What happens if you add K Sorbate before you hit FG?

[Beer Viking]

Hello everyone,

What happens if you add K sorbate before you hit FG? Would this sweeten the mead without back sweetening and just lower the ABV?

Thanks!

 

[lumpher]

Didn't quite read it right. You'd need potassium sorbate and potassium metabisulfite to stabilize, and a pretty heavy dose of both, possibly enough to ruin the taste. Best bet is to let it ferment out then stabilize and backsweeeten.

 

[Kickass]

Yes, but… you might have too much active yeast to fully halt fermentation. I’m always worried if I try to stabilize too soon it’ll be ineffective. You might want to do a little digging around on that.

 

[beren]

No. Sorbate stops only yeast reproducing. You already have a massive amount of yeast. If you backsweeten it'll just keep eating the sugars. You need to let it run dry, then get the yeast to settle out, either with fining agents or time. Rack to a new vessel then add sorbate and meta to stop new yeast from growing and protect from oxidation.

The only 2 ways to stop a fermentation is sterile filtration or pasteurizing, and the heat from pasteurizing *will* affect the flavor.

Glass grenades are no fun and are quite dangerous.

 

[Raptor99]

It is difficult to stop a fermentation in progress. It is better to start with an OG that will give you your desired ABV and let it ferment completely dry. Then you can stabilize and back sweeten.

 

[MightyMosin]

I have cold crashed a mead close to where I wanted it to stop. That made the yeast inactive.

I then stabilized and left it cold crashed to make sure it was stopped. After it warmed to room temp and stayed at the SG, I racked it off the yeast that dropped out of suspension.