15 Sep
2003
15 Sep
'03
12:44 p.m.
Depending on the desired body and residual sweetness and yeast strain
used, you may need to add k sorbate at the minimum. Some wineries and
meaderies do this (sorbate but not sulfite) and it does work. The
underlying assumption here is that you want to be precise about your
results. Is it possible to get good results without sorbate or sulfite?
It depends on how you like your mead in terms of body and sweetness.
Chris
> I use both sorbate and sulfites and I think it
helps. My SO2 level in
> the bottle is 50-100 ppm which I believe is far less than what most
> wineries use.
>
> Here are a few links related to sulfite calculators:
>
> http://www.geocities.com/NapaValley/8280/winecalc.html
> http://winemakermag.com/sulfitecalculator/
>
> Chris
>
>
> On Wednesday, September 10, 2003, at 01:48 PM, mark(a)glewwe-castle.com
> wrote:
>
>> It does not hurt - unless there is enough to trigger allergic
>> reactions by some folk. There are ways to measure the amount in
>> solution, but I seem to remember them being expensive. Also, I am
>> not
>> worried about the long term storage as much as making sure no pesky
>> stuff gets into your mead and survives the bottling procedure. At
>> this time of year, I would pitch a few camden tablets. In winter,
>> probably not.
>>
>> Other issues. How long has it been in the carboy? Is it clarified
>> enough to bottle. My first mead was wonderful, but it ended up with
>> a
>> 1/2 inch of sediment in the bottle - which makes travel hopeless. So
>> I just drink it at home. Not a bad solution. ;-)
>>
>> IMHO,
>> Mark
>>
>>> I'll be bottling my first mead soon.
>>>
>>> Do I need to add sulfite and potasium sorbate for long term storage?