Back-sweetening calculator.

How it works

Back-sweetening means adding sugar or honey to a wine or mead after fermentation has finished. It only stays sweet if the yeast cannot restart, so the batch is stabilized first. GotMead’s bottling chapter says potassium sorbate prevents renewed fermentation in wine that is to be bottled and/or sweetened, at 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon per gallon. VinoEnology adds that sorbate must always be used together with proper SO2 addition, so size that dose with the potassium metabisulfite calculator.

The sugar amount uses Brewer’s Friend’s rule of 1.5 oz of sugar per gallon per 1 Brix, with the gravity change converted to Brix. Honey uses 36 gravity points per pound per gallon from GotMead’s Mead Calculator.

Worked example. Five gallons of dry mead at 0.998 sweetened to 1.010 is a rise of 12 gravity points. Sugar needed is 23.1 oz (656 g). Honey needed is 12 × 5 ÷ 36 = 1.67 lb (0.76 kg). The sorbate range for 5 gallons is 1.25 to 2.5 teaspoons in total. Dissolve the sweetener in a little of the wine, stir gently, and measure with a hydrometer before bottling. Add sweetener in steps and taste, since the finished sweetness depends on acidity and alcohol as well as gravity.