Homebrewing - Beer, Mead, Wine, Cider

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A community dedicated to homebrewing beer, mead, wine, cider and everything in between. If it ferments, bring it over here.

Share recipes, ideas, ask for feedback or just advice.

Some starting points for beginners:

Introduction to Beer Brewing

A basic mead primer

Quick and diry guide to fermenting fruit - cider and wine

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How to backsweeten naturally? (lemm.ee)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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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?

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Ah good tip, I'll look into how to pasteurize