Acidifying meads...

So someone school me please on this process... I've made some pretty good meads, even took a BOS at the KCBM and several first's here or there, but I always think this is by chance and not real knowhow...

I have recently been told that one of my problems is acidification. It would open the meads up, show more of my fruit in my melomel's and such...

I have no idea of this process nor probably wouldn't know what to even taste for while doing it!

So where would I start? I have a dang nice blueberry at a year old now, a bit sweet, and seems to need some real life to make it shine...

I would start with a finished mead - actually you need to do this as mead is already really acidic for fermentation. And add the acid blend in very small measured amounts to a measured glass and taste.

z987k said:

I would start with a finished mead - actually you need to do this as mead is already really acidic for fermentation. And add the acid blend in very small measured amounts to a measured glass and taste.

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I do a pinch, small pinch, in a glass if it tastes better, I start with 1\8 tsp per gallon, then a pinch more in a glass! If that tastes better, another 1\8 in the batch, eventually the pinch is too much... Then stop!

hey bigkahuna youre still active...me not so much...sorry for the threadjack

Thanks fellas... I suspected as much... I will order some acid blend from AHS. This sounds like a LOT of tasting is involved!

Id like to learn a bit more about what I am doing here with my meads!

BigKahuna said:

I do a pinch, small pinch, in a glass if it tastes better, I start with 1\8 tsp per gallon, then a pinch more in a glass! If that tastes better, another 1\8 in the batch, eventually the pinch is too much... Then stop!

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I hope that you don't mind another question about acid in mead- I didn't add any to my one gallon trial of csyer* and it is only on day 11 of the ferment, can I go and add a bit of citric acid now or should I wait until it clears a bit and add to the secondary when I rack it? And is the citric acid that I use for cheese making the same stuff that can be used for wine/mead making?
*3 quarts apple juice and 2lbs honey and almost 3/4 can undiluted apple juice concentrate, with Cote De Blanc yeast. It has been burbling away all 11 days and even on this cold morning 59f it is still going at least 4 bubbles per minute.

Just another bit of info that I've learned from experience with acids and mead....

You will get a taste difference from what types of acid you add back in. I had a 3 gallon batch of sweet mead that I accidentally oversweetened. Originally I then planned to just add acid blend to the whole batch to balance it out better, but then started reading about the different acids and remembered how past recipes of mead differed. So I split my 3 gallon batch into 3 1 gallon batches. The first I left as-is. The second I added acid blend. And the third I added a 2 to 1 ratio combination of malic and tartaric acids (no citric which is also in acid blend). After letting the meads sit for a week or so I retasted. The batch with the acid blend was good (helped the oversweet level), but the batch with the malic and tartaric acids was very very good (better than past young meads I made).

I haven't tried acid blend vs. malic/tartaric in melomels yet, but I plan to. This is just FYI if you want to compare.

Keep in mind that malic acid is the prinicpal organic acid in apples, so if you were to try to keep true to the character of your cyser, starting with malic acid additions might be best. Otherwise, adding citric acid for example, you might bring a citrus character to the cyser which may or may not taste "right."

Emerald said:

So you liked the malic/tartaric acids better than the one with the blend? But I'll bet that, just like all things, it might be also a matter of personal taste? I might have to do some experimenting next time I get free honey. But since oranges go so well in mead, I am sure that citric acid will not hurt, as long as I don't get carried away adding it.

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Yes, I like the malic/tartaric better in sweet mead. While some small bit of it might be personal taste, the main reason I tried that malic/tartaric 2/1 ratio is because I saw that used in a dry mead recipe with no citric acid. I have to agree with wayneb, based on my own results also, that certain acid types match up with certain ingredients.

Alright wish me luck fellas... I have some acid blend now and I am going to do some blind tasting while Moonbeam adds a measured pinch to a glass... Should be fun gauging this against the original mead...