I understand finding total acid of a mead by color point titration is not accurate, however, I am unsure as to whether this is only a problem for must or if the problem occurs after honey has fermented.
I have a one year old mead that would benefit from an acid blend addition. When I titrate a sample to endpoint of 8.2 using a vinmetrica sc300 I get 4.1 g/l. This amount seems to be what I expected so I'm unsure if TA in finished mead is a problem.
I appreciate any help.
Depends what you mean by a problem ?
Acids and meads, generally display in a couple of ways that aren't so easy to manage by the numbers like a wine might be.
From the start, the issue is pH swings which are worse with traditionals, as there's little to nothing to buffer them. Some like*to use some potassium carbonate in the must to try and prevent harmful swings, others just monitor and use the potassium carbonate when/if the swing occurs to keep the pH mid 3.X
Fruit batches are less of an issue as the non-honey ingredient goes some way to buffer the pH issue.
Oh and the pH thing isn't usually about easily measured acid either, it's something to do with changes to gluconic acid (some heavy chem info out there if you wanna try to understand/comprehend).
The other end of the scale is that normal wine testing is still rather ineffective, as it's about testing tartaric, yet the second most common fruit acid in grape after tartaric, is malic, which helps to explain why MLF works to mellow some wines. It applies less to meads.
I tend to just keep check on pH during ferment to keep the yeast happy, then back sweeten to the 1.010-1.015 sort of area.*Then once it's had at least 12 months aging, if it tastes a bit too sweet, I add a mix of 2 parts malic to 1 part tartaric, in small increments to mask the sweetness.
It's not an original method. Just that I was sent a bottle of Moniack Mead, which on testing, was well into Dessert territory at 1.035, but wasn't cloyingly sweet like other commercial ones I'd tried. On checking, I was amazed to measure it as 2.6 pH.
Dunno if any of that helps much, but it may give you.Some "food for thought".......
