Alchemists Gold

The Birth of Alchemist’s Gold

Homebrew No. 5, the latest large batch of mead, finally has a name! My buddy is going to a medieval themed bachelor party. What goes better for the medieval theme than your own brew?! Of course, since I’m not actually a huge fan of the last batch in it’s fully dry state, I’ve decided to backsweeten the batch, in the process creating… ALCHEMIST’S GOLD. Ok Sam came up with with that name, but I do think it’s fitting for a mead that is magically golden and a sweet transmutation of honey into something you can drink any time.

Here’s the label

You may notice the unusual 12% to 15% ABV at the bottom. It’s not a typo, I actually am not entirely sure what the actual ABV is. If the pre-stabilization mead fully digested all residual sugar, I’d expect the base brew to be 12% ABV. Unfortunately, stabilization is a challenging beast.

Stabilization Procedure

I loosely followed stabilization processes that I found online.

1. Start with a completed secondary ferment
2. Stir in 1/2 tsp/gal of potassium metabisulfite - is this too much? Please comment if you have expertise on this
3. Wait 24h
4. Stir in 1/2 tsp/gal of potassium sorbate
5. Wait another 24h
6. Stir in 8 oz of Crystal’s Wildflower Honey to backsweeten. The picture above is waht the backsweeteening must looks like. Maybe I should have pasteurized this?

You’d think this should work and we should have a sweeter 12% wine. You’d think wrongly though.

My Mead Could Use a Therapist – It’s Alive and Unstable

The wine in the bucket seems to be fermenting again.

For the uninitiated, the picture on the left is a picture of the airlock on the bucket of mead, directly after stabilization and backsweetening. You can see the water levels in the two bulbs. The left side is slightly below the “max” level and the right side is slightly above. Six hours later, the water levels are reversed. That’s a sign that the backsweetened mixture is offgassing something, but there shouldn’t be any new gases generated. Unless of course, the yeast in the mead has started fermenting all over again. Great.

The water level is obviously changing as a result of increased air pressure in the headspace in the bucket. Or is it? For you Physics PhDs, there are actually alternatives that could cause the increased air pressure. None of them have me particularly convinced but I might as well include them.

1. Fermentation creates CO2. Some of that CO2 dissolves, especially under pressure. It’s been over 15 years since I’ve done any of that math, so I’ll leave it to you as an exercise I’m going to just spitball here. The previously fully fermented mead has no residual sugar left so the stabilized mead has no nucleation points for CO2 to fall out of solution. When I add the honey and mix, this disturbs the solution and causes some to bubble out.
2. When I open the container, the air pressure equalizes to the room. During the day, the bucket heats up just enough to force vapor pressure higher in the bucket. Again, been over a decade since I did this math, but hopefully somebody else can chime in.

Oh the Places You’ll Go

This batch tastes much better once backsweetened. Because of the additional residual sugar and the possibility of continued fermentation, I’m actually not confident it will stop at 15% ABV. EC-1118, the yeast that I used for fermentation is known for “robust and reliable fermentation” especially when fermenting the base for sparkling wines and for in bottle fermentation to make a wine fizzy. In other words - this yeast will knock your socks off. In fact, the yeast is alcohol tolerant up to 18% ABV.

Since I know I’ll need to bottle before mid-June and it’s clear that the stabilizers aren’t doing their job correctly, I’ll probably need pasteurize this batch. If anybody knows if it’s a bad idea to use my sous vide machine on mead, please comment.