Generic mead assistance

[MedievalWays]

Hello HBT associates!

I am decently new to the mead-making community. Thus far I have brewed four five gallon mead batches, jumping headlong into variants of flavors and spices. Now that I have gotten my entire body wet instead of just my feet I have decided to step back to what I would consider the roots of my mead education.

I would like to brew between three and five separate batches of mead as a comparison experiment. I want all of these batches to be as bare bones and basic as I can so that I can sample the differences that emerge from using different honeys (my variable).

For this to happen I have a few questions for the community as follows:

1. How many pounds of honey per gallon would produce a moderate mead (halfway between sweet and dry)?
-I usually find recipes between 1.8#/gallon and 3.5#/gallon.

2. What other ingredients would be good to add to a generic mead?
-Such as nutrients, energizers, very mild flavors/spices, etc.

3. What versions of honey would produce good meads when used without additional flavorings?
-I hear that buckwheat honey is too heavy to use as the only honey in a batch, while something like fireweed honey may be too sweet for an entire batch.

4. What yeast would be best for producing this mead?
-I have no particular regard for alcohol content on this experiment but I would like to use the same yeast across the board regardless of honey choice.

Thank you for your assistance in this matter, any and all information will be happily received.

Happy brewing!

 

[Chris_The_Rogue]

1. The rule of thimb as i was taught. Two pounds per gallon mskes dry mead. Three per gallon makes semi sweet. Four per gallon makes sweet.
2. Yeast neutrient is a must. Adding anything spice or fruit wise and it wont be a generic show mead.
3. Orange blossom honey is a good go to honey. Clover and wildflower are good too.
4. I recomend lalvin D47 for show meads. But best yeast for the job is debatable and usualy a matter of prefrance.

Hope that helps.

 

[nickwoo]

I don't think there is a reliable way to predict weather the mead will be dry or sweet. I am making a "sweet" mead recipe right now and the FG was supposed to be around 1.025 and it is still going at 1.010 and dropping. I used the same variety of yeast but each batch is different. Also if you use correct nutrient additions the yeast can blow past what their recorded alcohol tolerance is. I suspect this is what is happening to my batch. The best way to ensure sweetness is the backsweeten.

Look up loveofrose's beginner mazer article. that will answer a lot of questions.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/current-mead-making-techniques.html

 

[fuelish]

The best way to ensure sweetness is the backsweeten....

...or just keep adding honey in steps until the yeast finally throws in the towel and waves the white flag ....this is my preferred method (not a fan of chemicals, can't be bothered to pastuerize, but...that's just me) , although it usually ends up a very strong abv mead as well, but, it's OK for my purposes (I do this on my habanero meads, and the residual sweeetness truly helps balance the heat)

 

[bernardsmith]

Sweet or dry meads should not depend on the amount of honey if you are talking about the minimum quantities of honey for a mead. ALL the flavor - ALL the flavor comes from the honey and if you dilute the honey (so that you are making a mead with say 2 lbs of honey simply because you are looking for a dry mead then you are watering down the flavor. If watered down flavor is what floats your boat then by all means.. but most people I know prefer rich flavors (they can drink water if they are looking to quench their thirst). So you start with 2.5 or 3 lbs of honey for every gallon - sweet or dry. You then ferment dry. Ferment dry. So how do you get a sweet mead if you allow the yeast to ferment dry? You stabilize the mead and add more of the same variety of honey. A sweet mead might need about 1/4 - 1/2 lb of honey added to the stabilized mead. A dry mead might require no additional honey.

I will leave your other questions to others but IMO there is no such thing as a honey that is inherently too sweet. If you use a good wine yeast (71B, D47, for example, (I don't recommend champagne yeasts unless you dislike the flavor of your honey) then all the sugar in the honey will be fermented and as all the sugar is simple then all the sweetness will be removed. The sweetness - not the flavor. If you ferment with beer yeasts then their tolerance for alcohol and for sugar is what it is... and your yeast may die of alcohol poisoning or be unable to move liquid through their cell walls because of the sugar concentration.. so you end up with a sweet mead only because of lack of control of your technique

 

[MedievalWays]

So you start with 2.5 or 3 lbs of honey for every gallon - sweet or dry. You then ferment dry. Ferment dry.

Until now I have never employed back-sweetening and simply ran with the original outcome and flavor I had. I attempted to attain the flavor and sweetness I wanted by varying the original amount of honey I used.

So my question is this to you Bernardsmith: How do you ensure that you always ferment dry regardless of original honey input?

For comparison, say for one batch I like watered down mead and only use two pounds of honey per gallon.. and for another batch I love the honey flavor so I use four pounds. How do I ensure that they would both ferment to a proper level of dry? Is it in the choice (alcohol tolerance) of the yeast?

Of note, I have to assume that adding honey post fermentation would increase both the sweetness and the honey flavor, so if I were shooting for a sweet and honey flavored mead I would need to select a mid-range of honey per gallon, ferment dry, and add honey. Selecting the mid range so that I do not go overboard on the honey/sweet with backsweetening to get away from dry.

Thank you for the input!

 

[bernardsmith]

Don't know very much about beer or lager yeasts but wine yeasts have spec sheets that provide data about the average % alcohol (ABV) the yeast can tolerate. If one pound of honey used to make one gallon will increase the SG of the liquid by 1.040 and if 1.040 is approximately 5.25 % ABV then 4 lbs of honey will give you a starting gravity of 1.160 or about 20% ABV . I don't know any wine yeast that can handle 20% ABV but that is also not really a wine... But let's say that you are aiming for 20% then what I would do is to start with 3 lbs of honey and after you know that that has fermented dry (1.120 is not difficult for wine yeasts to manage - it's about 16% ABV - high but doable - I would then add the last lb in steps - perhaps 2-4 oz at a time and see if the gravity continues to drop or if it stalls with the added honey.
If you are adding 2 oz at a time (per gallon) in this " step addition " then you know that your mead cannot have more than the next 2 oz of unfermented sugar (maximum) and by calculation that would give it a final gravity of about 1.005 (maximum). That is technically not "sweet" but semi sweet (I believe dry is a wine with a gravity of 1.002 or less (ie 1 oz of unfermented residual sugar)
But all that said, good or bad , I have never tried to make a mead with a starting gravity of 1.160... There is plenty of flavor in using 2.5 - 3 lbs of good quality varietal honey (think topelo or orange blossom or meadow foam)

 

[MedievalWays]

Look up loveofrose's beginner mazer article. that will answer a lot of questions.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/current-mead-making-techniques.html

Thank you for this link, it was very helpful even for me after having produced several meads. I would highly recommend that post for any beginning mazer.

 

[MedievalWays]

For backsweetening, what is the proper methodology?

You recommend adding the honey in approximately 2oz increments (per gallon water).

With this do you recommend mixing well after each addition and taking a gravity reading? Possibly even a taste test?

Would a heavy stir towards the end of fermentation potentially disturb the yeast?

 

[Matrix4b]

For backsweetening, I usually go with a 50/50 mix of honey and water prior to sweetening. This makes it liquid and so you don't need to stir it. You just rack onto it. Once you know how much you want to add then mix it 1/2 water and 1/2 honey. Put in the bottom of your new vessel and then rack onto it. The process of racking it will mix it thoroughly and it will keep you from possibly oxidizing it, slightly. You will also rack off of lees.

Matrix

 

[bernardsmith]

For backsweetening, what is the proper methodology?

You recommend adding the honey in approximately 2oz increments (per gallon water).

With this do you recommend mixing well after each addition and taking a gravity reading? Possibly even a taste test?

Would a heavy stir towards the end of fermentation potentially disturb the yeast?

um.... you cannot backsweeten if there is yeast to disturb because the yeast will eat the sugar and you won't sweeten the mead you will simply add to the alcohol. To back sweeten you need to make sure that there are no viable yeast cells around. Typically you do this by aging the yeast - and so racking sufficiently often to remove almost all the yeast cells and then you stabilize the mead by adding K-meta and K-sorbate. Any yeast cells around can be disturbed all you want because they are no longer viable ....

 

[MedievalWays]

Right right. Silly me, its just been long enough since I started/finished a batch that I forgot about nullifying the yeast with potassium sorbate!
Thanks for the information.