Newbie Backsweetening question

[ArctosNero]

Hey guys,

last week I posted this: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f30/question-about-yeast-aftertaste-360649/

wondering about the yeast aftertaste, and the bottles have been in the fridge ever since.

The yeast taste is pretty much gone which is a good thing, but I'm left with two very dry batches. The quasi-JAOM is fine as it has citrus flavors floating around and whatnot, but the pure honey batch, OMG, it's all booze.

I had planned to use it for Christmas gifts as a dessert mead.

Do I just add more pure honey to it, gently stir and let it sit 2 more months?
Keep in mind, I'm running on a budget (cheap a$$) and I have no fancy tools to measure anything. This is old-school kitchen tools and "by eye" measuring.

Will it start fermenting again? Do I need to store it with stoppers again to let Co2 out?

Any input will be appreciated.
Cheers!

 

[turvis]

I believe if you pasteurize it first then back sweeten another fermentation will not take place.

 

[bduane]

I'm a noob as well with mead but I think i can answer your question.

You need to stablize your mead before back sweetening. This means you need to make sure there is no yeast left that can continue fermentation.

Ways to do this:

• Pasteurizing (Heating the mead up to a certain temperature for a certain length of time to ensure the yeast are dead) - This can have an impact on flavor
• Using potassium sorbate and Campden tablets (can be purchased at mose homebrew/wine making stores) - This will not stop an active fermentation, but if given in the right doses after fermentation is complete, it should prevent a new fermentation from happening when you add more fermentation.

Once you've stabilized, you can add more of whatever you'd like to sweeten/flavor it up, and shouldn't need to worry about it fermenting again.


The one thing I'm not yet clear on is how to add the ingredients. My understanding from homebrewing beer is that you don't want to introduce oxygen after fermentation, but how will you get the honey dissolved into the mead without shaking or stirring fairly vigorously?

 

[ACbrewer]

The one thing I'm not yet clear on is how to add the ingredients. My understanding from homebrewing beer is that you don't want to introduce oxygen after fermentation, but how will you get the honey dissolved into the mead without shaking or stirring fairly vigorously?

you stir gently. Actually you massively cheat - take out a small portion of mead.
pu the honey in some hot water (to soften it) and then mix with the portion of extracted mead. STIR GENTLY ie it should be enough to move it around, but no splashing. Also if needed, you can add more heat to the mead/honey mix.

After it seems disolved, poor into a fresh container and rack the rest of the mead on top and then stir gently again, being sure to do some vertical motion to get it all together again top to bottom. LAstly take a gravity reading and let it sit a few days with an airlock. If you pasturized, there will be no activity, but with sorbate and campden (meta bisulfate) the yeast isn't killed, so it might start up again. Watching it a few days will avoid bottle bombs. Take a another gravity reading before you bottle, if the honey is mixed in well, this will be the same as you had after you stired.

The very slow difusion method. If you put honey into the mead, eventual (weeks? months? half a year depending on ration of honey to mead) the honey will self disolve in the mead, but this take a long time.

 

[ArctosNero]

Ok. Seems simple enough. I'll go with Pasteurizing. Is there a thread somewhere where I can read on how to do it exactly? How much to heat it, how long, etc?

EDIT: I've read somewhere of some guy putting his closed bottles through a few cycles in the dishwasher. Seems loopy to me, but hey, if it works, I'll try it. Any ideas on this?

 

[ACbrewer]

Since you asked https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f32/easy-stove-top-pasteurizing-pics-193295/ this guy is doing stove top pasturizing of cider so it is sweet and sparkling. If you don't want both of those, you don't need to use the stovetop (note you can get heat ruptures this way).

I've used postasium sorbate and meta bisulfate in the past and usually have no problems. I'd recomend you rack off the primary, and then a week or to later off the secondary. If you can, cold crashing helps (ie cool all of it to about 35F or as close as you can get to that) and even more yeast will drop out. With the yeast left behind in the racking (again from the secondary to another carboy) you then add the stablizers (potasium sorbate and metabisulfate). To be honest, the batches of sketer pee I made I think I only racked primary to secondary and then added both sugar (back sweeten) and stablizers. But I had one small batch of wine that when I racked on to juice to sweeten, fermentation started up again.

 

[ArctosNero]

Thank you for all your answers, I went ahead and Pasteurized my batch before backsweetening, it's perfect right now, taste wise, no new fermentation.
It's just resting until December. I've had a couple of victims taste it and the feedback was awesome, so I'm quite pleased with myself. It's going to be a very sweet Christmas