Some unusual questions

[SerifSansSerif]

So I guess this is my first time posting, though I've lurked from time to time here.

This year, I was looking for something a bit more challenging than the typical hard ciders that I've been doing over the years, and decided to go for a blackberry melomel.

Thus far I've got about 12 pounds of blackberry honey on order, and a can of blackberry puree, which I was hoping would work well in lieu of fresh or frozen blackberries (which are difficult enough to find around me, and definitely aren't in season in November (though the spots of 70 degree weather have me wondering if I may be wrong).

So far, I've been able to find some great advice by perusing the previous topics, but I haven't been able to find much info on two things in particular.

1. I was investigating a few different strains of yeast, and stumbled upon the Lalvin BM 4x4, which supposedly works well for white wines as well as reds, and has some nice words in its description indicating that it might really work well with the honey ("floral notes" are supposedly preserved with it in white wines, and it may be expecting a bit much, but perhaps this might work the same?) as well as the blackberries (it has a lovely description of working great with berry wines as well).

I'm not horribly opposed to a more wine like melomel (though I don't want to destroy the honey's nuances completely), and probably would err slightly on the dryer side, but still want it to have some sweetness.

(and yes, the yeast is needy when it comes to nutrients, and honey has none, so I suspect a little bit extra nutrient will be expected. I also read about its "assist" in malo-lactic fermentation, but have also seen some melomel makers that have said it has been a "good" thing for their brews... in particular blackberry melomels have reported this).

Does anyone have any experience making a mead or melomel with this strain (Lalvin BM 4x4)? If so, what do you think I might be able to expect?

2. My experience with cider has been that it's a ***** to arrest the brewing process completely unless you let it run completely dry, or you just happily have a strain that cold crashes well (neither of which I have cared much for or had much success with). This year, I'm hoping to try pasteurizing my bottles.

Has anyone tried this with mead? Anything that you might expect to happen if you were to pasteurize?
(I'd also like this wind up sparkling, and as I said with just enough sweetness and without being absolutely bone dry.)

Thanks in advance for any help you can toss my way!

 

[bernardsmith]

Hi SerifSansSerif -and welcome. Not sure how you can make a mead (or wine ) that has both residual sweetness and is sparkling. Fruit and honey are 100 percent fermentable and so if you have enough yeast and sugar for carbonation all the sugar will eventually ferment dry and overcarbonate your mead. The only way I can think of having a sweet mead and a sparkling one is to force carbonate. The idea of using non fermentable sugar to sweeten a mead is obviously possible but why spoil the flavor of good honey and fruit with some chemical sweetener... ? Assuming that you can force carbonate then I would ferment your mead dry, stabilize with K-meta and K-sorbate and then add a good source of sugar (could be more honey, or fruit concentrate or table sugar... ) You can then bench test to determine precisely the amount of sugar you want to add - no guesswork no crapshoot.

 

[SerifSansSerif]

Hi SerifSansSerif -and welcome. Not sure how you can make a mead (or wine ) that has both residual sweetness and is sparkling. Fruit and honey are 100 percent fermentable and so if you have enough yeast and sugar for carbonation all the sugar will eventually ferment dry and overcarbonate your mead. The only way I can think of having a sweet mead and a sparkling one is to force carbonate. The idea of using non fermentable sugar to sweeten a mead is obviously possible but why spoil the flavor of good honey and fruit with some chemical sweetener... ? Assuming that you can force carbonate then I would ferment your mead dry, stabilize with K-meta and K-sorbate and then add a good source of sugar (could be more honey, or fruit concentrate or table sugar... ) You can then bench test to determine precisely the amount of sugar you want to add - no guesswork no crapshoot.

Bottle pasteurization. As per what seems like typical practice with ciders. Basically bottling, allowing a day or two for carbonation, then pasteurizing in bottle to kill the yeast and arrest the process.

 

[fuelish]

One could perhaps steep some honey malt for a while to add some residual unfermentable "honeyness," ferment batch dry, then bottle carb? .... won't be very sweet, but there's a little flavor and a little mouthfeel. I do this when I make my sparkling peach hydromel/pyment for my wife, as she' doesn't care for my "experiments," as she calls 'em....although I have a ginger hydromel ready to bottle that she's impressed by.....they come out maybe 7 - 8% abv, taste great in several months, including bottle conditioning time