2014 batch 3: Bochet (7) - Back sweetening

Now that the black berries had been removed I racked the bochet mead today. I started with 21 L and had to stop racking with 2 L left because of lots of yeast and residual mushy berries. The volume is now reduced to 19 L but hopefully it will only be 0.5 L losses per racking from now on.

As mentioned in my last post about my bochet I measured Oe to 16 degrees. I would like to back sweeten it to 25 degrees, and using my Honey-Oechsle equations for addition of honey I can calculate that I need to add 542 g of honey. (see HERE). Using 550 g as target I still ended up adding 558 g to a kitchen bowl - well within the uncertainty of the calculation with is +- 30 g. I use my late summer honey for sweetening since I am out of spring and summer honey. Amazing how fast you can use 50 kg of honey :o)

The honey was stirred gently with about 800 ml of the bochet mead to slowly dissolve the honey. The kitchen bowl was emptied into the new fermenter and a second portion of about 800 ml was added to the bowl to rinse out the rest of the honey. This portion was also poured into the fermenter, which was then closed and the air lock attached.

I will wait until tomorrow to to check the gravity just to let the honey dissolve fully.