how much sugar to add for sparkling mead

one of my demis of heather mead which i kept at 17% has cleared and i am not sure how much sugar to add to a 500ml flip top bottle to make a sparkling mead.could someone please enlighten me as i dont want bottle bombs.

Glass bottles are always a risk.
Most 'flip top' bottles are not designed to take pressure. Grolsch beer bottles being a notable exception.
Certainly the likes of the Ikea and Kilner flip tops would be downright dangerous for this usage.

Plastic fizzy drink bottles are a much better bet. (Not still table-water bottles.) They distort before they fail, and if they do fail, at least there is no shrapnel - just a mess.
I've had a lot of success with Elderflower Fizz in 1 litre ex-tonic water bottles (Waitrose and Sainsbury own-brand).

About a teaspoon of sugar per bottle is used to 'prime' beer, so I'd expect a similar quantity for your thing.

they are wilkos flip tops from the home brew section so i would think they are made to take pressure from wine or beer

The advantage to using screw top pop bottles is that as they deform (as itma says) you can let a little CO2 out if needed. Works well for my elderflower fizz too.

Champers bottles are made to withstand about 6 Bar working pressure. Most other glass bottles are not rated anywhere near as high as that. There will be tables on the net for amount of sugar/unit volume depending on how many volumes of CO2 you wish to generate with the secodary fermentation.

i think i will keep them in a box just in case they go bang

Champagne bottles are designed for that purpose and the source I found best was the bottle banks at the back of pubs and restaurants on a Sunday morning. Landlords were always pleased to get rid when asked. Wine kit shop sell them too. Some years since I bothered as my stock is still in situ and viable. Some say not to use more that once but it ain't necessarily so !!!

As to adding, sugar you need to test with hydrometer to determine the potential alcohol before adding any at all and thereafter follow a recipe for champagne type wines, which usually starts with a primary fermentation in a demijohn. To create a fizz you then need to bottle it in the champagne bottles and add sugar to create fermentation within the bottles, with bottles top down in a rack so the sediment settles in the neck. The champagnoise method is then to prepare a near neat alcohol (wine frozen in a freezer separates it out)and sugar mixture for topping up the champagne bottle after freezing the neck where the sludge is to get the sludge out. Topped up with the mixture aids/preserves the fizz to a minimal extent just enough to keep the fizz until it's matured to drink.

Sorry if it sounds complicated - it is!!! There may be alternative methods that will be suggested by others but this is, very briefly for the purpose of this note, the one I use.

itma said:

Glass bottles are always a risk.
Most 'flip top' bottles are not designed to take pressure. Grolsch beer bottles being a notable exception.
Certainly the likes of the Ikea and Kilner flip tops would be downright dangerous for this usage.

Plastic fizzy drink bottles are a much better bet. (Not still table-water bottles.) They distort before they fail, and if they do fail, at least there is no shrapnel - just a mess.
I've had a lot of success with Elderflower Fizz in 1 litre ex-tonic water bottles (Waitrose and Sainsbury own-brand).

About a teaspoon of sugar per bottle is used to 'prime' beer, so I'd expect a similar quantity for your thing.

Click to expand...

From unpleasant/scary experience I agree with everything Itma says - I use 2l Pepsi bottles and a level teaspoon.

If you don't want to be bothered with the faff of secondary fermentation with the bottles upside down and then trying to get the corks out to remove the sediment I find it just as easy to use champagne bottles (which have a deep 'punt' in the bottom). Pop half a teaspoon or so of sugar into the bottle, wire or tie the cork onto the top and give the bottle a shake to dissolve the sugar. Keep in a warm(ish) place for a couple of days to ferment with the bottle upright and the small amount of sediment that forms will mostly drop down into the punt. The store in a cool place and with the bottles upright and not moved about .. when you want to drink it .. transfer to a refrigerator (still keeping the bottle upright) to chill it ... uncork carefully and pour the wine carefully without disturbing the sediment ... you will lose a half inch of wine at the bottom of the bottle with the sediment in it but not enough to worry about. Not for the purists ... but what's purist about fizzy mead anyway !

Champagne bottles only though if you must have glass ... PET is just so PANTS !!

I tried a sparkly wine with the Ibrew system as used for force carbonating beer. It did not work as well as I had hoped. The 5 litre PETs needed several vials of sparklets CO2 and the product seemed to lose a lot of carbonation while being dispensed. Small enough to fridge cool and large enough for a few days supply (6 bottles, or so, equivalent). Also not 100% confident with the 'tap' arrangement as it started to dispense on its own on one occasion!

Needed for a force carbonated stout next, but will try it again, possibly with a modified vial holder - so it can be connected to my bulk CO2 supply.

Why even adding sugar? My friend doesn`t use it.

Jost Zmajevic said:

Why even adding sugar? My friend doesn`t use it.

Click to expand...

to make it fizzy

pargyle said:

If you don't want to be bothered with the faff of secondary fermentation with the bottles upside down and then trying to get the corks out to remove the sediment I find it just as easy to use champagne bottles (which have a deep 'punt' in the bottom). Pop half a teaspoon or so of sugar into the bottle, wire or tie the cork onto the top and give the bottle a shake to dissolve the sugar. Keep in a warm(ish) place for a couple of days to ferment with the bottle upright and the small amount of sediment that forms will mostly drop down into the punt. The store in a cool place and with the bottles upright and not moved about .. when you want to drink it .. transfer to a refrigerator (still keeping the bottle upright) to chill it ... uncork carefully and pour the wine carefully without disturbing the sediment ... you will lose a half inch of wine at the bottom of the bottle with the sediment in it but not enough to worry about. Not for the purists ... but what's purist about fizzy mead anyway !

Champagne bottles only though if you must have glass ... PET is just so PANTS !!

Click to expand...

I like the idea and will have a go. Seems probable, if not absolutely certain, that the alcohol level will be very variable indeed - but maybe not critical? Further comment please.

Glass bombs are not a lot of fun...and if one goes off, do you want to handle the rest?

Arfermo said:

I like the idea and will have a go. Seems probable, if not absolutely certain, that the alcohol level will be very variable indeed - but maybe not critical? Further comment please.

Click to expand...

It really doesn't matter about the alcohol level .. whatever you produce after fermentation (as long as you don't turn it into vinegar !) will be alcoholic and even a relatively low level of alcohol will ensure that the mead is preserved and let's face it ... whilst home wine making can be an inexpensive way to get your face off ... it should really be about the taste. Purists may tell you the 'correct' alcohol percentage for any particular 'wine' but the reality is that mead has been made for centuries and I rather suspect that they didn't have hydrometers and SG tables back in Roman times ..

I occasionally make alcoholic ginger beer in the summer... it's only about 1.5 - 2.5% proof and very refreshing it is and at that level of alcohol it's even safe for older kids to drink in sensible quantities. Makes them feel very grown up ..

bontbee said:

Glass bombs are not a lot of fun...and if one goes off, do you want to handle the rest?

Click to expand...

As long as you are only doing a secondary fermentation (ie: the original fermentation has finished) and you are just doing a secondary fermentation with a teaspoon of additional sugar in the bottle then there won't be a huge amount of pressure building up. The yeast will only continue to produce carbon dioxide whilst there is sugar left .. once the available sugar is exhausted the secondary fermentation will cease. The pressure of CO2 in the space above the liquid in the bottle is necessary as it ensures that a large percentage of the CO2 created in the secondary fermentation remains dissolved in the wine/mead until the pressure is released and then it comes out of solution in the classic bubbles and fizz.

It is important to use either champagne bottles which (as long as there are no cracks in them) will withstand the pressure of the carbon dioxide or the philistine solution of PET bottles. It's not a good idea to use bottles that have not contained carbonated drinks as these are not designed for the requisite pressure ... and they can explode ... although the classic solution is to use corks which will be blown out long before the bottle disintegrates ... everyone must have stories about granny's potato wine/beer/cider/rhubarb wine blowing the corks out with an almighty bang (and a resultant mess in the pantry !). It was a rare occasion when a bottle would explode ... Screw topped glass bottles are a definite no no for fizzy wines though.

Glass bombs are not a lot of fun...and if one goes off, do you want to handle the rest?

pargyle said:

Screw topped glass bottles are a definite no no for fizzy wines though.

Click to expand...

Thanks Pargyle. I was trying to emphasise that inappropriate glass bottles are definitely not a good idea for fizzy wine. (For beer, I always used glass bottles from bottle conditioned beers and, combined with crown corks or swing tops, they were safe for a secondary fermentation of homebrewed beer.)

In my youth, and following given advice, I made elderflower "champagne" in lemonade bottles, (glass in those days...10 new p back if you returned it...). I came home to find shards and slivers of glass in the kitchen cabinets, walls, even ceiling - fortunately not in the dogs.

I was **** scared of approaching the others in the batch to defuse them.

So scarred, I haven't made it since.

Itma, I'm not sure the Grolsch ones are as strong as they used to be.

If anyone remembers Fischer beer, I used Grolsch, Fischer and other ordinary bottles for ginger be more than 20 years ago.

The only ones to make it were the Grolsch –-all the others were broken in half by the force.

That isn't the problem in itself, but how they break, as they go off like a rocket. One of the big 1L beer ones was set down gntly in the garden and as I stepped back, the top half went of like it was at Cape Canaveral. Didn't miss me by much and went about 15' into the air.

Moral: ONLY EVER use bottles that can withstand secondary fermentation.

This is also true of apparently strengthened bottles like spumantes. They are thinner, because the cheap ones are carbonated and prosecco isn't as fizzy as methode champenoise as made in vats.

itma said:

Glass bottles are always a risk.
Most 'flip top' bottles are not designed to take pressure. Grolsch beer bottles being a notable exception.
Certainly the likes of the Ikea and Kilner flip tops would be downright dangerous for this usage.

Plastic fizzy drink bottles are a much better bet. (Not still table-water bottles.) They distort before they fail, and if they do fail, at least there is no shrapnel - just a mess.
I've had a lot of success with Elderflower Fizz in 1 litre ex-tonic water bottles (Waitrose and Sainsbury own-brand).

About a teaspoon of sugar per bottle is used to 'prime' beer, so I'd expect a similar quantity for your thing.

Click to expand...

i have used mainly the plastic carbonated water ones this time so i can release some pressure if it becomes too much.

Same here. I love elderflower fizz. The first time I ever made it I drank a pint of it sitting reading in the sunshine. Never again. I didn't realise how strong it was. I couldn't get up!!!!