How to Backsweeten Mead
Your mead should now be chemically stable. We can reintroduce sweetness in the form of more honey. This process is known in mead-making as backsweetening. As we're re-adding sweetness on the back of fermentation.
The best part about this process is that it’s entirely based on your preferences. All the way from bone-dry to super-sweet mead is possible!
Perceived vs. Actual Sweetness
When backsweetening, there are two scales you should use. The first is actual sweetness, which we can measure with our hydrometer. The higher the final gravity, the more sugar is present in our final mead. For example, a mead with a final gravity of 1.020 will have more sugars present than a mead with a final gravity of 1.010.
The second scale you should use to guide you is subjective tasting. The acidity and bitterness of the mead will play a role in how sweet it tastes. A mead with high acidity and bitterness will need more sugar to taste sweet. The same is true in reverse: a low-acidity and bitterness mead will need less sugar to taste sweet. We will cover balancing meads in a future advanced mead-making course.
Taste your mead regularly during sweetening to find the right balance of sweetness for your mead. Once the right level of sweetness to taste has been achieved, take a gravity reading and record it!
Backsweetening Mead
This is a really simple process, but it’s important to remember that you can always add more honey, but you cannot take it back!
- Add your desired amount of honey to the demijohn. We recommend starting with 75g of honey per 5 litres.
- Gently swirl the demijohn until the honey has fully dissolved.
- Allow the mead to stand for a few days, and then taste.
- If it’s still too dry for your taste, add another 75g of honey per five litres and repeat the above steps until your desired sweetness is reached.
- Allow the mead to clear again.
- After a few days of sitting at room temperature, you can speed up the clearing process by moving the vessel to the fridge.