mead is rather flat and tasteless

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cmac62

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I recently made a BOMM with African wild honey. The honey has lost of flavor and depth, the mead, not so much. It is kind of flat and tasteless. I recently purchased some tannin and acid blend, but I don't know how or when to use them. I was planning on bottling my BOMM this weekend. I was going to sorbate and back sweeten to about 1010 with the same honey, and would like to use the tannin and acid blend to add depth and character. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. :mug:
 
Do you have any way to measure the TA of your mead? TA , not the pH. You want the TA to be around 6 g/L of acid. You will need a pH meter and sodium hydroxide. The amount of Na OH you need to add to get the pH of a known volume of the mead to 8.2 is the equivalent of the g/L of acids in the mead. But your tongue is a sensitive instrument and so take a small sample of the mead of known volume and use an eyedropper or pipette to drip in some measured drops of acid solution and taste. When that hits the sweet spot you simply divide the total volume of mead by the sample size you have used and multiply the number of drops by that answer to tell you how much acid blend solution you need to add to the total volume of mead...
Tannin: you might begin by adding about 1/4 t of tannin powder per gallon and let that get absorbed for a couple of days and then taste to see if that helps. Another approach might be to add some oak cubes and rack off after about 2 -4 weeks . I would suggest adding about .5 oz per gallon. Back sweetening may be the most important point, though. Sometimes all it takes is for the mead to have perceptively more sweetness for all the flavors to punch through.
Good luck
 
Do you have any way to measure the TA of your mead? TA , not the pH. You want the TA to be around 6 g/L of acid. You will need a pH meter and sodium hydroxide. The amount of Na OH you need to add to get the pH of a known volume of the mead to 8.2 is the equivalent of the g/L of acids in the mead. But your tongue is a sensitive instrument and so take a small sample of the mead of known volume and use an eyedropper or pipette to drip in some measured drops of acid solution and taste. When that hits the sweet spot you simply divide the total volume of mead by the sample size you have used and multiply the number of drops by that answer to tell you how much acid blend solution you need to add to the total volume of mead...
Tannin: you might begin by adding about 1/4 t of tannin powder per gallon and let that get absorbed for a couple of days and then taste to see if that helps. Another approach might be to add some oak cubes and rack off after about 2 -4 weeks . I would suggest adding about .5 oz per gallon. Back sweetening may be the most important point, though. Sometimes all it takes is for the mead to have perceptively more sweetness for all the flavors to punch through.
Good luck
Thanks for the input. I'm thinking some medium toast oak for a couple of weeks with the sorbate and honey will be my first thing to try. Do you think 1010 is too sweet. I know I have had beers end up even higher, but with no hops the mead will likely seem sweeter. :mug:
 
How sweet you enjoy a wine is a very personal thing. I, for example, cannot drink a commercial soda as it is gaggingly too sweet for me. I enjoy a grape wine that is .990 but you might prefer wines with far more sugar. Draw a sample and sweeten that to the level you think is OK and taste.. or better bench test to see what level of sweetness THIS mead needs.
 
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