Exotic topping off into secondary

[RedCabbage]

I have a few 3lb tubs of various honeys to do a gallon each and I'm wondering what exciting things I can do with them. I'm thinking I'll just start off the primary as normal, basic mead but then when primary has finished I'll rack to secondary and add a cup or two of something interesting to top it off (i.e. not just honey-water, water or more mead).

If I do something very sugary it will no doubt kick the fermentation off again - what is the downside to that? Will I just end up with more lees and have to do another rack and end up topping off with water anyway?

I'm thinking maybe some fruit juice or smoothie or some dissolved sweeties (or "candy" as I believe you call them across the pond) of some sort (someone here mentioned Werthers in another recipe - I bet that would be fantastic). What about tea? Or even coffee? Or diluted rosewater?

Any thoughts/pitfalls/suggestions?

 

[rhoadsrage]

add one of the following:
Lapsang souchong
cedar wood
fennagreek
caramelized honey

 

[Clyon1]

I tried this with a batch of mead that is just about ready to be bottled now. Took the regular old mead, racked it onto 12 lbs strawberries and made some Strawberry Melomel out of it. The addition of exotics in your secondary adds alot of sugar which does two things.

1) Allows your mead to pack a heck of a punch, my mead began with an original gravity of 1.1, and I'm not even sure how much sugar the berries added, but the alcohol content is way up there, I can tell you that much.

2) Creates an insanely invigorated fermentation. I left what I believed was enough head space in a 6 Gal carboy, and attached a blow off tube, but the increased CO2 caused the floating berries to swell, clog the tube, and before the evening was thorough I had a strawberry mash volcano once the bung blew out. Luckily I was in the room and was able to catch most of it in a bucket.

As far as the racking goes, the addition of additives does create more sediment than I am used to, and its an interesting time siphoning when you need to keep the racking cane above the lees, but below the floating berry mess, so keep that in mind when you pick an additive.

Now to adjust for the topping up issue as some mead will be lost with increased lees, I simply had 5 gallons of mead in a 6 gal carboy with an amount of strawberries which was meant to flavor 6 gals of mead, and had a one gallon jug of regular mead riding shotgun. When I wanted to rack the mead off the berries I simply did so, then topped up the new 6 gal carboy with the regular mead that had been fermenting nicely.

-Hope my experiences (and mistakes) help out!

 

[RedCabbage]

I tried this with a batch of mead that is just about ready to be bottled now. Took the regular old mead, racked it onto 12 lbs strawberries and made some Strawberry Melomel out of it. The addition of exotics in your secondary adds alot of sugar which does two things.

1) Allows your mead to pack a heck of a punch, my mead began with an original gravity of 1.1, and I'm not even sure how much sugar the berries added, but the alcohol content is way up there, I can tell you that much.

2) Creates an insanely invigorated fermentation. I left what I believed was enough head space in a 6 Gal carboy, and attached a blow off tube, but the increased CO2 caused the floating berries to swell, clog the tube, and before the evening was thorough I had a strawberry mash volcano once the bung blew out. Luckily I was in the room and was able to catch most of it in a bucket.

As far as the racking goes, the addition of additives does create more sediment than I am used to, and its an interesting time siphoning when you need to keep the racking cane above the lees, but below the floating berry mess, so keep that in mind when you pick an additive.

Now to adjust for the topping up issue as some mead will be lost with increased lees, I simply had 5 gallons of mead in a 6 gal carboy with an amount of strawberries which was meant to flavor 6 gals of mead, and had a one gallon jug of regular mead riding shotgun. When I wanted to rack the mead off the berries I simply did so, then topped up the new 6 gal carboy with the regular mead that had been fermenting nicely.

-Hope my experiences (and mistakes) help out!

Thanks for the info. I don't have any big carboys, only a bunch of 1-gallon demijons, but they are mostly busy. I think I'll avoid adding solid matter if they are likely to swell and erupt. I'll assume that topping up to the neck with liquid, even very sugary stuff, is unlikely to result in any unpleasant expansion.

I think I'm narrowing down to the lapsang souchong rhoadrage suggested or a handful of Werthers dissolved in water (dissolving in vodka would just make it too potent and I feel I'm cheating if I add my own alcohol).