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

Brewing software

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How to backsweeten naturally? (lemm.ee)

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

25 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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)

Adding alcohol to bring your mead to 12-15% and then adding more sugar is the principle behind fortified wine like port. The chemical you’re referring to is sulphites, which are produced naturally by yeast anyway.

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

In order to safely backsweeten a mead that is < abv tolerance of the yeast though requires both Sulfite and Sorbate. The sorbate prevents the yeast from dividing and multiplying. The sulfite inhibits yeast function, and prevents bacterial infection.