October 15th 2023
The mead is done! When we taste tested it last week it was not tasty. It was bitter and dry (that’s a wine word right? The opposite of sweet?). The yeast eats sugars to make alcohol so eventually when there’s no sugar left it’s not going to be sweet anymore. If we were better brewers we could time it and make sure we bottle right at the point when it’s alcoholic enough but also still sugary enough to be sweet. But this is our first try so we had to sweeten the mead post fermentation.
To sweeten mead you first have to stop fermentation so the yeast doesn’t eat your new sugars. To do this you add Potassium Sorbate which blocks yeasts ability to ferment. I stirred about a 1/2 tsp into our gallon and let it sit for 24 hours to work it’s magic. When we came back to the mead (several days later) we were able to add more of Mason’s honey to taste. Now it tastes really good haha!
We sanitized our bottles and transferred the tasty mead into the bottles. We have a cool bottling attachment that you put on the end of the siphon. When you press it down onto the bottom of the bottle it opens a valve and allows liquid to flow past it. When you let up on the pressure the valve shuts and flow stops. This allows us to fill a bottle and stop when we get to the top. We got 6 bottles of mead and a small glass for us to sip.
This batch of mead is promised out as Christmas presents or for us to keep and enjoy. Ideally we let it age for 6 months to a year for optimal flavor but we may be too excited to wait. :^)
I definitely want to make mead again and probably will start a new batch in the next couple months. I will be purchasing honey from the store though so I don’t use up all our supply on alcohol and experimentation.
