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Worrying myself to death over secondary...first batch...advice please!!!

Barrel Char Wood Products

Dadux

Worker Bee
Registered Member
Jan 5, 2016
725
3
18
Spain, Europe
You can do both at anytime, yes. If you are adding oak you have different varieties and forms. If you can, get cubes/staves instead of chips. Squatchy wrote a post called wood management thread about oaking. Is heavy reading but good info anout the different types and what they do. You dont need to get to it right away. But oaking with cubes is usually done for 1+ months so some planning is adviced.

Backsweetening is done after stabilizing. Ideally stabilize then wait a day or two before adding more honey. Dont add too much. You can do small additions and tasting to see if the sweetness level is at the desired point. You cant take the honey out. So as you dont know what sg you are gonna want take a careful approach. That way you'll learn more. Honey added this way takes a couple months to integrate fully and i recommend you wait some after adding and consuming. Also as your first time stabilizing dont bottle too soon after backsweetening, to make sure fermentation does not restart.
 

winter_hunt

NewBee
Registered Member
Nov 15, 2016
23
0
0
I put oak on what's supposed to be a "dry Mead"... But at only 10% it's tasted pretty bland. The oak was almost magical. I put a full packet in...30 grams? It's been on that for 2 months easily, doesn't taste bad at all. Still trying to figure out if I can up the honey for higher ABV or add flavors/herbs, or what.

Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk
 

Cristos

NewBee
Registered Member
Jun 10, 2017
15
0
0
So if I understand right Dadux, I could in theory let this batch sit for a month or so, then stabilize and backsweeten, let sit for a couple weeks, then add oak and let sit for another month, correct? How's all that going to affect my bottling time?

edit: nevermind, I see you answered those questions pretty much in your last post. Sounds like backsweetening should probably be last on my agenda before bottling.
 

Dadux

Worker Bee
Registered Member
Jan 5, 2016
725
3
18
Spain, Europe
So if I understand right Dadux, I could in theory let this batch sit for a month or so, then stabilize and backsweeten, let sit for a couple weeks, then add oak and let sit for another month, correct? How's all that going to affect my bottling time?

edit: nevermind, I see you answered those questions pretty much in your last post. Sounds like backsweetening should probably be last on my agenda before bottling.

No, not last necesarily. I was just warning not to backsweeten and bottle too son after.
You can do it however you want. But, since backsweetening adds a lot of flavour if doing both i think its better to backsweeten, and when you like the sweetness level, then oak. If you do it the other way around, after backsweetening you might not taste the oak.

About bottling time, you bottle when you want. Some people here bulk age. Some others bottle age...
The idea is usually to bottle mead that is good and you like and usually, clear mead. But some people will keep them in the bucket for a year and bottle when they want to drink. Others bottle when all the additions have been done and then wait some more to drink it. That is your choice.
 
Barrel Char Wood Products

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