Bottling Mead

[iansbrew]

Several months ago I brewed a 6 gallon batch of mead with a friend of mine and we split the batch. Each of us get 3 gallons. It wasn't a true mead in that we brewed a sort of tea first with rose hips and hyacinth and added honey to that. I think there is a name for this, but I will just call it a mead for now. He has already bottled his and we have enjoyed it on a few occasions. It was good, but a bit drier than I had hoped for. My 3 gallons is still in the carboy. My original intention was to keg it and force carbonate it like I do my beer and have draft sparking mead. I have since been considering bottling it and using honey for the bottling sugar to get the carbonation and maybe add a little sweetness to it at the same time. i have several questions about this though. First, is this a good plan or am I head to disaster? Second, how my honey should I use for a small wine bottle. Third, do you think I could cork it like wine instead of capping or will the cork just be blown out? Forth, would champagne bottling be better and/or safer? Fifth, how long should I expect the bottling fermentation to take? I know its a lot of questions, but any help/opinions/words of encouragment is appreciated.

Ian

 

[EVILsteve]

For carbing with sweetness you can use a non fermementable sugar such as aspartame (to taste) and fermentable sugar for priming just like a beer (dextrose about 1oz/ gallon) for residual sweetness without making a bottle bomb. I like to give 2 weeks for bottle prming minimum before I start breaking into it and 3-4 for things I've let settle for any duration, No idea or kegging. Using much more fermentables than that to leave residual sugars will not work. I'm curious about retaining the flavour and sweetness of honey after bottling as well , I like that idea.


Don't use wine bottles for anything carbonated, use only champagne bottles for that. Grolsh style flip tops are convenient and expensive, wiring down corks works well with the campaign bottles Ive found. They would probably shoot out without being wired.

 

[mavrick1903]

If you bottle in Belgian or champagne bottles, you'll need to do a little research on the process. The best way is a champagne corker. They are designed to release the cork/bottle with the cork half out like you see in the store. Wine corkers don't.

 

[jahdub]

I don't think using a tiny bit of honey to prime is going to impact the sweetness. You've already used a comparatively lot of honey to make your mead. Table sugar will be just the same.

You could pasteurize, add more sugar, then keg. Making carbonated and bottled sweet wines / meads is difficult without using artificial sweetener, which is an option already mentioned.