National Homebrew Club Ireland

Hi,

I'm looking for some advice on how to go about back-sweetening a mead. I know I'm going to stabilise the mead and then add honey to sweeten but I'm not sure where to start when calculating the amount of honey that I'll need..?

The first approach I thought of was to simply make a sweetener from hot water and honey, cool it, and add add to taste. Not sure how much honey I'd need though?

Is there a better way? Can I dissolve the sweetening honey in some of the mead itself? If I dissolve it in hot water then I'm diluting the mead itself..

This mead has been in a demi-john for over 6 months. Do I need to stabilise it? If so, any tips on stabilising it? How much campden and potassium sorbate will I need for a 1 gal batch?

Actually very interested in this. I just tried my mead for the first time and it's dry as a bone. Been in the demijohn nearly 6 months as well.

Not an expert ,but meads typically needa year to 18 months toget anywhere near palatable.

Conor, just add some good quality honey and... wait.  Very sweet mead (final gravity: 1.061 and up) needs 6-12 months for fermentation in low temperature (15-16oC) and 2-4 years for aging. I remember some my grandfather's 2:1 batches  (2L of honey to 1L of water) and... two years fermentation! 
After 2-3 months check gravity by using good ATC (Auto Temperature Compensation) reflectometer. If gravity is not changing: fermentation is over.
My grandpa's traditional method: take a sample (~200ml or more) and leave for 48h in the bottle (20oC or more). Bottle should be not hermetically closed with good oxygen access. If mead is not changing color (re-fermentation) it means that you can bottle... I have 15L of 11 months old sweet mead what was almost clear. Yesterday I moved to carboy and batch is cloudy again - nope, no infection, just a
Example for very dry mead: 4:1  [4L of water and 1L (~1.4kg) of honey] - starting gravity will be ~1.100 and FIN ~1.003 or less (alco compensation) and 11% alcohol. MINIMUM 8 months for aging, but best is to wait 12 months.
Semi sweet mead: 3:1 (3L of water to 1L of honey) - 13% (1.0100-1.0400 or more final gravity). If mead is more sweet it should be more alco and citric acid.  Aging: 1.5-2 years... It is drinkable after 12 months, but you can expect huge improvement after next 12 years.

Just to clarify lads, I'm not planning on actually drinking this melomel for another year, but I want to do some flavour adjustment now so that I can leave it to age further.

I used far too much fruit and let it ferment to dryness. So it's no too dry, too acidic and lacking honey character.

Domink, do I just add honey directly to the demijohn? Surely it will just sink to the bottom? I can't see it incorporating into the mead, which is why I was considering dissolving the honey in hot water first.

Just take a sample (200-300ml), warm to to 25-30oC, dissolve a honey and add to batch. Best way is to mix everything in fermentation bucket so same time you can check specific gravity. Keep demijohn in warm place (20oC or more) for 1-2 weeks and if no re-fermentation symptoms you can move demijohn to 15-16oC for aging and quicker clearing. Don't use any chalk, gelatine, TurboKlar24.  Mead takes a long time to age and mature.

Sounds like good advice dude, thanks. The only problem with taking gravity readings is that I'm pretty small time when it comes to mead. I don't do the 10 litre batches you do - only 1 gallon demijohn. Which makes me not want to take readings at all. I should probably invest in a suitable refractometer..

How much homey to start with in that 200 ml of mead though?? I literally have no idea where to start with amounts of honey.

[ 1L of honey = ~1.4kg ]
Sugar in nectar honey: 70-76%, so 1L of honey = ~1kg of sugar.
For small batch: ~100ml (140g) of honey / 0.0078, so example:

-  ~5L batch / 1.0000 gravity (0 Blg),
- target gravity: 1.0157 (4 Blg)
- you should to add about 200ml of honey (250-280g).

Just be aware that using a refractometer is not "simples"* [squeak]

*Will_D has a thing about the Meerkats of the Market.com!!

I saw a video on back sweetening cider and your man took a sample glass and added sweetening agents to that till he was happy with it. Then he noted the gravity of the sample and started slowly adding the same agents to his fermenter till he got the same gravity reading. I thought it was a nice way of scaling up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tDP1ubIci8

Two good podcasts if mead is something you are interested in

http://beersmith.com/blog/2011/08/17/making-mead-with-curt-stock-beersmith-podcast-20/

http://beersmith.com/blog/2014/09/15/mead-making-with-michael-fairbrother-beersmith-podcast-88/

Quote from: Kevin O'Roundwood on December 13, 2015, 07:54:25 PM
I saw a video on back sweetening cider and your man took a sample glass and added sweetening agents to that till he was happy with it. Then he noted the gravity of the sample and started slowly adding the same agents to his fermenter till he got the same gravity reading. I thought it was a nice way of scaling up.

Backsweetening flavor maturation will take minimum 3-4 months, so I am suggesting to add less amount of honey than was added to 'taste test' sample. Very important is to calculate alcohol - for 11% or less mead  backsweeting to ~1.0200 or more can make an undrinkable sirup.

Quote from: bachus on December 13, 2015, 09:15:59 PM
Backsweetening flavor maturation will take minimum 3-4 months, so I am suggesting to add less amount of honey than was added to 'taste test' sample. Very important is to calculate alcohol - for 11% or less mead  backsweeting to ~1.0200 or more can make an undrinkable sirup.

Good thinking!

Quote from: bachus on December 13, 2015, 09:15:59 PM

Quote from: Kevin O'Roundwood on December 13, 2015, 07:54:25 PM
I saw a video on back sweetening cider and your man took a sample glass and added sweetening agents to that till he was happy with it. Then he noted the gravity of the sample and started slowly adding the same agents to his fermenter till he got the same gravity reading. I thought it was a nice way of scaling up.

Backsweetening flavor maturation will take minimum 3-4 months, so I am suggesting to add less amount of honey than was added to 'taste test' sample. Very important is to calculate alcohol - for 11% or less mead  backsweeting to ~1.0200 or more can make an undrinkable sirup.

Cheers for that.
I've heard too, that backsweetening with honey will cause haze issues, necessitating the lengthy aging period. Would this be your experience?

Oh yes, definitely you will get some haze issues. Mead clearing will take extra 3-4 months or more. You can try to add some tannins e.g. oak medium toast chips (1-1.5g/L for 3-4 weeks). It will speed-up wine/mead clearing process.

p.s. sugar or artificial sweeteners backsweeting is a dirty trick and you will get unwanted aftertaste or sweet sirup with no aroma  ;-)

Quote from: bachus on December 14, 2015, 02:29:18 PM
p.s. sugar or artificial sweeteners backsweeting is a dirty trick and you will get unwanted aftertaste or sweet sirup with no aroma  ;-)

Well, I definitely don't want that. I wouldn't mind getting more honey flavour and aroma into it, as the fruit kinda drowns out the honey character as it is.

Just tested...

Batch: 10L (2x5L)  [27/06/2015]
-----------------------------------------

(http://s17.postimg.org/dkrbbw173/2_before_small.jpg)

Start:  1.100 Brix  (23.8 Blg)
End:    1.000 Brix  (0     Blg)
Alcohol: ~13.5%

Clear Acacia honey: 400g (~285ml)
(http://s15.postimg.org/rba0hpnkr/MIOD_small.jpg)

Gravity after backsweeting: 1.012 Brix (3.1 Blg)

lovely depth of colour

Hayes that is a thing of beauty! Just seeing it has convinced me to make a mead in the new year at d some point :)

I can see an Irish honey group buy coming up

Quote from: bachus on December 16, 2015, 11:48:54 PM
Just tested...

Batch: 10L (2x5L)  [27/06/2015]
-----------------------------------------

(http://s17.postimg.org/dkrbbw173/2_before_small.jpg)

Start:  1.100 Brix  (23.8 Blg)
End:    1.000 Brix  (0     Blg)
Alcohol: ~13.5%

Clear Acacia honey: 400g (~285ml)
(http://s15.postimg.org/rba0hpnkr/MIOD_small.jpg)

Gravity after backsweeting: 1.012 Brix (3.1 Blg)

Looks fantastic dude.

Are you using a refractometer to take both OG and FG readings? Can you send me a link to where you bought it if possible? There seems to be a few different refractometers available, for different gravity ranges.

Quote from: molc on December 17, 2015, 08:16:07 AM
Hayes that is a thing of beauty! Just seeing it has convinced me to make a mead in the new year at d some point :)

Do you have a demi-john to do it?

Quote from: Bubbles on December 17, 2015, 09:47:07 AM

Quote from: molc on December 17, 2015, 08:16:07 AM
Hayes that is a thing of beauty! Just seeing it has convinced me to make a mead in the new year at d some point :)

Do you have a demi-john to do it?

Have a 5L pet bottle that would work. It's not pretty, but it will work. :)

Quote from: molc on December 17, 2015, 09:49:28 AM

Quote from: Bubbles on December 17, 2015, 09:47:07 AM

Quote from: molc on December 17, 2015, 08:16:07 AM
Hayes that is a thing of beauty! Just seeing it has convinced me to make a mead in the new year at d some point :)

Do you have a demi-john to do it?

Have a 5L pet bottle that would work. It's not pretty, but it will work. :)

PET would not be a great idea for long-term, secondary storage of your mead (1-2 years). I have a spare demi-john. It's yours to keep if you want it. It does need a bit of clean-up though.

(I've also been thinking about mead volumes lately - next time I make a mead, I'm going to aim for 5.5l in primary so that I have a full 5l to age.)

Quote from: Bubbles on December 17, 2015, 09:57:22 AM

PET would not be a great idea for long-term, secondary storage of your mead (1-2 years). I have a spare demi-john. It's yours to keep if you want it. It does need a bit of clean-up though.

(I've also been thinking about mead volumes lately - next time I make a mead, I'm going to aim for 5.5l in primary so that I have a full 5l to age.)

Ohh, I'll happily will take you up on that offer thanks! Would be dead handy for aging all sorts of things.

As for primary, I picked up 2 15L buckets from THBC recently for doing split batch brewing when using different yeasts. Could work well for the meads as well. They also do 10L fermenters, which might suit you. I don't know if meads have a high kreustan, maybe even smaller would work.

My pleasure dude, only too delighted to encourage a prospective mead maker. As long as you promise to do a mead with it! :)

The four meads I've done using wine yeasts generally had low kreusen apart from the cyser I did with last year's group buy juice, which nearly blew a hole in the ceiling! :)

@molc: are you going to make a sweet, semi-sweet or dry mead?

Quote from: bachus on December 18, 2015, 09:41:02 AM
@molc: are you going to make a sweet, semi-sweet or dry mead?

Honestly, I'm not sure. I think for the first one, I should aim for something that can be ready in about  3-6 months, just to get a feel for the process and figure out some do's and don't's.

Dry is probably the best starting option, simply as it's more drinkable coming upto the summer, whereas I'd have the sweeter versions as something to sip on in the winter.

Totally open to ideas!

EDIT: I'll have 5 litres of this years group buy juice spare as well, which could be another interesting idea. It's been fermenting since we got it, so it's pretty young. Not sure of the effect that would have...

Semi-dry mead (4 parts for water to 1 part of honey / start: ~1.1100 fin: ~1.0078-1.0110 gravity) needs minimum 6-8 months.