk of your batch to come up to that SG.

BTW - I've found that I'm much more pleased with a "backsweetening by mead" approach that I've done for my last couple of sweetening efforts, than I have been by adding unfermented honey. Because of the experimentation that I've been doing on ultra-high initial gravity fermentations (with starting gravities between 1.150 and 1.170), I happen to have a lot of dessert-sweet mead around the place these days. I follow the same basic approach as I described above for the honey-water additions, but I use a sweet mead instead of the honey-water solution. I end up essentially blending two meads, the dry with the really-sweet, until I get the level of sweetness I'm after in the finished product. I've found that the sweet mead additions will integrate and taste "finished" faster than the additions of honey alone.
 
Cugel, it's funny you bring that up now...I just racked (for the 4th and last time) a blueberry mead (melomel) that has been 5 months in the making. Now it is bulk aging. Anyway, case in point..I checked the F.G. yesterday during racking and it came in at 1.032!!! I was like...WOW this is gonna be sweet...BUT....it's really not. It's got a nice blueberry and honey flavor with a nice warming effect, almost like brandy..but it isn't cloyingly sweet or overwhelmingly sweet. In fact, I have a sweet, carbonated hard cider I am just drinking now, and the F.G. on that is only 1.013 and tastes MUCH sweeter than this Blueberry Mead does. It's funny how that works.

Dan
 
Oh, one thing I want to make sure gets noted....

Although I started making mead a long time ago (the late 1970's, to be precise), I took a "leave of absence" from the hobby during the mid to late 90's when we were busy with raising kids and stuff. During my absence, an incredible amount of good analytical and experimental science was performed by guys like hightest (now on this board), and Oskaar (Pete) on the Gotmead forum, and others (including that guy who wrote a book about it -- name of Schramm). ;) They transformed this hobby from the hit-and-miss thing it was to the consistently successful, reliable and repeatable thing it is today. Hightest doesn't like to brag, so I'll do it for him. He's the one who essentially brought me into the 21st century of meadmaking process, and I like to give credit where credit is due. He is also a relative newcomer to HBT, but the advice that he gives is that of a seasoned, experienced pro.
 
So Ill take gravity readings tonight... and see how high it is... I think with my pumpkin mead, the level of new honey will be limited by space in the carboy! Shame, Ill have to wait to bottle another couple of weeks I guess!
 
I was gonna ask if that was the wayneb I've gotten advice from on other forums, glad to hear it is. With you and Hightest sharing some time on HBT, this is becoming an even better forum!
 
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