Correct Time to Bottle/Thickness of Mead

[Shammarr]

Hi,

I am new to brewing, and I am doing Mead. I took a class and they started the Mead for us. It is one gallon, with about 1.25 pounds of honey, and cherry juice was used. I let it ferment for about two and half weeks. Added the energizer five days after fermentation started. Put in the Sodium Metabisulfite to stop the fermentation. I have the starting gravity and ending at home, but it was about 11.5% ABV when I did the calculations (hopefully Correctly) with the hydrometer. When I rack it, the alcohol smell and taste was strong. I back sweeten it with a pound of honey and 10 strawberry to help the flavor. It has been Clarifying for 4.5 weeks and the alcohol taste has went down, but you can still taste it, which I would assume so at 11.5% and I can taste the flavor more. My question is and hopefully i have given enough information so you can give me some guidance. It seem to not have the thickness that Mead usually does, but I am not sure if putting it that happens after bottling, and after being in the refrigerator before serving. Or did it develop into a more dry Mead? Would it be OK, for me to bottle this weekend (5.5 weeks Clarifying), and if so how long should I keep it bottle. I was hoping for us to drink a bottle Christmas eve. Thanks for any guidance and assistance.

 

[Shammarr]

 

[bernardsmith]

Hi Shammarr - and welcome. The mouthfeel (thickness) of mead is dependent on a number of factors but basically you are talking about the viscosity of the mead and that is something that affects the way it coats your tongue and mouth. The less viscous the mead - the more watery it is - the less it coats your mouth. Viscosity will increase with the amount of residual sugar in the mead (it's sweetness) and whether the yeast you selected produce glycerols. OK.

Now you say you added 1 lb of honey to back sweeten. That should result in a sweet mead. Nominally, you will have raised the gravity by 35 points so that is really quite sweet. I assume - but you don't say - that you stabilized the mead to prevent the yeast from treating this added 35 points of sugar as something more for them to ferment. Stabilization requires the addition of K-meta and K-sorbate. It also demands very few yeast cells in the mead.
Taste your mead now. If it tastes sweet then it SHOULD be more viscous. If it does not taste sweet you simply fed the yeast more sugar. C'est la vie. The usual practice is to sweeten just before you bottle
Hope this helps .. but it may indeed be that you have a dry mead at about 15-16% ABV...

 

[Shammarr]

Thank you, so much for the information. I think that you maybe correct. As i also added the honey to the must less than 24 hours to adding the Sodium Metabisulfite. (That is definitely one of the ways you learn) We drinked Christmas eve and it was strong, with a little sweetness. I liked it as I like dry wines, but would have liked it sweeter as I was wanting more of a Mead. So I do believe that it continued to ferment like you thought. I will try another batch over New Year weekend, as I just got a 5 gal. bucket and more ingredients, and chemicals. Thank you for your guidance. Can not wait to try again and hopeful with this forum's help keep making it better. Thanks, and I hope everyone has a great New Year.