I’m following a simple video on YouTube which covers yeast starting, sanitization and setting up the mead.
My question is, if I back sweeten my Meade after a few months… Won’t that just wake up the yeast and get them producing more alchohol? I saw somebody say something about a chemical to stabilize it but what if I don’t want a chemical in my Brew?
Is there an alternative?
The yeast has a tolerance to about ~12° ABV. Past that, it dies. So if you happen to sweeten your mead, it will not wake up since it has long gone to sleep.
alcoholo tolerance varies greatly species to species and if you’re brewing so strong that yeast dies of alcohol exposure you’re going to introduce tons of off flavors.
Wow that is super good to know!! So as long as I wait it out and take grav readings until 12% abv and then backsweeten I should be good to go?
Different yeasts have different tolerances, so it’s worth checking which one you used. For safety, i’d also keep it in your fermented for a while after sweetening, and bottle once the gravity reading has been consistently stable over a few days.
I would absolutely not do this, it’s a fast way to paint your ceiling.
Could you clarify for me?
the finings will clarify for you (lol)
in all seriousness, you can’t count on 12% to be where yeast dies due to alcohol. Some yeast tolerates up to 20%, and even strains that are marked to 12% could overperform a bit. What that means is, if you follow these directions, you very well could wake your yeast back up and end up building pressure in the bottles. This could cause them to explode and fling mead everywhere (hence, painting your ceiling). The only ways you can count on to be able to backsweeten without risk of reactivating the yeast culture are chemical (potassium metabisulfate and potassium sorbate) or pasteurizing before backsweetening. Since you said you don’t want to go the chemical route, pasteurization is the best way to go.
Ah good tip, I’ll look into how to pasteurize
Following that principle you could also stop the fermentation early by adding ethanol to your mead and the taste will be sweeter.
By ethanol do you mean like everclear? Can consumers buy that in all states?
Ethanol is alcohol, I don’t know what everclear is. If you don’t have access to pure alcohol (which is often banned) you can replace it with a strong alcohol : vodka, rum, eau de vie, absinthe, … until you reach your desired alcohol content (generally ~15° ABV)
Ethanol is the regular alcohol, yeah. You can use vodka too, that’s just ethanol with water.
I had to look-up what everclear is, it sounds like some kind of industrial solvent, haha