Back sweeting

[stoney80]

I'm currently brewing my first batch of mead 17 litre batch. I used a wyeast for mead I added 4kg of honey.

My starting Gravity was 1.085
And now at .096
So at 16%

I know it's not aged yet but taste testing from hydrometer tube it's tasting quiet dry.

I'm wanting a semi sweet mead

Wondering how to best achieve this.
How do I stabilise and how much honey should I add

It's a basic mead recipe

 

[stoney80]

Also would it work to pull some out in smaller bucket and add fruit just to experiment or is it too late.

Been in secondary for about 3 weeks

 

[RegarRenill]

To stabilize your mead, rack onto 1/4 tsp metabisulfite for a 5 gallon batch(yours is pretty close) and 1/2 tsp potassium sorbate per gallon (so 2.5 tsp) in a clean and sanitized fermenter. This prevents any additional fermentation from happening after you add more honey to sweeten. You can rack onto fruit or spices in the secondary; if you do so before you add the sorbate, he remaining yeasts will likely convert the sugars in the fruit into alcohol. If you rack onto the fruit after adding the sorbate, the fruit will add some sweetness. I'd leave th fruit in the secondary for a week or two, checking 2x a day to"punch down the cap" by making sure the fruit is wet. I'd reccomend using a mesh bag to contain the fruit, otherwise it can be a pain getting it out of your mead. Squeeze the bag gently once to twice a day (when you dunk the bag to "punch the cap") to help extract some juice. Double Dosing with pectic enzyme when you add the fruit will also help with juice/flavor extraction and help prevent a pectic haze caused by the pectins in the fruit or honey when you sweeten.