Bulk pasteurizing mead ......

[Bombo80]

So, I have thought about this for a while. I have done the pasteurizing of bottled cider. Mostly successful, but still scary.

I even tried bulk pasteurizing cider, then kegged and force carbed. Turned out pretty good.

What about fermenting your mead down to whatever FG level you want, then racking it gently into your boiling pot. Gently, and slowly, bring the temp up to 140 degrees, maybe up to 145, then shut it down, and get it cooled down. I just racked it back into a keg, and hit it with a short burst of CO2, then put it in the fridge.

I was wondering what the mead makers might think about trying this.

 

[voltron]

So, I have thought about this for a while. I have done the pasteurizing of bottled cider. Mostly successful, but still scary.

I even tried bulk pasteurizing cider, then kegged and force carbed. Turned out pretty good.

What about fermenting your mead down to whatever FG level you want, then racking it gently into your boiling pot. Gently, and slowly, bring the temp up to 140 degrees, maybe up to 145, then shut it down, and get it cooled down. I just racked it back into a keg, and hit it with a short burst of CO2, then put it in the fridge.

I was wondering what the mead makers might think about trying this.

This is interesting and there are two schools of taught, some people like to boil the honey prior to primary fermentation and other dont boil at all. Its is really a matter of choice. Your technique should work but personally I would have heated it it prior to primary fermentation and not after. my reason is i prefer high abv meads and boiling after the fermenation may boil off some ethanol in the steam. also if you there is yeast that gets into your boil it may add some yeast protein to your mead, so your mead may a different taste and consistency.

Presently, any straight mead I no longer boils and just go to fermentation. I have never had an issue with either way. The only time i boil is if im making a hopped mead (not dry hopped) And this has lead to some interesting but delicious mead.


Back to your technique I have used it for salvaging a what would have been a lost batch of wine. I had a friend that was brewing five gallon merlot. Somehow her child found the carboy and popped the airlock off. So no one was aware that the wine had no airlock for almost a month. So when she went to do the first rack, she noticed the airlock was missing and was going to throw it away. Instead of tossing i asked her if she would be ok with trying an experiment. I sampled it and it was very sweet, so something happened and it did not ferment to dryness. So i transfered her batch to a large pot and pasterized it using a technique similar to yours cooled it quickly and repitched the yeast and new airlock and left it alone. a few hours later it started bubbling and a month later it was still bubbling. we racked it sampled it and it was good.

 

[Bombo80]

This method is just a bulk version of the pasteurization Pappers did in the cider forum. Here is the page that has the times and temperatures for pasteurization.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=193295&page=7

I would never bring the fermented mead to a full boil. Unless I was going to distill it, but that is a whole different topic.

I would just bring it up to 140 - 152 and hold it for a short time. You can see that at 140, it only needs 5.6 minutes, and at 152, under a minute.

This should effectively "kill" the yeast, leaving you with a mead that you could force carb, bottle, back sweeten or do just about anything with and not have to worry about a secondary fermentation starting up.

 

[imasickboy]

I would use a yeast like D47, which usually quits at 14%, and formulate the initial recipe to provide the extra honey up front, rather than attempt to pasteurize and back sweeten. You can also do things like limit oxygen and nutrients if you want the yeast to quit early.

I personally feel the nuances in mead are too delicate to reheat like that. But, that's just my opinion.

 

[Bombo80]

My current mead I am using D47, just for that exact reason. The hopes that the yeast will die from alcohol poisoning. I made an addition of homemade peach puree, and that kind of threw my calculations off. But that is for another thread and a different discussion.

My point on the pasteurizing of meads, was more for those who don't want a high ABV mead.

Let it ferment to the gravity you want to leave it at, bulk pasteurize it and package it however you want. Carbed, still, if it went to far, back sweeten and not have to worry about a fermentation kicking in again.......

 

[jdanderson1449]

Why not use potassium sorbate?

 

[Bombo80]

Potassium sorbate, Campden tablets, sodium metabisulfite, etc. etc. etc., are all chemicals that don nothing to kill yeast.

Here is an excerpt from Wikipedia ...

It is a common misconception that Campden tablets can be used to halt the ferment process in wine before all the available sugars are converted by the yeast, hence controlling the amount of residual sweetness in the final product. This however is not true. In order to halt fermentation, enough Campden tablets would have to be added to render the wine undrinkable. Alternatively, when used in conjunction with potassium sorbate, the yeast population will be greatly reduced and prevented from reproducing. Without the addition of potassium sorbate the yeast population will only be stunned and eventually repopulate if provided with enough fermentable sugars.

 

[jdanderson1449]

So, if what you're saying is correct, then this is wrong...

http://winemakersacademy.com/potassium-sorbate-wine-making/

 

[Biergarden]

I went to brewing school in Munich. Now I brew professionally at my own place and mead it up on the side.
What the school I went to talked about regarding pasturizing beer, was to heat the temps of the bottled beer was to run it on a conveyor belt through an oven. It was regulated to try and get the core temp of the bottle up to 160f for ten minutes. That killed the yeast and help stabilize the beers.
So bottling the mead, putting in a cold oven and raising the temp to 160f, mine only minimals out at 170, for ten to fifteen minutes should work too at killing the yeast.
I wouldn't boil it or heat it outside the bottle though since alcohol will evaporate