Mead finished too dry

[brewbush]

So I have been following morebeers mead instructions. I used 15# orange blossom honey into 5 gallons.

Started at 1.110 and used 71b yeast. I used 4 campden tablets a few days ago and transferred and degassed today. It finished at 1.000.

It came out to 14.7 abv which seems high to me, I guess I was hoping the yeast would Peter out at a higher gravity. I have also read about adding sorbate at the wrong time can cause off flavors.

What would you recommend my next actions. My plan would be let it sit for a couple months. It is in a 3 gallon, 1 gallon, and 1/2 gallon carboys. Then rack them all back into a 5 gallon. Add extra kmeta then same day add the sorbate? Let sit for a week then backsweeten with sugar to try to cut down the alcohol?

What are your opinions?

 

[Transamguy77]

I had the same problem with some I made 2 years ago, I added fruit to mine and I continued to add fruit till it got sweeter. I have also read to just add more honey to bring up the gravity to the desired level.

 

[brewbush]

I had the same problem with some I made 2 years ago, I added fruit to mine and I continued to add fruit till it got sweeter. I have also read to just add more honey to bring up the gravity to the desired level.

Is there a certain method to do this? Do I add the sorbate first, then the same day add extra honey? Or does this not matter?

Should I do it now by combining the 3 carboys back into the bucket or should I wait a month?

 

[fuelish]

My opinion??? Let it be ..... for months, racking again if necessary.....and then let it sit some more. A good dry mead can be a wonderful thing...add a lil oak, maybe?

 

[bernardsmith]

Add extra kmeta then same day add the sorbate? Let sit for a week then backsweeten with sugar to try to cut down the alcohol?

What are your opinions?

A starting gravity of about 1.110 will result in a mead of about 14.5% ABV when all is said and done. And adding more sweetness will not reduce the alcohol content although it may help "balance" the alcohol.
Most Americans prefer a sweeter than a drier wine and that applies to meads and ciders... So while I agree with fuelish that you might simply allow your mead to age and so enable the flavors to push forward in ways they do when the mead is less "green" , you might consider stabilizing and then back sweetening this batch. To determine how much additional honey (or sugar) you want to add to sweeten, I would bench test.

 

[fuelish]

I'm perhaps one of the world's laziest mead makers....if it's dry, so be it. If it ends up a lil sweet, that's OK too....I just let the stuff ferment, rack a few times, let it age some more, and eventually bottle, and it ends up being what it is...usually quite good, other than a few poorly concocted recipes

 

[fatbloke]

If you are determined to sweeten it some, then if it were mine, I'd rack it into a bucket to get it off the lees, add the sulphite and sorbate for the total amount, then add some small increments of honey to raise the gravity to the desired level (I like mine at about the 1.010 level).

Then after rinsing out and sanitising the fermenters, rack it back in nice and gently, stopper and airlocks and leave it alone to clear.........

The reason why I sweeten before clearing is because I like to use honey, which can cause a haze in already cleared meads and I'm too tight fisted to want to mess around with the resulting further racking losses from having to clear it a second time - I find that any haze produced by the back sweetening honey seems to drop out nicely with the fermentation debris.......

So it's up to you.........