K Meta?

I have been reading up on wines and have seen using K Meta at time of bottling for longer storage/aging process. Is this recommended at all for meads? I'm getting ready to bottle my blackberry mead in a few weeks and was wondering if I needed to do this since everywhere I have read states the mead gets better after prolonged aging.

depending on how much has been added till now, at bottling should be around 50 ppm to help prevent o2 damage and provide additional protection for it.

This is a yeast inhibitor, just as potassium sorbate. Prevents further yeast activity after bottling, reducing the chances of "bottle bombs". I use K-sorbate in all my meads and ciders

K meta is more than a yeast inhibitor. According to Anderson, "Winemaking", wines need the addition of sulphate to turn out properly, thus the use of kmeta. They recommend adding some at every racking. I have generally found their instructions to be good. Used in small amounts, K meta will not inhibit the yeast.

Potassium Sorbate is usually used as a stabilizer, ie yeast inhibitor. In my experience, it stops them cold.

Does K meta work the same way as campden tablets?

Yes, campden tablets ARE k-meta with other inert ingredients added to make it tablet form. Same exact thing.

Lorena

so I am about to cold shock and rack my mead out of my primary.. if i understand everone right you recommend that I use Potassium Sorbate and Campden Tabs to stablize everything before i try to backsweeten a little?? The LHBS recomended the Sorbate only and said there was no reason to add anything else..

SpamDog

brewman! I stand corrected on the K meta. I thought the K meta was basically the same as potassium sorbate. I have used the potassium sorbate in all the meads and ciders Ive done so far, and all have turned out fine, have never used in combination with campden tabs

Well, sorbate works best in conjunction with k-meta. If you add only sorbate, you will inhibit the yeast (so you can backsweeten) but without k-meta- two things can happen. 1- you could get a "geranium" smell/flavor from unsulfited wine/mead when you add sorbate, and 2- your mead/wine isn't really protected from bacteria or other growths during aging. Sorbate does work best in the presence of sulfite.

You should add both, then wait a couple of weeks to insure fermentation is truly stopped and the mead is clear. Then rack, backsweeten and bottle.

If your mead is still in primary, you're looking at at least 6 months before it should be bottled.

Lorena

lorenae said:

If your mead is still in primary, you're looking at at least 6 months before it should be bottled.

Lorena

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If you want a carbonated mead, will more yeast need to be added before priming after the six months in secondary?