How to back sweet and carbonate with honey

[FortuneMead]

I'm ready to bottle my 5gal batch of very gingery ginger mead. I need to back sweet to cut the overly ginger bite. My f.g is at 0.996 and holding for over a week now which makes me think fermentation has finished abv of 12.3%. I did not cold crash it nor added any chemicals yet. I want to add a local raw BlackBerry honey (2lbs) to get the sweetness I'm looking for and have some carbonation. I'm being told by my local brew supply shop that I cannot have carbonation without a keg and force carbonation. I've seen 2 or 3 videos of were they add honey to back sweeten and there finished product is carbonized and sweet. I guess my question is what is the best way to have both added sweetness and carbonation with back sweetening without starting up fermentation again? P.s. I did a sample bottle with a teaspoon of honey and let it set for a day and it's amazing. It's what I want my batch to end up tasting like.

 

[vinceNM]

stabilize and force carbonate in a keg, or...........do as you say and back sweeten, bottle condition (fill a little plastic bottle to keep tabs on the carbonation progress) and when properly carbonated pasteurize the bottles. (Or stick them all in a cold refrigerator and drink them fast:0) You are attempting one of the most difficult things to do in brewing, sweet and carbonated and stable.

I've had excellent luck pasteurizing in the following way:
Use a huge canning pot, heat water up to 185*F and turn off heat, drop 12 12oz bottles in the water and leave them in for 15 min (water level should be above liquid level in the bottles) put a lid over the top in case you have a blow out. Pull bottles out and let cool. I've produced several stable back sweetened and carbonated ciders this way. Get them too hot burn off your carbonation and possibly your alcohol too little and make bottle bombs, so at your own risk. The huge pot with only 12 bottles is for heat retention if you do 22.5 bombers do 8 at a time.

Good luck:0)

PS
Some people have said that pasteurizing hurts the flavor, I've kept a few bottles unpasteurized in the fridg to taste test and If it has changed the flavor I cant tell, and in one case i thought the pasteurized batch tasted a bit better. Anyway for what its worth.

 

[FortuneMead]

Thanks for the info. I may just play it safe since this is my first batch and I dont want to mess it up. I'm going to just add sorbet to stop fermentation completely and back sweet once its stable(24hrs). I'm about to start my next batch of mead but keep it simple and do only a orange blossom honey and nothing else. Maybe a black tea for a added flavor. Thanks again for the help!

 

[bkboiler]

Some people use xylitol or sugar alcohols to backsweeten. They will not ferment out.

However, they give me a horrible stomach ache so that's not something I do...