After racking an English dark mild to a keg, we decided to put some old orange blossom honey and the must and oak chips from an even older wine kit on top of the mild’s yeast cake. Fermentation was sluggish, so K1-V1116 was directly pitched on day 2 of primary fermentation. Fermentation stopped at 1.087, so we made a starter of EC-1118 yeast with a little honey and pitched it at high kräusen. The mead only dropped to 1.084 and was sticky sweet, like grape jelly. We balanced the sweetness with citric acid and wine tannin and added the peanut butter whiskey to give it a PB&J flavor. It was still sweet, so we carbonated it to 1.5 vol. (3 g/L) CO2 in a 2-liter bottle with a carbonation cap just prior to bottling for competition, and something really changed. There are many ways to achieve balance in a mead, and we are glad we finally figured this one out!
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