Hey All,
A little help towards a solution would be much appreciated...
I have been fermenting my mead for a year now. I just racked it and tried a sample. It's pretty good but I think the flavor lack diversity and it's very, very sweet. It sort of reminds me of cherry cough syrup if it didn't have medicine in it. I thought about adding scotch or perhaps some lemon but before I start experimenting I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions. I do understand that it's hard to make a super sweet mead less sweet but perhaps there is a way to make it more interesting?

Thanks!
SHM

So for starters...
What's your OG, FG and how much and what kind of yeast did you use?

I've had some stuck meads in the past that I've coaxed into drinkability with some yeast energizer and if that didn't do it, add more yeast. Time is on your side, let it just do its thing for a few months/years and you'll be ok.

An idea for a sweet mead (lots of friends liked this at big brew day - and it made sense after listening to the Dan in the Gordon show recently) - add some chipotle chili peppers. I've done this a lot in the past and the smoke / honey aromas are intriguing. The sweet start followed by the chili heat is like a roller coaster (and killer I might add). What Dan Gordon had mentioned totally clicked - residual sweetness helps to neutralize hot chili spice. So you're not left with a burning tongue, but a brief, hot sensation (like wasabi, but more chili-like)

So if you have a nice sweet mead, partition off a gallon or so and add 2 or 3 dried chipotle peppers (not the stuff in the adobodo sauce), and if you are concerned about heat, try and remove some of the seeds. let em sit in the mead for a few months, or until the taste is where you like it. bottle and enjoy.

I had a mead stop at 1040, but after adding some raspberries and a new pitch of yeast it ended up finishing close to dryness. You wouldn't have to use the fruit if you didn't want to but as dontblake said, add some more yeast.

I would make a yeast starter and at high krausen rack your mead onto the starter in a new vessel. Then add some DAP and Fermaid K (1/3 tsp each) and stir it well to aerate it. The next day stir in the same amount of yeast nutrient as described and stir it again with a sanitized spoon (you should hear and see the CO2 coming out of suspension). Keep stirring it once a day to help drive out the CO2 and check to see if your gravity is falling. You might need to add more of the described yeast nutrient every other day for 3-5 days.

Get it down to the gravity you want.

Or...

Make another mead and plan to make it bone dry. Use a really good attenuating yeast (ie Champange) and coax that mead along like I described above to help insure a healthy fermentation. Blend the two meads together for a possibility of three different meads.

I had the exact same problem with my orange ginger mead...

Would the addition of some acids help to make a mead seem less sweet and/or add more complexity?



Adam

YES! the art of making a good mead is to balance the sweetness with acid. The acid levels in a sweet mead need to be higher than in a dry mead.

my sweet mead that is in the second round of NHC had an FG of 1.050! (it'll lose)