Should I End Fermentation?

[Dice_Boken]

I'm making a small batch blackberry melomel, and the airlock has been bubbling slowly for exactly one week. I'm worried that the yeast will consume all sugars and that I will end up with a rather dry mead. Should I go ahead and add some potassium sorbate?

 

[bernardsmith]

Why be worried? Embrace the situation. What was your starting gravity? What strain of yeast did you select? What is the expected average ABV that this yeast can reach? If the yeast can ferment your must dry then simply allow the yeast you chose to behave as it will, then you can stabilize the mead and then you can back sweeten to whatever amount of sweetness you prefer.

 

[CanadianJesus]

If you really want to stop fermentation before the yeast completely dries it out, you need to take hydrometer readings and add potassium sorbate and potassium metabisulphate to end fermentation and target finishing SG.

Back sweetening does the job too. Just depends on personal preference.

You can step feed small amounts of honey until the yeast give up if you don't want to add sorbates. You will end up with a higher ABV though, this can be good or bad depending, again, on personal preference.

 

[Maylar]

You can't stop fermentation with sorbate. If you try you'll injure your yeast and the mead will likely taste like ass. As mentioned above, either let it finish on its own and sweeten the final product, or keep adding honey until the yeast poop out from alcohol.