FortuneMead
Member
- Joined
- Jan 28, 2020
- Messages
- 6
- Reaction score
- 3
My mead is ready for bottling and needs something sweet. I made a 5 gal batch of ginger mead with a vanilla chai black tea for a better mouthfeel and aroma. I'm a month in and my mead has a ginger bite to it and its dry. I used 1118 champagne yeast with 12 lbs of honey and 3 lbs of ginger sliced and pulped. I'm new to brewing as this is my first batch and i'm not trying to mess this up. I've added my yeast stabilizers to stop fermentation earlier today and racked it off the sediment to a new carboy. My O.G was 1.088 and my F.G. was 0.996 with a ABV of 12.3%. I know back sweetening will bring me down to a ABV of around 11%, i tested with two test bottles worth. I have been told to not waste my good raw blackberry honey for back sweetening, just to use priming sugar instead. I'm not sure what to do, i want the taste of the honey in my mead but if it wont make a difference then i should save the honey for my next batch (probably going to try cyser for my wife). The question is do i back sweeten with 2 lbs of raw blackberry honey or priming sugar? Also thought about boiling down my 3 lbs of blackberries in the freezer and extracting the juice for a natural flavoring with added sugars. I think my issue is too many options. I want my first batch to be a success so i have a excuse to keep brewing more!