Carbonating Sweet Mead (without explosions!)

[DanielLukes]

Hi all,

I have been making hydromels of a beer-like ABV for about 6 months. To avoid the inevitable thin consistency of low strength meads, I have been either leaving residual sugars or priming before bottle carbing. However, I do like my mead to be slightly sweet.

All the discussions I have seen so far on these forums seem to follow the wisdom that one cannot carbonate sweet mead without using:

A) Force carbing
B) Stabiliser and non-fermentable sugar addition.
C) Artificial sweetners

There is a meadery in London near to me (in fact it is the ONLY meadery in London...) which claims to bottle condition its sweet mead for a specific period of time before pasteurising the bottles (still sealed) to prevent further fermentation. They claim that it took them a long time to achieve the correct balance between sweetness, carbonation and intact bottles!

I have tried this method several times. It is successful in halting fermentation (without effecting the flavour if you're careful with your temperatures) but so far I haven't struck the correct balance between sweetness and carbonation.

Has anybody else heard of this method or tried it? Is it common in other types of brew (eg, cider, wine)?
If so, are there any good rules to follow regarding the amount of priming sugar to use and the length of time and temperature for conditioning?

Thank you!

Daniel

 

[Arpolis]

Here is a sticky from the cider thread. I think it talks to this process the best:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f32/easy-stove-top-pasteurizing-pics-193295/

 

[DanielLukes]

Amazing! Thank you

 

[fuelish]

You could steep some honey malt to add at the beginning, this should give "some" residual sweetness, although I cannot verify this yet ... plan to do a bottle carbed cranberry mead with honey malt soon and will find out

 

[DanielLukes]

I tried the pasteurisation method with very good results.

I did have a few poppers but it seems that the corks fly off well before the bottles themselves build up dangerous pressure levels.

I have been using regular wine corks so far and was amazed to find that they hold some serious pressure before popping. Also a good safety measure to avoid shrapnel.