Mead Judging - Question about sweet traditional mead

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jezter6

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In reviewing the mead judge bjcp study guide, I noticed something that I couldn't really wrap my head around (and yet someone told me it was in my meads and they probably wouldn't be judged well in spite of being very good and tasty).

In the guide (and I think bjcp style guidelines) one of the things they mention for mead is that it should not have an "unfermented" honey character.

Ok, so sweetness is residual (unfermented) sugars. Either by the yeast dying early or by backsweetening using honey or other sugars. In melomels and others, I can see where sweetening can come from the unfermented fruit sugars, and therefore not be "unfermented honey" --- but in a standard traditional mead, HOW ON EARTH does one get a sweet mead WITHOUT a residual unfermented honey?

If we use an adjunct to sweeten, it's no longer traditional...so if you're really sticking to honey + water + yeast = mead....how can one get a sweet mead without this character?

I'm completely baffled by this statement...any ideas?
 
Wow that's like if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it does it make a noise. Hahaha. I'd much rather have a taste off with 100 people voting than 3 judges rating drinks by their own personal interpretations of written rules.
 
I would imagine you would need a yeast to die off (reach it's alcohol tolerance) before all the residual sugars have been fermented.
 
The way I imagin those rules should be looked at is that when judging a mead it should not taste like a verietal honey diluted in water and a little alcohol. But you can have the yeast character compliment and enhance the characteristics of your verietal honey. So a sweet mead needs to have a yeast cut out before the sugars are eaten up but the yeast character needs to be more complex and forefront than the honey taste.
 
In reviewing the mead judge bjcp study guide, I noticed something that I couldn't really wrap my head around (and yet someone told me it was in my meads and they probably wouldn't be judged well in spite of being very good and tasty).

In the guide (and I think bjcp style guidelines) one of the things they mention for mead is that it should not have an "unfermented" honey character.

Ok, so sweetness is residual (unfermented) sugars. Either by the yeast dying early or by backsweetening using honey or other sugars. In melomels and others, I can see where sweetening can come from the unfermented fruit sugars, and therefore not be "unfermented honey" --- but in a standard traditional mead, HOW ON EARTH does one get a sweet mead WITHOUT a residual unfermented honey?

If we use an adjunct to sweeten, it's no longer traditional...so if you're really sticking to honey + water + yeast = mead....how can one get a sweet mead without this character?

I'm completely baffled by this statement...any ideas?

So this is in refrence to a traditional "show" mead?

I thought I had read somewhere that show meads are to be fermented dry using just honey, water and yeast? I could be wrong but I could swear I read that somewhere before.... Not that it makes it true.. This is the internet, after all.. lol

If that's the case, then the statement that confuses you would make sense. It cannot taste like there's unfermented honey character or "sweet".
 
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