# How much honey to use for backsweetening



## Raptor99 (Feb 26, 2021)

My first batch mead is coming along nicely. When I am ready to bottle it, I plan to add Kmeta and K-sorbate and then backsweeten it with honey. My question is how to determine how much honey to add. I am shooting for a "medium" level of sweetness. It is difficult to bench test sweetening with honey because it is not easy to measure small amounts of honey accurately. If I have a reasonable starting point I won't have to spend so much time making a lot of adjustments.


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## Rice_Guy (Feb 26, 2021)

There are several points in your post,
* Mead has higher residual sugar so it has some sweetness without added sugar.
* I weigh small quantities with a 0.01 gram scale. IF I was dealing with liquid I would dilute some honey 50/50 in the wine and then measure with a syringe from the drug store for dosing medicine to kids. Metric is easier math. I would take a small quantity as 50 ml (roughly two ounces) and dose several levels to find what is best tasting.
* honey has proteins which will make clear wine cloudy again
* sweetening with honey is linear with gravity, if you know what you like


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## Raptor99 (Feb 26, 2021)

Thanks for your suggestions. Here are my comments.
* I am using D-47 and I fermented my mead dry. I was aiming for about 12% ABV.
* I was thinking of diluting the honey 50/50 with water, but using some of the mead is a better idea. I was assuming that would make the honey more liquid so that it is easier to measure and mix in
* I was expecting that I will need to bulk age it for a while to clear again before I bottle it. It is quite clear now, so I assume that it can clear again if I give it some time. The only downside of that is that if I take some out for testing and can't return it to the carboy, I'll need to find something to use to top it off.

Once again, thanks for your help!


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## Rice_Guy (Feb 27, 2021)

* there is an age question, how old is the mead? If it is clear over a year, in which case I skip sorbate
* the protein is said to be the issue with the turbidity, and I have read that boiling the honey denatures the protein so it comes out of solution, ,,, you might speed the process by making a light color bouchet with the honey, and adding honey instead of other liquid when you do testing, ,,,, that is what will get tried with this years crab apple cyser
* I have cooked honey in a slow cooker and then melt my apple juice into it while it is still hot


Rice_Guy said:


> _an interesting test; _An easy way to start a bochet is with a slow cooker, no monitoring a boil, can leave it for a few hours, and easy to melt back into a must/ wine since it is hot.
> 
> When I do this again I will stop ar the six hour point where the room smells like cooked honey (about 200F). The ten hour point has lost some aroma and flavor has notes of a dark ale.
> View attachment 68273
> ...


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## WinoDave (Feb 27, 2021)

I ferment out my mead to dry, sorbate it etc to kill off the yeast and then buy a 1 pound maybe 2 pound container of honey and put it under very hot water to get it runny and thinned out. I pour about 1/2 in at first, give a few gently stirs to get it mixed in and take a hydrometer read, I shoot for 1.020 or around there and this seems to make a semi sweet mead. At 12% seems to take around 6 months + till it smooths out and taste good. Around 1 year mark they get really good. The higher alcohol %, the longer they need to age. If you want a fruity mead go to store and buy some frozen canned concentrate and add that with some honey to the mead. I split 5 gallon batches to 2-2.5 gallon batches. My gauge is 1.020 is semi sweet and 1.030 gets up there to sweet but everyone’s taste is different.


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## winemaker81 (Feb 28, 2021)

I like my mead (actually metheglin) off-dry, so I use a minimal approach. First, I reserve several cups of mead to use as a control. I sweeten with table sugar, adding 1/4 cup to 5 gallons, stirring well, and then tasting. I contrast against the base mead. My last batch used 3/4 cup sugar in 5 gallons, so I _may _be sweetening a _bit _less than most. My final SG was 1.003. Take my advice regarding _how much_ to sweeten with a 10# bag of salt.  

@WinoDave's suggestion to soften the honey is a great idea. I often quick defrost meats by half filling the sink with 70 F water and floating the package in it. I'd use the same approach, but run the tap top. Quarter fill the sink and then empty it after a couple of minutes, to heat the metal. Then half fill the sink with hot tap water and place the honey container in it. Ten minutes later you should be set.

Diluting the honey with mead is a much better choice than water. This way you're not diluting the mead as you sweeten it.

Target SG 1.010 for the first round, using the above information. It's much easier to add more honey than to take some out. Based upon your taste, add more honey in 1/2 increments, meaning 1/2 what you used to get to 1.010. Stir well and taste in between.

When you think the mead needs _just a bit more_, stop. A year from now, you'll like what you got.

Wine strength mead takes time to age, as @WinoDave said. Put aside 10 bottles and open them annually. By year 10 you'll wish you had more .....


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## Ty520 (Mar 2, 2021)

An easy, general rule of thumb for backsweetening:

1 pound (16 ounces) of honey = (approximately) 35-40 gravity points per gallon( depending on the varietal)

so hypothetically, if you had a mead with an FG of 1.000, and wanted to increase it to 1.020, you would add 8 ounces of honey.

for additional reference...

sugar adds 50 points per pound per gallon
maple syrup = 35-40 points per pound per gallon (almost identical to honey)
lactose = 20 points per pound per gallon

Roughly, if you can find the percent sugar content of whatever you want to use, then divide by 2, (e.g., sugar is 100% / 2 = 50 points) you get the gravity points it will add per gallon, but you'll also have to account for the presence of nonfermentables which can knock this down a few points


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## Eddy Monsoon (Mar 3, 2021)

Ty520 said:


> sugar adds 50 points per pound per gallon



What's that in grams per litre ?


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## Ty520 (Mar 3, 2021)

Eddy Monsoon said:


> What's that in grams per litre ?


120 grams of lactose per litre


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## Eddy Monsoon (Mar 3, 2021)

Ty520 said:


> 120 grams of lactose per litre


So, 300 grams Sugar per litre (if my maths is right ?)


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## Ty520 (Mar 3, 2021)

Eddy Monsoon said:


> So, 300 grams Sugar per litre (if my maths is right ?)



Sorry, i was mixing up convos. 120 g sugar per liter


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## Eddy Monsoon (Mar 3, 2021)

Ty520 said:


> Sorry, i was mixing up convos. 120 g sugar per liter


 
Sweet..........., thank you


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## dmw_chef (Mar 9, 2021)

Rice_Guy said:


> * Mead has higher residual sugar so it has some sweetness without added sugar.



Categorically false. There is nothing intrinsic to mead that leaves it with higher residual sugar. 



Rice_Guy said:


> * the protein is said to be the issue with the turbidity, and I have read that boiling the honey denatures the protein so it comes out of solution, ,,, you might speed the process by making a light color bouchet with the honey, and adding honey instead of other liquid when you do testing, ,,,, that is what will get tried with this years crab apple cyser



Yes, the haze after back sweetening is protein haze. I low dose of bentonite post back sweetening (4-6 g/gal) helps.


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## winemaker81 (Mar 9, 2021)

dmw_chef said:


> Categorically false. There is nothing intrinsic to mead that leaves it with higher residual sugar.


What do you base this statement on?

I searched on the topic of residual sugar in mead, but didn't find anything that wasn't about how much a mead is backsweetened. Given that dry mead of wine strength isn't common, I'm not surprised.

What surprised me is *this chart* which states that red and white wines have different ranges for residual sugar, 0.1% to 0.2% for whites and 0.2% to 0.3% for reds. Everything else I found typically states that "dry wines" are in the 0.1% to 0.3% range, which covers reds & whites in general.

Given that residual sugar in dry wines is a measure of unfermentable sugars, dry red and white wines have different residual sugar ranges, and honey is different from grapes, does mead have a different range in residual sugars? If anyone finds information regarding this, please post it.


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## Raptor99 (Mar 9, 2021)

I did a little searching, and found that honey has at least 25 different kinds of sugar, with fructose and glucose as the main ones: Sugars in honey and why honey is so sweet. Here is a detailed article on sugars, which states that 95% of the sugars in honey are fermentable: Brewing Sugars & How To Use Them - Brew Your Own

The exact percentage of the various sugars in honey will vary by pollen source and local conditions, so I take the 95% number as a ball park figure. That would mean that about 5% of the sugars in honey will not be fermented. It is also possible that different varieties of yeast will be able to digest different sugars.


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## winemaker81 (Mar 9, 2021)

@Raptor99, I didn't think of searching on the sugar composition. Great idea!


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## Ty520 (Mar 9, 2021)

Raptor99 said:


> I did a little searching, and found that honey has at least 25 different kinds of sugar, with fructose and glucose as the main ones: Sugars in honey and why honey is so sweet. Here is a detailed article on sugars, which states that 95% of the sugars in honey are fermentable: Brewing Sugars & How To Use Them - Brew Your Own
> 
> The exact percentage of the various sugars in honey will vary by pollen source and local conditions, so I take the 95% number as a ball park figure. That would mean that about 5% of the sugars in honey will not be fermented. It is also possible that different varieties of yeast will be able to digest different sugars.



If it is still sweet, it is either because the yeast reached it's alcohol tolerance before metabolizing all available sugar and went dormant, or the yeast struggled for some reason and crapped out before it could finish. Meads can be as dry or drier than wine


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## Raptor99 (Mar 9, 2021)

@Ty520 Did you have a chance to read the article that I linked above (Brewing Sugars & How To Use Them - Brew Your Own )? The author says that 95% of the sugars in honey are fermentable, which means that 5% are not. There are at least 50 types of sugars, and not all of them are fermentable. I sometimes use Erythritol for backsweetening my ciders because yeast cannot digest it. Lactose is also not digestable by yeast: Demonstration: Can Yeast Digest Lactose? | I don't see either of these in the list of sugars present in honey, but my point is there *are *some sugars that yeast cannot digest.

I think that the 5% unfermented sugars would provide only a little bit of sweetness, so I still plan to backsweeten my mead.


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## Ty520 (Mar 9, 2021)

Raptor99 said:


> @Ty520 Did you have a chance to read the article that I linked above (Brewing Sugars & How To Use Them - Brew Your Own )? The author says that 95% of the sugars in honey are fermentable, which means that 5% are not. There are at least 50 types of sugars, and not all of them are fermentable. I sometimes use Erythritol for backsweetening my ciders because yeast cannot digest it. Lactose is also not digestable by yeast: Demonstration: Can Yeast Digest Lactose? | I don't see either of these in the list of sugars present in honey, but my point is there *are *some sugars that yeast cannot digest.
> 
> I think that the 5% unfermented sugars would provide only a little bit of sweetness, so I still plan to backsweeten my mead.



Sure, but I was addressing rice guys post that mead is inherently sweeter - it is not


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## winemaker81 (Mar 9, 2021)

Ty520 said:


> Sure, but I was addressing rice guys post that mead is inherently sweeter - it is not


What do you base your statement on?

I'm willing to accept (for now) the ideas in the article @Raptor99 posted, as it sounds reasonable and I don't have another source of information. If there is another source, I'd love to read it.

If the article is correct and honey is ~95% fermentable sugar, then a 25 brix must results in 1.25% residual sugar, well above the dry wine level. If the fermentable sugars are 99%, then the residual sugar is 0.25%, which is dry red range.

Based upon my limited experience in mead making, I suspected the residual sugar was in the dry red range -- but I make metheglin and the spices alter the taste, and having few samples to form an opinion from, I don't trust that my palate made an accurate evaluation before I backsweetened the wine slightly.


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## Ty520 (Mar 9, 2021)

winemaker81 said:


> What do you base your statement on?
> 
> I'm willing to accept (for now) the ideas in the article @Raptor99 posted, as it sounds reasonable and I don't have another source of information. If there is another source, I'd love to read it.
> 
> ...



The fact that I can take a 25 brix mead to below 1.000 fg; if 5% of the sugars were unfermentable, it'd never be able to get that low.

Dry is dry is dry - red wine,white wine or mead, it's all dependant on final gravity; and they can all potentially be dry or sweet and everything in between.


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## Aleatoric (Mar 10, 2021)

My meads stall out at 1.010 or thereabouts with some regularity. OG independent. But then I'm using wild yeast (no boil, no filter, no kill) from berries and the honey. Interesting discussion. If I'm aggressive and/or impatient and use commercial yeast they drop down much further, then .. backsweetening. Sometimes the "unfermentable" sugars are in actuality "Unfermentable for now but just you wait you impatient bottler person" and fizzy meads are enjoyed later. 

I'm pulling some very nice meads off my rack after a year or three doing this, and finding some delightful results. I think the thing that "mead is undrinkable for a year" is hogwash (ask any Viking) but also "time hides all sins" is a good reason to hide bottles from yourself so you can discover the neat things that happen. 

So far so good, regardless. But as I said .. only a few years in ...

A couple berry meads *(I hate the word "metheglyn" so I tend not to use it) I used glycerin and/or oak to round out after the fact, and this contributes to the aging/ and response .."hmm. wow!" 

I've learned that over-oaking a bit is good. The character softens with time. To date I've never regretted oaking more or for longer. (Using either spirals, or chunks of staves I "toasted") This also contributes somewhat to perceived sweetness.


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## winemaker81 (Mar 10, 2021)

Ty520 said:


> The fact that I can take a 25 brix mead to below 1.000 fg; if 5% of the sugars were unfermentable, it'd never be able to get that low.


Good point. However, the alcohol present skews measuring residual sugar with a hydrometer. The higher the ABV is, the lower the SG for the same level of sugar, so we get a different FG if the mead is 11% or 15% ABV.

I checked my records -- I've made 3 meads whose OG, FG, and Yeast are:
1.102 -- 1.002 -- Red Star Epernay II
1.092 -- 1.008 -- Red Star Champagne
1.089 -- 0.996 -- Mangrove Jack’s M05 Mead Yeast 

The middle batch bulk aged for a year and the fermentation would not budge. I expect the Champagne yeast would ferment it if anything could. This batch provides anecdotal evidence of a higher level of non-fermentable sugars -- I say "anecdotal" as that batch is long gone so there is no way to test it.

None of this proves anything about mead being inherently sweeter than red or white wines, but it's been an interesting discussion in that it made me think a bit deeper about what the FG means.


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## Ty520 (Mar 10, 2021)

I think now we're venturing into a conversation of "perceived sweetness" which is immeasurable, but fun and interesting.

tannins, higher alcohol and bitter/sour will definitely subdue perceived sweetness. Oaking however, can actually work both ways - the tannins and char level in it can subdue perceived sweetness, but the vanillins can bump it up.

a 1.010 11% and a 1.010 15% technically are equally sweet by every objective means and methods of measurement, but the extra alcohol in the 15% abv beverage will mask your perception of the sweetness.

The trouble with your example, though, is that all the variables are all over the place - especially your yeast strains which have alcohol tolerances from 13% for the champagne, to 18% for the M05, so the numbers make sense and don't have anything to do with unfermentable - the m05 ravaged your sugars and ran out of them to metabolize, whereas, on the contrary, your champagne yeast probably hit its alcohol tolerance before it could finish metabolizing all of the sugars.

And if we get really into the weeds, there's the issue of atmospheric conditions such as temperature and altitude that can not only affect your physical measurements, but also perceived sweetness (cold and high altitude dull your taste). hell, even how much water you drank that day will affect your perception of how sweet something is.

And going even deeper into the realm of the unfermentable sugars rabbit hole, you'd have to take into account the differences in the unfermentable dextrins in honey versus unfermentable arabinose, rhamnose and xylose in wine grapes and adjust for their differences in sweetness. And even then, these quantities will vary between every single batch, because not only does every variety of honey and grape have different ratios of unfermentables, those quantities will change with each season based on climatic conditions - in reality, the minute variables are so complicated, it would be nearly impossible to make a pure and true 'apples to apples' comparison.

But the biggest wrench in the gear is that 'sweetness' measurements are actually subjective - the scale was derived from a panel of tasters, and their opinions of how sweet different sugars are (relative to sucrose being "1.0"), which was then tabulated and averaged into a consensus - there really isn't any 'true' scientific means or device to measure "real" sweetness.


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## dmw_chef (Mar 12, 2021)

Honey is almost 100% fermentable for the most part. When meads stop early well below tolerance, it's a sign you have poor nutrition. 

Everything I make that runs dry is less than 1.000.


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## Aleatoric (Mar 13, 2021)

I find this interesting as I usually "over administer" nutrients. However, I will say that the other factor is temperature .. in my realm, the house is not quite 70F even in summer, so .. 

When I use heating apparatus, (which I've never done with mead) things ferment more fully. 



dmw_chef said:


> Honey is almost 100% fermentable for the most part. When meads stop early well below tolerance, it's a sign you have poor nutrition.
> 
> Everything I make that runs dry is less than 1.000.


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## dmw_chef (Mar 13, 2021)

OG/FG/yeast/nutes?


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