8-day sweet mead

[pdhirsch]

I'm brewing a batch of traditional mead, nothing fancy... 1.5 gallons of water, 4.25 pounds of honey, and one packet of K1V. I started in an open fermenter (a stainless steel pot with lid); added nutrients a few times during the first week (not TOSNA but the same basic idea) and de-gassed a few times every day. Ambient temperature was about 65 degrees.

After 8 days the SG was down to 1.034 (OG was 1.099, so about 8.7% ABV) and I decided it was time to rack to carboys with fermentation traps. I used a 1-gallon glass jug and a 1/2 gallon growler. Both are now happily bubbling away, and as a bonus I ended up with about a cup and a half of leftover must, enough to fill a coffee cup.

I like dry mead so I intend to ferment this batch as far down as the K1V will take it. But what the heck, I have a cup of sweetish mead with nowhere to put it... and I hate to waste things, so I drank it.

And it was good -- really good. As I said I prefer dry mead, but even so, I thought this tasted great. I've had sweet mead from a local commercial meadery, and this leftover cup tasted better than the commercial stuff to me.

So my question: does anyone do this on purpose? I mean, stop fermentation after just a week or so via sorbate or sulfites or something, and bottle it with FG in the 1.03's? Or maybe it's impossible to stop the fermentation without messing up the flavor? If there's a good way to do it, then next time maybe I'll bottle the 1/2 gallon when it's still sweet, for friends who prefer that.

 

[Toxxyc]

Nope. It's not a good idea to stop an active fermentation if you can prevent it. Most people will make a dry mead at the desired ABV, and then stabilize with sorbate and sulfites, and then backsweeten. If you try to stop the active fermentation, you will stress the yeast with the chemicals you're adding, they produce off flavours and typically you'll need to add so much of the chemicals for the massive yeast colony in there, you'll end up tasting it in the final product (specifically talking about the sulfites here).

Second point, 1.034 is very, very sweet. Like, cloyingly sweet, deep into the dessert wine territory. That's most probably why it tasted good for you - the sugar in there covers any and all fermentation flavours and other flavours that still needs to mellow out.

Finally, it's rarely a good idea to rack your meads off the lees before fermentation is done. Yes, it's bubbling, but you removed the vast majority of the yeast cells in the active fermentation when you removed the mead off them. Next time, let it ferment to completion, or start fermentation in a container with an airlock.

For sweet, I like to make a 10% ABV mead, fermented to bone dry, after which I'll cold crash for at least a week, fine, and then rack off the lees. In the new container I'll add the sorbate and sulfites and let it sit on the chemicals for at least a week, cold, again. During this time more yeast drops from suspension, and at the end of this week I'll typically add the final dose of sulfites (to ensure enough free SO2 to go into the bottles as well), add the backsweetening honey to 1.016, and then bottle. Anything more ends up too sweet for my liking, to be honest.

 

[Miraculix]

+1 on all the above.

I want to add a different possibility for stabilising the mead. I do the same thing as @Toxxyc does, but without any clearing agents, without cold crashing and without sulfates or other stabilisers.

I just create my mead, let it ferment under air lock till dry, and then I wait it out till it's clear. Takes usually 1-2 months from the start of fermentation till it is ready to bottle.

Then I transfer into the bottling bucket, with some additional diluted and dissolved honey in there that brings the sugar level up to the desired sweetness. Then I bottle, cap the bottles and pasteurize them by placing them in a cold water bath which I start to heat up to 70c. I keep them in there for about 10-15 minutes and let it cool on its own. The bottles are standing in the liquid, almost reaching the caps.

This worked for me, no further carbonation in the bottles so far. Taste is also still good, I don't perceive a difference to non-pasteurised mead.

But be careful, if bottles are somehow damaged, they might crack happened to me only once and wasn't dramatic, but you should keep that in mind.

 

[madscientist451]

So my question: does anyone do this on purpose? I mean, stop fermentation after just a week or so via sorbate or sulfites or something, and bottle it with FG in the 1.03's?

Why not try to bottle some now and then pasteurize as mentioned above? Then you can compare it with the mead that finishes and is back sweetened. Note that you'll end up with some yeast in the bottom of your bottles, which is unacceptable in the commercial market but for home brewing is no big deal, just be careful when you pour.

 

[Miraculix]

Why not try to bottle some now and then pasteurize as mentioned above? Then you can compare it with the mead that finishes and is back sweetened. Note that you'll end up with some yeast in the bottom of your bottles, which is unacceptable in the commercial market but for home brewing is no big deal, just be careful when you pour.

The pasteurisation kills the yeast, so I would be a bit scared of detectable autolysis after some time, if there is such a high amount of yeast in the bottle. Might be only a long term problem though. I've had cider that was a few months old and pasteurised exactly like you described, meaning when fermentation was still going on, and it was fine.

 

[pdhirsch]

Interesting suggestions -- thanks, folks. I don't mind yeast in the bottom of the bottles -- I homebrew beer more often than I make mead, so my guests know the drill. I always ferment my mead as far as it will go and I don't backsweeten (I like it dry) but some of my friends would definitely prefer a sweeter mead.