here bud. Read this I wrote just a while ago.
So I wanted to clear up some confusion on here. With such a tremendous influx of new people we seem to continue to get the same questions all the time. And there are always misnomers that seem to hang around for ages . This is because way too many people answer questions with answers they have hear over and over, without really having ever actually experienced a particular answer first hand. At one time the world was flat. I think I can speak for a lot of experienced mead makers that, this is why many stop contributing. It's a constant battle to try and educate new people with real science based info, when so many parrot what they have heard from well meaning people, with no real experience.
So here is one place that seems to be misunderstood, so I wanted to clarify things for the new mead makes, as well as the confused.
Seems as though too many think that certain yeast strains were made to make sweet mead, while others were not. This is not true. Despite what some manufacturers label a certain strain.
Any strain can make a sweet mead. And any mead can go bone dry. It's not about the yeast per say. It's about tolerance levels to ABV%.
Every strain has a limit that they can assimilate sugars into ethanol. Once they reach this level they do not die. They simply go dormant. And can no longer assimilate any more sugars because they have "tapped out" due to their ABV tolerance level. Most yeast can go beyond the listed levels because we superman the crap out of our yeast with the science we try to promote here in this group. Adds such as O2 additions, Go-Ferm and SNA protocols make them much hardier than they once were.
So what determines a sweetness level in our concoctions? This simply answer is, we have a certain amount of residual (RS) sugars left in your finished product. So any yeast strain can be made to have RS in the final product, if you have more sugars in the must than the yeast can consume before they " tap out".
So you can have a yeast that taps at 12% abv in a must with enough sugar points in the must to create 15% ABV. Because we have more sugars than they can assimilate. This leaves RS behind. The more RS, the sweeter the finished product is. So even a high alcohol tolerant yeast can have RS if you have added more sugars than they can assimilate.
This is important to understand.
By now I'm sure you all own and use a hydrometer correct ? You can look on it and see any gravity mark also shows the ABV level as well. Now. Once we understand this, we can now determine how many gravity points we need to add to make any ABV we want to make. Higher ABV's take longer to smooth out, because of the heat from the ethanol in it. For this same reason, lesser alcohol meads smooth out sooner. Smaller ABV meads are easier to drink. You might drink 3 or 4 pours of a 12 % ABV and only one or two 18% ABV meads. I think most wines are in the 12% vicinity.
Too often. When a newbie gets started they want to max out the alcohol levels. But most people would probably find a 12% ABV more suitable.
Part of the confusion about this entire concept is people believe you can stop an active fermentation part way through. They think through certain activities, they can halt the process of fermentation at a given ABV. This virtually impossible. I'm not saying you can't. But I am saying it's pretty unlikely you can without causing lots of related problems that can lead to off flavors. The very thing we are trying to avoid. Simply put. It's mostly bad information passed along through the ages from the expert parrots. Passing along stuff they have heard, but never tried first hand.
So here is what is most predictable, and, is most common by far. Pick and ABV you want to create and find the gravity points needed to do this on your hydrometer that you all have by now. When you make up your must. Make sure that the grand sum of all your ingredients add up to the appropriate ABV you are seeking. Now. Ferment this dry. Once it's dry, it then is pretty easy to stabilize your mead with additions of SO2 and potassium sorbate. The best way to do this is to cold crash your meads in a cold environment. The colder the better. Rack off the lees after it has sat in the cold for a few days or longer. Do this to move your must over to a new vessel while leaving the lee's behind. Now add the sulfite/sorbate natural chemicals Once they have done their magic. The yeast can no longer reproduce, or ferment sugar any longer. Now you have frozen your must at the ABV you wanted. Once this is done you can add any combinations of additions to get the finished sweetness level you feel is desireable in your mead. This is called back sweetening.
This is very basic info I know. But I see this same concept tossed around every week on public platforms. What yeast do I use for a sweet mead? How can I have a certain amount of sugar left behind to carbonate my mead naturally and so on.
I'm not going to get into it here now. But for beginners. If you want a carbonated mead. Just force carbonate it. If you are at a stage where you need to ask how to do this naturally. You're probably not at a place that you should be messing with it anyway.
Copied from Gotmead.com - Read Mo
Copied from Gotmead.com - Read More at:http://www.gotmead.com/forum/showthread.php/27030-Need-help-selecting-yeast
