Back Sweetening w/ Honey

[hartm]

I'm getting ready to try to back-sweeten one of my meads. I was going to use honey for this, so I made a ~50:50 mixture of honey and water, heated it to just under boiling for 10 minutes, then cooled.


I noticed on my test glass that there is a lot of particulates in the mead after I added the sweetener.


Should I sweeten the mead and then store it so it clears up again? or should I do something to the sweetener to clear it up? or should I not use the honey for this?

 

[vcasey]

You want to use honey to sweeten a mead, just like you would want to use a fruit juice/sugar mixture to sweeten a fruit wine. I'll usually use a water/honey mixture for a traditional mead and a fruit juice/honey mixture for a mel. After sweetening I just put it aside and let nature take its course for clearing.
BTW, I rarely heat the honey to anything more then just a gentle warming making it easier to pour because you can lose a lot of the delicate aroma. There really is no need to heat honey and once you do it is very susceptible to harmful bacterias and such. Most honey (not all) have been filtered to eliminate all the bee parts.
VC

 

[hartm]

Should I be worried about the honey mixture I made if I did heat it up? I have heated the musts for mead up to 160 degrees before. This got up to 200 degrees before I cooled it down.


It is raw honey, so I did skim some stuff from the surface.


Thanks for the tips..

 

[Wade E]

It wont hurt it but might take away from its bouquet and maybe a little flaor. I dont heat my honey either, just warm it up enough to dissolve it.

 

[hartm]

I went ahead and used it...


I back-sweetened the anise/cinnamon mead with buckwheat honey. The final SG was 1.007. It tastes suprisingly good, but I'd like to get a little more of the buckwheat to come through. The anise flavor is definitely there with a hint of cinnamon, just like I wanted it. I bet after aging a while longer the buckwheat should come through.


It's back onto the shelf for that one. It will need to clear for a bit.

 

[Wade E]

Does sound good.

 

[vcasey]

Sometimes the honey aroma will hide a bit especially when adding spices. It will come around and evolve just be patient and give it lots of time. This does sound like you may have a nice one.
VC

 

[Cundog]

How much honey/water mixture would you add for back sweetening on a JAO mead? Thanks.


Jeff Cuneo

 

[vcasey]

Hi Jeff and welcome to the forum.

My understanding is that JAO's are pretty sweet already. But if you want to sweeten it more you'll need to use sorbate & kmeta according to the instructions on the package and then sweeten to taste. Actually sweeten a little less because as meads age the sweetness from the honey will become more pronounced.

 

[Cundog]

My JAO actually turned out dry and a bit bitter. It has improved over the last month though. It finished off at about 12 to 14% alcohol. Maybe I should just wait and taste it again in a few weeks. Could be fixing itself. Patience has been a difficult thing with this stuff. I'm ready to bottle and drink!


Nice to be on the forum. Thanks.




Jeff

 

[vcasey]

I have never made a JAO so I can't speak from that perspective, but in general most meads take a while (a long while) to come around. While you are waiting - make something else.

 

[Cundog]

I have made others, 5 different batches!!! Once I get this first learning batch into drinking mode, I'll be able to have a constant flow from one batch to the next. It's been fun though, but I need to learn another wine, mead or other, that can move along quicker with little expense!

 

[Cundog]

The question still stands though. How much honey/water mixture would you suggest adding to 1 gallon of must? thanks!!

 

[vcasey]

The question still stands though. How much honey/water mixture would you suggest adding to 1 gallon of must? thanks!!

I do have a couple of suggestions for books for you 1 has lots of recipes that are pretty easy to follow with lots of ideas

<table ="Catalog" id="products" align="center" border="1" bordercolor="#000000" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><t><tr><td ="table" align="default" width="2%"><div align="center">7342
</td>
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</td>
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Making Wild Wines &amp; Meads - 125
Unusual Recipes Using Herbs, Fruits, Flowers and More by Vargas &amp;
Gulling, 169 pp.</td></tr></t></table>
the next is geared towards learning the craft of making mead

<table ="Catalog" id="products" align="center" border="1" bordercolor="#000000" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><t><tr><td ="table" align="default" width="2%"><div align="center">7313
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The Compleat Meadmaker (Ken
Schramm)</td></tr></t></table>
As far as how much honey to add, I couldn't even begin to answer. I read somewhere that 1 lb. of honey will add .008 SG to 5 gallons of mead, but I've never tried this to see if its true.
It really falls to the line "Well it all depends on what you want..........."
But start small because you can always add a bit more.

 

[Cundog]

I'll have to find those. Cool. Thanks.