Diluting / flavoring mead

[Anthony]

Have a batch of Breakfast tea mead thats fermented (still fermenting) way past where it should have stopped.

I pitched a starter of EC-1118, this should have stopped fermenting at or below 18% abv. As of last night this batch was 21% abv, adjusted for 72 degree F.

I don't add sulfites to my meads so letting it run till it hits the wall is the course of action.

What I could use advice on is the best way to dilute. It taste just like unsweetened tea and has quite a bite to it. I was thinking blending it with fruit juice might be the best way to go.

Any thoughts?

Thanks,

Anthony

[Gregory_Naff]

You can blend with a fruit juice and age, or you can add more honey and water and let it keep going. Add in a blueberry or raspberry puree (make your own from fresh/frozen fruit, not the canned stuff) and a little honey (1 lb fruit and 1/2 lb honey).
What was your ratio (lbs honey to total gallons produced)? What yeast did you pitch? When you start approaching that alcohol percentage, I like to keep that reference information. I don't add sulfites to any of my meads either. I tried it once and I didn't like the outcome.

[Gregory_Naff]

OOPS. i forgot you were looking for a tea mead... I would back down the fruit to about 1/2 lb and keep the honey at 1/2 lb. This will give you a fruit essance to the tea with out an overpowering attack. This is based on a five gallon size. If this mead is still going, the honey will provide easier sugars that the fruit. The fruit could create some haze that you can knock out with pectic enzime.

[Ben Brewcat]

Not unusual for those champagne strains to be pretty aggressive like that, not that it helps now but it's a testament to your attention to must preparation and aeration. Is there much residual sugar left? The problem with outright dilution is that it also dilutes the mead, and it'll take a significant amout of diluent to make an appreciable change. Adding anything with fermentable sugars like fruit juice will re-invigorate fermentation back up to the tolerance of your yeast (which is too high, back to the original problem).

My recommendation would be to make a second mead, similar to the first but with much lower gravity (same or proportional tea content), ferment to completion, and blend. Time consuming but if the first mead isn't too old the next blending batch will catch up quickly. For example if you want a 15% mead, you'd need five gallons of 9% mead to mix them together. It's not perfect, even identical mead recipes will come out with small varietations, but with good technique and blending to taste, you should get a very good, very similar mead with a lower rocket fuel quotient.

Or you could make a blending batch of more neutral character and bottle various proportional blends; 20-80, 60-40, 40-60, and 80-20 for example for tastings and palate training.

Or make a 5-gallon low-alcohol, high-body beer and braggot-blend to your heart's content! How'd that mash go for you BTW?

[Anthony]

I've sweetend with honey and water 3 times now after the mead was at, sg 1000 pa 0% brix 0% for three days straight. Every time the fermentation has restarted.

It taste like strong black tea. Honey and Lemon are the only flavors I'd like to add to it at this point... at the point it stops making
alcohol out of any honey I add that is.

S.G. 1
P.A. 2%
Brix 4%

Potential Alcohol, 23%

Once I have an available carboy, I may make a smaller batch to blend with this one.

Anthony

[Anthony]

Here's the technical info from the brew log.

6/26/05

Starter;

500 ml filtered water @ 74° F.
50 ml Avocado honey
1/2 t. Superfood Plus
5g EC-1118, rehydrated 15 min. @ 109° F. before adding to starter. Activity: 30 minutes

Must;

16 1/2 pounds Avocado honey
Filtered water to make 6 gallons.
3/4 C. Black tea, powdered
1 t. Irish Moss
2 1/2 t. Superfood Plus

Honey, water & tea added to brew pot, heated over low flame until honey and water blended, added Irish Moss when must was removed from heat (100° F). Cooled to 80° F. added Superfood Plus & aerated with ballon whisk before draing to carboy.

Sample drawn:
O.G.: 1.132, P.A.: 17%, Brix: 30%

Pitched starter;
Time: 14:05, Temp:80° F., Date: 6/26/05

Covered with sanitized cheese cloth, aerated with balloon whisk twice daily, recovered with cheese cloth-----

6/29/05
S.G: 1.072, P.A: 10%, F.S: 18%

Poured into 6 gallon carboy & fit airlock.-----

7/2/05 - 15:00 - 72° F.
S.G. 1.060, P.A. 7.5, F.S. 15%-----

7/6/05 - 16:30 - 72° F.
S.G. 1.016, P.A. 2%, F.S. 4%

Added 1/2 gallon fresh must (25% honey) & 1/2 t. Superfood Plus

S.G. 1.022, P.A. 3.5%, F.S. 6%
New P.A. - 18.5% A.B.V.-----

7/9/05 - 09:28 - 74° F.
S.G. 1.006, P.A. 1%, F.S. 2%

Added 1 1/2 lb honey in 1/2 gallon water
S.G. 1.038, P.A. 4%, F.S. 7.5%, (A.B.V. 17.5%)
New P.A. 21.5%-----

7/17/05 - 14:00 - 72° F.
S.G. 0,P.A. 0%, Brix 0 (21.5% A.B.V)

Added 1 1/2 lb. in 1/2 gal. water
S.G. 1.010, P.A. 1%, Brix 2.5%
New P.A. 22.5%-----

Anthony

[ScottS]

You say you are shooting for an 18% ABV mead.

Which is more important to you - 18% ABV or a certain amount of residual sugar?

[Anthony]

The goal, was a Sweet-Tea Aperitif, at or around 18% ABV. I guess 20?% ABV is around 18%.

I really didn't expected the ABV to get this high, as of last night it was dry again making it 22.5% ABV. Guess it's going to take a while for the alcohol taste to mellow.

Anthony

[ScottS]

Just keep feeding it until it is the sweetness you want. At this point if you try to blend, you will have problems. Blending with a dry mead will likely restart fermentation unless you filter. Blending with a sweet mead entails creating a sweet mead with the desired characteristics, which already didn't work. 18% already is going to take a long time to mellow, 22% isn't going to make that much difference.

[Anthony]

Thanks!

Anthony

[ScottS]

Heavily editing the above post, since I seem to have been stupidified at the time of posting:

Just keep feeding it until it is the sweetness you want. At this point if you try to blend, you will have problems. Blending with a sweet mead will likely restart fermentation unless you filter. It would also entail creating a sweet mead with the desired characteristics, which already didn't work. Blending with a dry mead will up your ABV, but will not get you any sweetness. 18% already is going to take a long time to mellow, 22% isn't going to make that much difference.