Carbonation help - 14 month old mead

[harbisgirl]

Hi all,

I made my first batch of mead 14 months ago and it has just been sitting and aging. I'm ready to bottle but would like it carbonated. Do I have to add new yeast? I have bottling sugar on hand but not sure if the yeast is viable. I'd rather not mess with adding new yeast if I don't have to. Here are the stats in case it helps:

Brew date: 7/7/2016
Batch size: 1 gallon

Ingredients:
1 quart wilflower honey
4 quarts water
Yeast - Safale US-05
Go Ferm - 1 packet/10 g
Ferm O - 3.03 g
Ferm K - 0.95 over 3 days
DAP - 0.45g over 3 days

Current brix: 1.038 - But my husband says that the refractometers don't work after fermentation so this may not be correct..

 

[Yooper]

Hi all,

I made my first batch of mead 14 months ago and it has just been sitting and aging. I'm ready to bottle but would like it carbonated. Do I have to add new yeast? I have bottling sugar on hand but not sure if the yeast is viable. I'd rather not mess with adding new yeast if I don't have to. Here are the stats in case it helps:

Brew date: 7/7/2016
Batch size: 1 gallon

Ingredients:
1 quart wilflower honey
4 quarts water
Yeast - Safale US-05
Go Ferm - 1 packet/10 g
Ferm O - 3.03 g
Ferm K - 0.95 over 3 days
DAP - 0.45g over 3 days

Current brix: 1.038 - But my husband says that the refractometers don't work after fermentation so this may not be correct..

Since that yeast strain only goes up to about 10% ABV, if the ABV is already near or at the limit, it won't be able to be bottle carbonated. Do you have any OG readings?

And yes, the brix reading from the refractometer is pretty useless once fermentation occurs. A hydrometer reading here would be helpful. If not, you can try some refractometer correction tables, but the only ones I'm aware of work with wort (beer), not mead or wine.

 

[Dr_Floyd]

Honey weight is the most useful measurement for honey since honey roughly comes out to 1% ABV per 1 lb. on the average in a 5 gallon batch which can be very helpful when lacking a hydrometer reading. So you can estimate that in order to reach 10% ABV in a 5 gallon batch you will need about 2 lbs. of honey per gallon. Do you know the weight of the honey you've added? Another trick is to fill up a regular sized water bottle with a good cap about 2/3 of the way with your honey wine and add the appropriate amount of priming sugar. Squeeze the bottle until there is no air space left and seal it up. If there are viable yeast left it will carbonate, expand the bottle and eventually become turgid assuming you aren't too close to the yeasts ABV tolerance. After a few weeks refrigerate and taste, if you are satisfied then prime the rest of the batch and celebrate in a few weeks. If your test bottle does not carbonate or does not carbonate enough then you need to re-pitch a different strain with a higher ABV tolerance. But before you jump in to re-pitching with a different strain you must consider a few things. If there are residual sugars left in your Honey Wine then the new strain WILL eat it AND the priming sugar with can create too much carbonation in the best case and bottle bombs in the worst case. So do a taste test, is it bone dry? Probably okay pitching a new strain. Is it sweet? High potential for bottle bombs. Just be careful out there and post more details to get better informed opinions if you should so seek them.

 

[harbisgirl]

Thanks to you both for replying. I did not weigh the honey and it is long gone, so its too late It is pretty dry. I added 2 tablespoons of bottling sugar to the gallon and bottled them anyway. If it doesn't carbonate, oh well. But if it does then good. I did use one plastic bottle so I can monitor carbonation.

Oh well, at least I'm making mistakes on the first batch so I can learn faster LOL

 

[Bombo80]

Not sure if you have a kegging setup, but I recently carbed up a cider, using a Carbonator cap and a 2 liter PET bottle. Worked like a champ.

 

[voltron]

Hi all,

I made my first batch of mead 14 months ago and it has just been sitting and aging. I'm ready to bottle but would like it carbonated. Do I have to add new yeast? I have bottling sugar on hand but not sure if the yeast is viable. I'd rather not mess with adding new yeast if I don't have to. Here are the stats in case it helps:

Brew date: 7/7/2016
Batch size: 1 gallon

Ingredients:
1 quart wilflower honey
4 quarts water
Yeast - Safale US-05
Go Ferm - 1 packet/10 g
Ferm O - 3.03 g
Ferm K - 0.95 over 3 days
DAP - 0.45g over 3 days

Current brix: 1.038 - But my husband says that the refractometers don't work after fermentation so this may not be correct..

I once made a hopped mead that i forgot about for several months. I decided to bottle my mead and add bottling sugar. A month later no fermentation, still good but wasnt fizzy. I decided to leave it alone another month and still no fizz. Anyway i decided to experiment, since i had used brown plastic twist off bottle i decided to remove one oz from the 16 oz bottle and add an oz water and a pinch of yeast. .this bottle carbonated and tasted good, So if your mead has fermented to dryness you may need to add some water just enough to lower the abv to a yeast tolerable level, some yeast and your sugar.
if you are hestitsnt to add more yeast then you may beed to remove some mead and replace with with plain water (to lower the abv) stir well and bottle. .the stirring is to move the yeast around that has settled. (some people dont like the idea stiring yeast that has settled, but i have done it and it too work and got bottle conditioned mead)