Bottling time

Have two 1 gallon batches of mead that I'm getting ready to bottle. One is a basic simple mead, and the other is a fruit mead. They were both brewed last August. The questions I have are:
1) still vs carbed
2) if still, can I just fill the bottles w/ a bottling wand and cap (8oz bottles)
3) if carbed, what co2 vols and is there enough yeast in suspension to carp naturally?

Thank for any and all advise.

muse435 said:

Have two 1 gallon batches of mead that I'm getting ready to bottle. One is a basic simple mead, and the other is a fruit mead. They were both brewed last August. The questions I have are:
1) still vs carbed
2) if still, can I just fill the bottles w/ a bottling wand and cap (8oz bottles)
3) if carbed, what co2 vols and is there enough yeast in suspension to carp naturally?

Thank for any and all advise.

Click to expand...

1) it's your choice, if you wanted to carbonate you'll need to crunch the numbers......

2) yes, just make sure that the bottles are sanitised. It's quite normal to bottle into 750ml wine bottles, but as Ken Schramm says in his book, if you do some into wine bottles and some into smaller beer bottles, there's nothing inherently wrong with that, it's also convenient as you never know whether you'll finish a 750ml bottle, whereas some smaller beer bottles not only offer a smaller serving, but also give you some "test bottles" so you can open one periodically to see how it's progressing with age.......

3) As per 1), you'd need to know what the tolerance of the yeast is, and a rough guesstimate of what the likely alcohol content is, because if the yeast has reached it's alcohol tolerance, then it's unlikely that it will carbonate naturally, whereas if it hasn't, then a half, to a teaspoon of priming sugar or even honey should give the yeast something to munch on.

If the brew has been stabilised, then you'd need to think about forced carbonation i.e. corny kegs, gas, gauges/piping and all that.

For ease, if you're new to mead making then I'd say just bottle it still, but chill them and drink them like wine. Worry about the possibilities of carbonating later.......

p.s. Oh, and in any case, if you're carbonating for a champagne like sparkling version, you'll need champagne/sparkling wine bottles, the plastic stoppers (real cork ones need a specific type of corker), wire cages to keep the stoppers in and probably foil caps to make it pretty.

You can actually use beer bottles and crown caps, but you need to work out about how much priming sugar/honey to use because it's relatively easy to make small bottle bombs.......

The "recommended" vol CO2 for meads varies widely, from 1.0 to 3.5.

If you decide to prime, you don't necessarily need to crunch numbers yourself...there are several priming calculators out there. I tend to use this one, but this one is also good as it give you calculations for other alternative priming sugars, honey included.

I would give you the caveat that the sugar content in honey can vary, so I'd err slightly on the lower side if you do use honey for priming.

Assuming these are dry, and won't restart fermentation, you could consider adding a small amount of a dry champagne yeast to the bottling bucket (I've never done this, but I've read about it as a technique for making sure you have yeast to bottle condition...perhaps you could search a bit on that concept if you're interested, and post back...) Generally, I just "accidentally" hit the bottom briefly with my siphon, and pick up a small amount of yeast from the bottom of the carboy...

If you're not at dry; ie, you have some residual unfermentable sugar and a yeast at it's tolerance, as fatbloke said, you probably can't bottle carb.

Some other random thoughts:
- If you do want to backsweeten and also bottle condition, I've had good success using lactose for backsweetening my cider while still allowing for natural carbonation with dextrose added at bottling.
- The higher the ABV, the longer it will take to bottle carb/condition. You'll want to store the brew in a warm place, and it may still take weeks/months for the carbonation to develop in a a mead that, I assume, is 10+% ABV.

the last time i checked the gravety the ABV was 10.79%, that was 124 days ago, but i have no reason to suspect that it has risen (though it might be slightly higher) the mead has now been sitting for a grand total of 274 days.
I used Lalvin D-47 Yeast.

i have only had still mead thus far in life, is there a big difference in carbed vs still? (other then bubbles)

The biggest difference, as you say, is the bubbles. This will of course affect the mouthfeel, and to some degree the aroma and flavor. Perhaps bottle some still, and carb up the rest so you can compare for yourself.

D47 can definitely go higher than 10-11% so you shouldn't need a different yeast...either rouse up some yeast when racking to the bottling bucket, or add a small amount of fresh yeast.

Whatever you do, come to Mead Day on Aug 4th at Alt Bev's Belmont store and let me taste what we're talking about!