Backsweetening a mead

[Bubbles]

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.

[bachus]

Just tested...

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



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

Clear Acacia honey: 400g (~285ml)


Gravity after backsweeting: 1.012 Brix (3.1 Blg)

[Leann ull]

lovely depth of colour

[molc]

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

[Leann ull]

I can see an Irish honey group buy coming up

[Bubbles]

Just tested...

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



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

Clear Acacia honey: 400g (~285ml)


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.

[Bubbles]

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?

[molc]

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.

[Bubbles]

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.)

[molc]

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.

[Bubbles]

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!

[bachus]

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

[molc]

@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...

[bachus]

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.