a couple noobie questions re: Cyser and Braggot

I'm a noobie to the whole homebrew scene, right now I'm working with my local u-brew shop and using their facilities to do my brewing.
and working with honey is relatively new to my shop as well...

with that said,
I have a Cyser going right now, the fermentation is pretty well slowed to a halt, racked it off and took a sample a few days ago. it was dry. and letting it sit again.
Is there a way to make it so it's not so dry? back sweeten... if thats the term I should be using. any recommendations?

secondly, the next thing I want to do is a braggot
is there a good one stop thread I should visit regarding braggots?
I also want to use maple syrup and not use hops. thoughts? opinions?

thanks for any help you guys can give.

Crumb said:

I have a Cyser going right now, the fermentation is pretty well slowed to a halt, racked it off and took a sample a few days ago. it was dry. and letting it sit again.
Is there a way to make it so it's not so dry? back sweeten... if thats the term I should be using. any recommendations?

Click to expand...

Several ways to go depending on what you want from final product.

1.....Stabilize with sorbate and camden then sweeten with honey or apple concentrate (my fav's) or sugar to taste.

2.....Avoid chemicals and keep adding honey until you exceed ABV tolerance of your yeast and it ceases fermenting.......This takes patience and prob not a good choice for your first meads.

3.....Still or carbed? Again avoid chemicals, backsweeten, bottle carbonate and then pasteurize, or pasteurize immediately if you want still.

Keep in mind as mead ages and mellows it tends to regain some natural sweetness so don't get carried away.

roadymi said:

Several ways to go depending on what you want from final product.

...

Keep in mind as mead ages and mellows it tends to regain some natural sweetness so don't get carried away.

Click to expand...

so if I just let it age longer, it'll sweeten up again? even if I don't do any of the three things you listed?

Crumb said:

...

secondly, the next thing I want to do is a braggot
is there a good one stop thread I should visit regarding braggots?
I also want to use maple syrup and not use hops. thoughts? opinions?

....

Click to expand...

I've done a lot of beer brewing, but not a lot of mead brewing. Just recently made my first braggot, quite by "accident", and it was awesome. We are polishing off the last liter right now.

I have not found a ton of information on the 'net re braggots -- just some basic info and recipes. As I understand it, there are two ways to make braggots, both of which have some historical authenticity. One, blended by mixing separately brewed mead and beer. Apparently this was common practice at one time in English pubs. Two, a wort/must made with a combination of mead and beer ingredients (malted grains and optionally hops) fermented together.

In my case, I had brewed a batch of sweet mead and an IPA. I was not entirely pleased with the IPA so I blended some of it 50/50 with mead -- the result was great. The sweetness of the mead balanced nicely with the strong hops of the IPA and helped to mask some of the defects in the IPA.

The web site www.gotmead.com has some braggot recipes and basic info.

Curtis2010 said:

I've done a lot of beer brewing, but not a lot of mead brewing. Just recently made my first braggot, quite by "accident", and it was awesome. We are polishing off the last liter right now.

I have not found a ton of information on the 'net re braggots -- just some basic info and recipes. As I understand it, there are two ways to make braggots, both of which have some historical authenticity. One, blended by mixing separately brewed mead and beer. Apparently this was common practice at one time in English pubs. Two, a wort/must made with a combination of mead and beer ingredients (malted grains and optionally hops) fermented together.

In my case, I had brewed a batch of sweet mead and an IPA. I was not entirely pleased with the IPA so I blended some of it 50/50 with mead -- the result was great. The sweetness of the mead balanced nicely with the strong hops of the IPA and helped to mask some of the defects in the IPA.

The web site www.gotmead.com has some braggot recipes and basic info.

Click to expand...

I've decided to do a more broader search instead of looking for one thread somewhere. google is my friend.

when you say "blended" the two, do you mean, just pour one into the other and ... shake it up? that sounds simple enough.
as I said, I'm new to this hobby/scene, and some of the terminology I'm still learning.

Crumb said:

....
when you say "blended" the two, do you mean, just pour one into the other and ... shake it up? that sounds simple enough.

Click to expand...

Pretty much. I blended at about a 50/50 ratio. Took a clean 1 liter bottle and filled half with a sweet mead and half with IPA. That's all there is to it. Very tasty stuff.