Progressive backsweetening for 3 different mead types

[jamesnsw]

So I made 5 gallons of mead- it was supposed to be sweet, but my original sweet mead yeast stopped really high. So I added some wine yeast, and it's now at 15%, with an SG of 1.000.

My plan is to bottle 3 different varieties of mead- dry, semi-sweet, and sweet. I've already stopped and killed the yeast, so I'm ready soon to bottle. Here's my plan-

I have 5 gallons of mead @1.000.
Bottle 1.5 gallons of dry mead.

Have 3.5 gallons of mead @1.000.
Add 2lbs of honey.
Have 3.5 gallons of mead @~1.018.
Bottle 2 gallons of semi-sweet mead.

Have 1.5 gallons of mead @~1.018.
Add 1lbs of honey.
Have 1.5 gallons of mead @~1.039.
Bottle 1.5 gallons of sweet mead.

Does this make sense? Anyone willing to make sure my calculations are correct? I shot for about the middle of the ranges for semi sweet and sweet, so there is some wiggle room.

Any suggestions for mixing the honey into the bottling bucket? Heat and dissolve in a bit of water first is what I'm thinking.

 

[2ndGenBrewer]

I'd say your measurements are pretty good. As for prep with honey in a bottling bucket dissolving in a hot water before adding to the mead is a good idea. I do the same when I back sweeten and top off. Best of luck with the back sweetening.

By the way how did you kill off the yeast? filtering, chemicals, etc. ?

 

[Rainyn]

Interesting. I have 5 gallons of mead that is going to end up pretty dry and strong also. If you do this, do please come back and let us know how it went. I might do the same.

 

[MedsenFey]

Rather than picking a number, you might want to sweeten it according to taste. Dissolving the honey in a little water makes it easier to pour and stir in, and then you can keep adding until you think it tastes a little sweet. Then in the next batch, keep adding until you think it is very sweet (but hopefully not cloying). You can see if the gravity at the levels you like by taste is close to where you expect these to fall. Different meads will have different levels of sweetness at the same gravity level depending on the honey and other ingredients. So what tasted good with one honey at 1.018, may taste a bit cloying at 1.018 with a different honey (say one that has less acidity and a higher fructose percentage).

If you stabilized with sorbate/sulfite, it would be good to keep the sweetened batches under airlock for a few weeks to make sure fermentation doesn't kick up again.

 

[jamesnsw]

Doing this right now... this is more complicated than my other bottling experiences- but I'm sure it'll be worth it. Heating the first batch of honey right now. I'm going to try MedsenFey's suggestion of sweetening to taste. Bottling and labeling as I go to avoid confusion later.

 

[Yooper]

One more (little) suggestion!

Sweeten to taste, but slightly less than what you want. Pull out several samples and sweeten them all a bit differently. Line them up from less sweet to more sweet, and try them. If you hit one you love, then sweeten to slightly less than that one. For example, you have three samples, and they are at 1.012, 1.015, and 1.018. If you love the 1.015 version, sweeten it to 1.012 or 1.013 because it'll get sweeter in the bottle. I don't know how or why, but it always happens that way. So, sweeten to just a hair under your desired finished level. I have a dandelion wine that was fantastic at 1.008 when I bottled it. But it's just too blasted sweet now. I wish I would have sweetened it to 1.005.

 

[jamesnsw]

Well I ended up with 3 meads at these levels-
1.000
1.017
1.045

The sweetest one is already a bit sweet... but I figured it would be drinkable, and didn't know what to do with a cup of watered down heated honey. But it's still definitely something I won't mind drinking or sharing.

Yooper- the one flaw with that process is the amount of samples. Sure, it would only add up to a bottle or two.... but this mead is at 15%. With the samples I had, I'm already past where I want to be on a work night. I can't imagine that times 3. (Darn... we're out of coffee at work... tomorrow may be miserable).

If I did this again, I would probably do a bit less honey overall, maybe reduce each addition by .5 lbs. That would still differentiate each one, while not making each jump so drastic.