potassium sorbate.

Iv added 2t of potassium sorbate to my 5 gallon batch. Waited the prescribed 3 days and its still fermenting.
I'm under the impression. That yeast have a life cycle of 14 hours. And waiting 3 days would ensure they all die of old age.
I'm trying to make a strong desert mead and I need to back sweeten it.
Am I doing something wrong?

I'm not sure what the lifetime of yeast is but I wouldn't rely on it to stop a ferment, there are many posts where people have tried but none succeeded. Firstly you want some sulphite in there with it, as it helps the sorbate work. But for any chance of stopping it you need to coldcrash it to knock the yeast out if suspension, then rack off them. If that doesn't work you will just have to wait for it to ferment dry and then back sweeten once its clear.

potassium metabisulphite and potassium sorbate 50/50 is what I use to kill off yeast in anything I want to back sweeten..
Works like a charm
Cheers
Jay

Generally stabilizing will not stop an active ferment, but will prevent restarting. I've never tried it, but I suppose if you wanted to stop a ferment at a given gravity point, you could cold crash it as Insomniac mentioned, then sorbate/sulfite it to prevent restarting.

Sounds like you had a lot of bad info from the get go. You can try Jaybird's advice, but I've found that its very hard to erradicate every last living yeast cell, without adding a lot of sorbate & sulphite.

I've always gone with using the right amount of honey in conjunction with a yeast that will attenuate to my final goal (and not have the ability to keep going). Then you can try to stabilize it and backsweeten as necessary.

I've never backsweetened though. With trial and error I've found good methods to produce a mead with some residual sweetness, without being cloyingly sweet/syrupy. With decent body too.

What if I pasteurize the mead then potassium sorbate it then back sweeten, clarify, bottle.

texstro said:

What if I pasteurize the mead then potassium sorbate it then back sweeten, clarify, bottle.

Click to expand...

I'd be more inclined to cold crash it and then rack it off the lees, personally i'd let it age a little then rack again as I'm not one to use stabilizing agents.