I have been brewing mead for several years and have had good results but I am trying to change my profile and I heard that PH will change the dryness of the mead so I am wondering what other people use as target PH levels for different meads.
Mead PH
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fatbloke
Well-Known Member
pH gets mention, especially with traditionals, because a lot don't realise just how low it can be with just honey and water, but also because it can swing quite low, into the stall/stuck zone so easily.
There's nothing to act as a pH buffer, so it's usually just mix up and ferment keeping an eye that the pH doesn't drop too low, early stage aeration of a must is meant to provide oxygen for yeast development but of course, it also helps to remove some of the dissolved CO2 which is present in the form of carbonic acid.
A lot of straight honey mixes can be in the mid 3.x area and only cause pronlems if it drops below 3.0 so it can be handy to have potassium carbonate on hand to keep it away from the 3.0 mark......
There's nothing to act as a pH buffer, so it's usually just mix up and ferment keeping an eye that the pH doesn't drop too low, early stage aeration of a must is meant to provide oxygen for yeast development but of course, it also helps to remove some of the dissolved CO2 which is present in the form of carbonic acid.
A lot of straight honey mixes can be in the mid 3.x area and only cause pronlems if it drops below 3.0 so it can be handy to have potassium carbonate on hand to keep it away from the 3.0 mark......
ordered a Milwaukee 101 PH tester the strips were just too much like guess work but according to the my must was around the area of 5.5 but hopefully my new tester will be in by Monday and I will get a good reading.
What do you look for on the high end?
What do you look for on the high end?
fatbloke
Well-Known Member
When my old pH meter died, I had to get strips while waiting for the new one to arrive. I got the strips for the range I know I need to monitor, not wine strips as you might think, they didn't go low enough, I got the strips packed for testing kombucha and stuff like that. The range is 2.8 to 4.8 pH, which is fine for testing meads.
The low, yet narrow range meant the colour changes were easier to see whether I was in the danger zone or not.
Meads tend to be in the 3.5 or higher zone, but generally somewhere in the 3.X to low 4.X area which is fine.
If you're unfamiliar with meads etc, then if you want to keep it a bit higher, so you don't need to "manage" then ferment so much, it's also probably fine. It's still an acidic environment and not so close to neutral as to allow issues with spoilage organisms.
It just means that you may need to get the appropriate acids to get it down toward the sweet spot, which is the 3.5 pH area........ Otherwise there's possible taste/mouth feel issues when it's finished.
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