Hey all. I have a 1 Gallon Young's sauvignon blanc kit and i'm hoping to hack it and make a nice Mead as we get into the winter, I've a basic plan in mind, (brew wine, gently heat, add honey, cool and bottle) but would it be a better to add honey in the Primary or wait until the secondary fermentation. Would love a bit if info if any one has done it before.
If you are using a wine kit it will not be a mead ;) Mead is made from honey and only honey as the main ingredient. I believe what you are describing may be a melomel ie. basically a mead with fruit added. Basically what you are talking about is brewing a one gallon wine kit and back sweetening with honey ;)
Now that i have suitably chastised you(joking) i say go for it as its only a one gallon brew. Brew the wine all the way out, stop the fermentation, add the honey, mix well and bottle. ;D
Quote from: bherdman on October 05, 2013, 06:13:34 PM
(brew wine, gently heat, add honey, cool and bottle)
at what stage in this were you planning to ferment?
Personally I'd probably just bang it into primary.
I don't think the honey will carry through much any way you do it apart from back sweetening it like greg suggested.
Cheers for getting back, I was aware of how a propper mead is made, :-\ I didn't explane myself as well as I should have, the mead (melimel) I was aiming towards is a lot like bunratty mead. Theres is more of a honeyed wine than a real mead. Il go for a full fermentation of the wine and back sweeten with the honey, Il have to heat the wine when adding the honey then let it cool and the impurities will settle to the bottom before bottling. :) Il let you know how it works out.
Bherdman just a suggestion from a newbie but i would not heat the fermented wine if i were you, you could ruin the flavour profile. Depending on how much honey you intend using of course you could do this, 500ml grape juice bring to boil, add honey rinsing out with some of the same heated grape juice,while still warm but not hot add to wine.
I would suggest before you do all this that you stop the fermentation using potassium sorbate at a rate of one tsp per gallon, also i would suggest adding one campden tablet per gallon. Then once you have that done do the honey addition. ;D
If you add honey it'll take longer to mature, a lot longer, it'll also ferment slowly.
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I think the honey is just for sweetness and flavor, added after the yeast is all killed off.