FW: hist-brewing: stabilizing mead

[John Purdy]

I've used sulfite before. (Camden tablets.) It's easy and convenient but
the last couple years I have tried to stick closer to natural processes.
Time. Make sure you get a good solid fermentation, add nutrients,
sugars, a more atennuative/tolerant yeast to your secondary, or some
combination there of, to insure a healthy secondary fermentation. I like
the still meads a little sweet so I usually follow the "add smaller
amounts of honey each time you rack until the yeasty-beasties just won't
eat no more" theory. And then let it sit in the carboy until I can't
stand it anymore and need the carboy to brew something else.

Now my question...How does sulfiting/sulfating fit in historically? I
mean, where did it start, and when? I am also led to believe that some
people react badly to it (headaches, hangovers) and that it can leave a
funky off-taste that takes a long time to dissipate. Has anyone noticed
that first-hand?

Mongo

-----Original Message-----
From:	allotta [SMTP:allotta at earthlink.net]
<mailto:[SMTP:allotta at earthlink.net]> 
Sent:	Wednesday, August 19, 1998 7:07 PM
To:	Daryl Olson
Cc:	hist-brewing at pbm.com <mailto:hist-brewing at pbm.com> 
Subject:	Re: hist-brewing: stabilizing mead

Wine stabilizers (sorbistat or sodium benzoate) will stop a renewed
fermentation.  However, it WILL NOT stop a fermentation already in
progress (even a slow one).  If fermentation is completely stopped (no
gravity drop over 1-2 weeks) than a stabilizer will stop a renewed
fermentation.
Your problem sounds like fermentation was still active, albeit slow, and
a stabilizer will not help.  Try 120 ppm  of sulfite at this point.  Let
sit 1 day before bottling after sulfer and most of the sulfer will
dissipitate.  Then sorbistat will be useful.
What was the terminal gravity before bottling??  Maybe you had a stuck
fermentation.
Best     Mark

Daryl Olson wrote:
	> Ok, I have a general question here.  I had a pretty good sweet
mead
	> that
	> unfortunately blew all of their corks off when it got warmer
and the
	> yeast
	> went active again.  Has anyone tried or uses, stabilizers in
their
	> mead?  My
	> mead actually sat quite a while, and seemed quite still,
before I
	> bottled,
	> so I was thinking of using a stabilizer on it next time.
	>
	> Also, anybody have any other advice for making sure my mead
doesn't
	> open
	> itself before I'm ready to?
	>
	> Dar
	>
	> ---
	>
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