Carbonation methods

[LukeH]

I've been having trouble lately with carbonating my homebrews (mead, elderflower etc). One thing that perplexes me is how can you carbonate in the bottle but also ensure there is enough residual sweetness?

I find that my brews inevitably ferment out to 1.000 and I would really like to be able to make a sparkling drink that retains a certain measure of sweetness.

Any experienced folks out there able to lend some advice?

Many thanks,

Luke

[Bubbles]

Your main options are a) pasteurisation, back sweetening and force carbonation, or b) bottle conditioning & artificial sweetening.

You could also look at the yeast strains you're using. Champagne yeast is going to chew up every scrap of sweetness in a mead or country wine. Other strains, like 71B, have the ability to metabolise acid, and perhaps give a mead the impression of being sweeter and less harsh. Just an idea..

[TheSumOfAllBeers]

You may also be able to add unfermentable sugars, but you need to know your yeast.

Breton cider makers also have a method called keening, which starves the yeast of nutrition to fully attenuate, but it still ends up bright and carbonated.

It sounds really technical to get right to be honest

But artificial sweetener with bottle conditioning is probably your best bet

[LukeH]

Thanks for the responses guys - you are right it does sound complicated..

From what I am reading, one method as you've mentioned is to prime the bottles with enough sugar for carbonation and also enough to sweeten. Then using a test bottle, when you know carbonation is sufficient but enough sweetness remains, you pasteurise the batch by bringing the temperature to 75 C for a few seconds to kill the yeast.

Is there any particular yeast that is likely to finish fermentation at 1.010 or thereabouts, without needing 11% ABV + to do so?

[Drzava]

I'd have some success using xylitol to backsweeten. Despite its name, it's actually a natural sweetener - but it's not fermentable. So batch prime with sugar / juice for carbonation, plus xylitol for sweetening. Erythritol is meant to be good too.