Traditional Mead help and advice

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discgolfin

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I'm only a few batches of mead under my belt..A braggot, and cherry mead and a traditional dry mead with orange and spice. The dry mead was 1.108 OG and went all the way down to 1.002ish. Very dry and close to 15% ABV. It has been in the secondary for over a year now. I have transfered it twice now. It is just very harsh and difficult to drink much of. At almost 2 years old Im looking to sweetin it up and make it a bit smoother to drink. I have two 3 gallon glass carboys and was thinking of splitting them up and adding honey and or sugar to bring this to a semi sweet ot sweeter mead, maybe mix in more orange or other fruit? any help or advice from others who have blended and what you think would be good. Figure I can do two versions and compare. It will still be plenty big ABV wise but want it to be smoother and sweeter.

thanks
 
So any suggestions on amounts of honey and or other fruit? I plan to split the 5 gallons into twi three gallon jugs..so they will get diluted a bit. One semi sweet, and one sweet. Maybe one semisweet orange and one sweet strawberry or rassberry.

jay
 
Why don't you give us the original recipe details and that will help?
What yeast? What honey? At what temp did you ferment? What spices and how much?
 
15# orange blossom honey
4 cinnamon sticks 1/4 tsp glove
4 rhines of orange

OG: 1.108
FG: .990

I was new to mead making and used a dry red wine yeast..fermented 68-70

Primary moved to secondary with camden tabs, 1 6 months transfer again to secondary..crystal clear at this point. very dry and alcoholic, likely some fusels but also close to 16% ABV. Wish to smooth this out and sweeten up with honey and possible fruit..Thinking orange in one and mixed fruit in the other. This would add 1/2 gallon of honey and water to each so will dilute it down to 12%-13% ABV, and make one semi sweet and other sweet range.

hope this helps

Jay
 
I'd start with the simplest approach first, which is to backsweeten. A dry, spiced mead will often be phenolic and though they may smooth out with enough age (another year or two) it can take a long time. I'd be inclined to stabilize and sweeten it with honey. You may find you don't need to dilute with water.

My approach is simple - take 1/2 cup of mead in a glass and put it on a scale to weigh it. Then add honey a little at a time tasting along the way until it tastes good. Then measure the gravity so now you have a target gravity, and if you see the weight you added in honey, you'll be able to estimate how much you need to add to get to the target (being careful to undershoot the target - you can always add more, but you can't easily take it out).

If you find that sweetening alone doesn't work, you can experiment with adding fruit juice/honey/water to find a mixture that works. If nothing makes you happy, you can save it. I have a batch somewhat like this that I've had for about 4 years that I use for topping up and blending with other batches.

Medsen
 
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