Adding honey after the fact?

Hey folks.

Ready to pull some hair out? Ok, cool. Here goes:

5 gals standard mead (see my sack mead recipe) made 9/12/07 except: I only used used 12 lbs of honey instead of the should-have 18-22 gals. Checked the SG and it's real close to 1.0. The hydrometer kept sticking to the sides of the thief thus screwing up the miniscus.
Taste is very dry and raw, still has some minimal bubble activity (1 per 20 min, perhaps), clearing.
Now the big question is can I, after 4 months, attempt to re-active the yeasts with new food? I was thinking of adding some clear cider/honey mix. I have about a gallon of play in the carboy.
Suggestions? And thanks in advance! There, that wasn't too painful, was it? :confused4:

:cheers:

DD

Thanks for the reply. As you have tasted a similar bottle of this, I'll rack it, sweeten it and see what happens. I know there is still fermentation going on but not sure about stopping it after only 4 months as it's the Red Star Montrachet which is supposed to take up to 6 months, correct?
Now, if I added say, 1 gal of honey ( +/-) and enough water to bring it up to 6 gals, is there a SG that I should try to hit? Something like a reverse 2/3 break?
At least this batch has remained cool and in the proper temp range so I shouldn't have the fusils in the last 2 batches.
And yes, I am looking in the forum for similar posts. For the most part, I really hate to bug you volks.

:icon_salut:

M

Oskaar said:

You can add some honey to sweeten it a bit if you like. You may also get some secondary fermentation going, so from there you'll need to decide if you want to let it run or try to quell it.

I'd personally rack at this point and consider adding more honey to taste. You can also sorbate and sulfite the mead and then add the additional honey in order to keep the fermentation from kicking up again. There's a lot posted on that so you can pull down some helpful info with a quick forum search.

Cheers,

Oskaar

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