Greetings, makers!

[winemaker81]

Many, if not most of the mead makers I am acquainted with will front load acids and tannins. I prefer to wait a while after stabilizing for my acids so the bulk of the yeast and particulates can fall out and I can balance to taste more accurately. I never make assumptions about how much of anything a new honey varietal will need, and wait until aging to consider adjuncts of any kind.

The sources I found state honey has a low end pH of 3.0-3.4 and a high end of 6.1, with an average of 3.9.

While yeast is happy with pH in the range of 2.9 to 6+, spoilage organism like less acidic environments, so a pH below 4 is generally recommended (some folks want lower) to prevent a large percentage of spoilage organisms from thriving.

To avoid problems, it makes sense to ensure the pH of the must is 3.9 or lower. On average, a slight reduction of pH is warranted.

IME, mead is bland and insipid. Adding lemon juice and zest prior to fermentation lowers the pH and gives it a flavor boost. YMMV

I don't normally make large acid additions prior to fermentation of any wine, if the must is in the 3.1 to 3.9 range. I adjust by taste prior to bottling.

 

[vinny]

Many, if not most of the mead makers I am acquainted with will front load acids and tannins. I prefer to wait a while after stabilizing for my acids so the bulk of the yeast and particulates can fall out and I can balance to taste more accurately. I never make assumptions about how much of anything a new honey varietal will need, and wait until aging to consider adjuncts of any kind.

If you have any recipes you are willing to share I would be interested to see where you ended up bringing acid levels to with different honey's. Do you lean more to dry or back sweetened meads?

 

[TheSeed]

If you have any recipes you are willing to share I would be interested to see where you ended up bringing acid levels to with different honey's. Do you lean more to dry or back sweetened meads?

I don't have any set acid levels written down, as we always adjust each batch individually. Every batch we've done has room for improvement, so even though we've completed and bottled well over a hundred different things, I don't have any recipes that I would repeat exactly the same way. We have made about 12 blueberry melomels, yet the plans for our next one are different from all the previous ones including the types of acids and tannins we will be using as well as bulk age time. I also use the 4 acids separately, instead of buying blends. Citric acid I like for 'brightening' flavors, especially lighter flavored fruits. Tartaric we use to give more of a crispy snap to something, while malic is good for an apple-sour feel, and lactic we pretty much only use to alter must pH for primary fermentation.

Most everything my brother and I make is bottled off-dry. We don't use a refractometer, so I can only give you gravity figures. It has been over a year since we fermented anything that didn't dry all the way out to 1.000 or below, and our practice thus far has been to chemically stabilize once dry, and back sweeten to taste. Some things taste good having been sweetened from 1.000 to 1.005 (a blackberry melomel comes to mind) while other things we've sweetened from 0.99x to 1.025 that still seemed like they had a bit of a dry edge to them. I think the sweetest we've gone in the last year was a jalapeno and ghost pepper capsicumel that we sweetened from below 1.000 to around 1.030.

 

[skylieq]

Hello Gavin, it's nice to meet you! It's great to hear that you and your brother have found a fun and engaging hobby in home wine making, especially during the lockdown. It's also wonderful that you're interested in expanding your knowledge and experience in wine making beyond mead and into grape-based wines.