First mead question: adding honey during fermentation

[Chizult]

I used the MAOM recipe but screwed it up by adding 10.5 lbs of honey to 4.5 gallons of total solution instead of 4. I like dryer white wines, so I used the wyeast dry mead yeast and I'm afraid with so little honey I'm going to finish out way too dry and a lower alcohol content I was hoping for. It's been in fermentation about 5 days thus far.

Questions:

Are my fears reasonable and should I add more honey (I'm thinking 5 more pounds)? If so, what method do you use to not shock the yeast?

Also thiniking about adding about a quart more of OJ...thoughts?

 

[huesmann]

You can add the honey to the fermentation in increments if you're worried about shock. Or you can always just backsweeten after it goes dry.

 

[fatbloke]

I used the MAOM recipe but screwed it up by adding 10.5 lbs of honey to 4.5 gallons of total solution instead of 4. I like dryer white wines, so I used the wyeast dry mead yeast and I'm afraid with so little honey I'm going to finish out way too dry and a lower alcohol content I was hoping for. It's been in fermentation about 5 days thus far.

Questions:

Are my fears reasonable and should I add more honey (I'm thinking 5 more pounds)? If so, what method do you use to not shock the yeast?

Also thiniking about adding about a quart more of OJ...thoughts?

Well, it's pretty normal, to use about 3lb honey per gallon, so as you used almost a gallon of honey (a.k.a. about 12lb honey per gallon) and you've already got 4.5 gallons, I wouldn't have thought that an extra quart would hurt, especially as it takes it to just over the ratio mentioned above.

Plus, the wyeast dry mead yeast should take it dry anyway, even with the extra honey.

Perhaps you could post your exact recipe and technique/method, as that would help diagnose any possible problems.

Of course, it's always best if you can quote gravity numbers as well i.e. your hydrometer is your friend...... and helps to be able to work out not only the stage that the ferment has got to, but also the alcohol content of the finished mead.

As an "aside", I usually ferment my meads until they've gone dry, well at leas as far as 1.000, then I back sweeten them to taste, but that's usually about 1.010 or so. If using honey, then I finish the ferment, stabilise, then sweeten to 1.010, only then do I clear the results, if using a sweetener other than honey I'll usually clear it first. This is because honey for back sweetening can cause protein hazes, and it's a pain to have cleared a batch only to create a new haze, so if it does haze with the honey, I'm only clearing it the once, with the one batch of subsequent racking losses......

 

[Chizult]

Well, it's pretty normal, to use about 3lb honey per gallon, so as you used almost a gallon of honey (a.k.a. about 12lb honey per gallon) and you've already got 4.5 gallons, I wouldn't have thought that an extra quart would hurt, especially as it takes it to just over the ratio mentioned above.

Plus, the wyeast dry mead yeast should take it dry anyway, even with the extra honey.

Perhaps you could post your exact recipe and technique/method, as that would help diagnose any possible problems.

Of course, it's always best if you can quote gravity numbers as well i.e. your hydrometer is your friend...... and helps to be able to work out not only the stage that the ferment has got to, but also the alcohol content of the finished mead.

As an "aside", I usually ferment my meads until they've gone dry, well at leas as far as 1.000, then I back sweeten them to taste, but that's usually about 1.010 or so. If using honey, then I finish the ferment, stabilise, then sweeten to 1.010, only then do I clear the results, if using a sweetener other than honey I'll usually clear it first. This is because honey for back sweetening can cause protein hazes, and it's a pain to have cleared a batch only to create a new haze, so if it does haze with the honey, I'm only clearing it the once, with the one batch of subsequent racking losses......

Very informative post. Thank you.

My recipe is the exact same as the MAOM recipe posted here, except I misread the instructions. I thought it was a full "boil", and I doubled the recipe. So the first thing I did was put 4 gallons in a pot and start adding ingredients to it. So after a little over 10 lbs of honey added I had about 4.5 gallons total. My OG was 1.086.

I want to get the alcohol content a little higher than the 11% I'm looking at now, so I guess my course of action will be to add another ~3 lbs in fermentation than back sweeten to 1.010 like you suggest. Any idea how much honey I can safely add at a time? I guess I should be adding some yeast nutrient/energizer as well huh? Am I GTG on the orange juice as well? Thanks!

 

[biochemedic]

I agree 100% + to fatbloke's post. (I thought I was reading myself posting...)

I really do like the Wyeast Dry strain...it's my go-to for mead. While I've never actually made JAOM/MAOM, my understanding is that both recipes are intended to be a sweet finishing mead, and also a quick finishing one. You may need to age it out a bit longer if you don't plan to backsweeten it. You can definitely hide some off flavors, fuesels, etc with a little residual sweetness. At least a little back-sweetening is probably a good idea with this recipe

 

[fatbloke]

Very informative post. Thank you.

My recipe is the exact same as the MAOM recipe posted here, except I misread the instructions. I thought it was a full "boil", and I doubled the recipe. So the first thing I did was put 4 gallons in a pot and start adding ingredients to it. So after a little over 10 lbs of honey added I had about 4.5 gallons total. My OG was 1.086.

I want to get the alcohol content a little higher than the 11% I'm looking at now, so I guess my course of action will be to add another ~3 lbs in fermentation than back sweeten to 1.010 like you suggest. Any idea how much honey I can safely add at a time? I guess I should be adding some yeast nutrient/energizer as well huh? Am I GTG on the orange juice as well? Thanks!

You'll find that with a lot of us who're mainly mead people, that you committed the cardinal sin of "boiling"........

With grain/malt/hops and other beer stuff, it's probably essential. It's also something you see mentioned in old/older recipes for meads.

In practice, honey is, as far as I'm aware, the most anti-septic substance that nature throws at us. Hence there's no reason to use heat (perhaps a little hand hot water if the honey has crystalised in it's container).

It's not considered necessary also, because heating to so called "pasteurisation temperature" will drive off some of the more subtle aromatic, and possibly flavouring elements.

Not to worry though, that's all about the learning curve of brewing, wine and mead making, etc.....

 

[Chizult]

You'll find that with a lot of us who're mainly mead people, that you committed the cardinal sin of "boiling"........

With grain/malt/hops and other beer stuff, it's probably essential. It's also something you see mentioned in old/older recipes for meads.

In practice, honey is, as far as I'm aware, the most anti-septic substance that nature throws at us. Hence there's no reason to use heat (perhaps a little hand hot water if the honey has crystalised in it's container).

It's not considered necessary also, because heating to so called "pasteurisation temperature" will drive off some of the more subtle aromatic, and possibly flavouring elements.

Not to worry though, that's all about the learning curve of brewing, wine and mead making, etc.....

Sorry to throw you off wi ththe terminology...I actually didn't boil. I only heated to 160 and let it sit for 10 minutes or so to bring the temperature down. Don't know the term for that heating phase.