Tart mead

[LoneTreeFarms]

Long story short I made a batch of curt stocks super berry melomel about three years ago. It's been racked multiple times stabilized backsweetened some. It has a nice fruity flavor at the start but it has a tart afterbite on the tail end. How can I remove some of the tart to help this mead blend better together?

FYI I haven't gotten a ph meter yet but I'm thinking that's in the works soon.
But what chems do I need to have on hand? And what's a good end goal for the ph?

Also been 20 years since chemistry class.

 

[Brett_Bellmore]

Here's a product that's supposed to help:

http://eckraus.com/acid-reducing-crystals/?_ga=2.207357210.860145266.1532686181-712234676.1532686181

I've never tried it.

 

[madscientist451]

I've never used the product above, maybe it will work for you.
Did you use honey to backsweeten? The recipe on the AHA website gives some tips on setting up a flavor trial to help in the back sweetening process.

https://www.homebrewersassociation.org/homebrew-recipe/mead-recipe-of-the-week-super-berry-melomel/

 

[bernardsmith]

I am not sure that the key datum is pH. That simply tells you how strong the acids are and if you made a mead with berries then you are working with citric acid. The more important variable in wine making when it comes to taste is the TA (tritratable acids) and that figure tells you how much acid is in the wine or mead - not the strength of the acid but the amount. You can have a lot of a weaker acid or a lot of a stronger acid and while the pH might be very different the TA might be the same.. and if you have too much of this acid then the TA may be too high (and if you have too little the TA might be too low).

You want the TA to be about 6.5 g/l and you can buy fairly inexpensive test kits to measure the TA - however, it can be incredibly challenging to find the TA since this depends on observing a color change when you use an 'indicator' when adding a known alkaline solution to the mead (the unknown acid solution). The color changes when you have neutralized the acid BUT this is relatively easy to see if you have a pH meter as the color ALWAYS changes when the pH hits 8.2

 

[LoneTreeFarms]

I've never used the product above, maybe it will work for you.
Did you use honey to backsweeten? The recipe on the AHA website gives some tips on setting up a flavor trial to help in the back sweetening process.

https://www.homebrewersassociation.org/homebrew-recipe/mead-recipe-of-the-week-super-berry-melomel/

I have back sweetened some with honey in the past to the point where I enjoy the taste up front, it's the tart bite afterwards i'm trying to eliminate. it's time for me to probably rack again since I haven't in about a year, I figured I would look into an additive of some sort. At this point i'm not out anything as my current product is undrinkable, but you're right I need to pull some samples to set up a flavor trial and go from there. thank you all.

 

[LoneTreeFarms]

Here's a product that's supposed to help:

http://eckraus.com/acid-reducing-crystals/?_ga=2.207357210.860145266.1532686181-712234676.1532686181

I've never tried it.

I've got some potassium bi carbonate at home but it looks like I need the acid test kit to test TA.

 

[bernardsmith]

Most neutralizers have only a limited capacity to neutralize before you need to add so much that it affects the flavor. Possible solutions are to blend a mead with too high a TA with a mead or wine that has too low a TA (tastes very bland, very meh..)

 

[LoneTreeFarms]

Following up on this today I added 4 tsp of calcium carbonate. It definitely mellowed out the harsh acidic bite to it. Still has a burn to it. Warms the throat as it goes down. Assuming this is due to high % alcohol? It’s 3.5 years old now approximately. How long is considered too long?