My mead is aging away in secondary, about 2.5 months old right now. I just checked it and the SG is 0.992 and the PH is lower than I can measure. It tastes really tart. The SG is fine and where I'd expect given I used premier cuvee, but the acidity worries me. Can I fix this? Should I add calcium carbonate? How much? 5 gallon batch BTW.
Is my mead too acidic?
- Thread starter Rowdy50
- Start date
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What are you useing to measure your wine? If its a pH meter then something is wrong with your meter or your calibration. Are you using pH strips? Is it clear yet? I think most people use potassium carbonate or potassium bicarbonate since the calcium version is said to leave a chalky taste in the finished mead. WVMJ
bernardsmith
Well-Known Member
I wonder if the pH at this point is immaterial. The only real value in measuring pH is to make sure that it is in a reasonable range for the yeast... but you say that the SG is now at .992 so for all intents and purposes all the sugar in the honey has been fermented. So now the issue is less about pH per se than about TA ... and you say that the mead tastes "really tart"... OK so ONE way of reducing the apparent tartness is to increase the sweetness (think beer -sweet balanced against the bitterness = hops). Perhaps the mead will taste less "tart" if the gravity was closer to 1.000... so perhaps you might draw a small sample and add enough honey to raise the gravity 8 points (that's about 3 oz /gallon. Remember that you are bench testing this idea so don't assume that a) this will work and b) that you should be adding about 1 lb of honey to your five gallons. Check this out first. If that helps you will need to first stabilize your mead and then add the honey...
