From Sweet to Bone Dry: Demystifying Mead Sweetness and How to Control It

Dayton Jones
Mead Category

Mead

I remember my first batch of mead like it was yesterday—three pounds of raw clover honey, spring water, and a pack of champagne yeast I grabbed on impulse. What I expected to be a floral, honey-forward dessert drink ended up closer to a dry white wine, with just a whisper of honey left behind. Not bad, but not what I imagined.

That’s when I realized: sweetness isn’t guaranteed. If you don’t control it, your yeast will happily chew through every last sugar molecule and leave you with something drier than a bone in the Mojave.

So if you’ve ever wondered how to make your mead taste the way you imagined it should—from syrupy dessert to crisp and dry—this one’s for you. Let’s demystify sweetness and how to control it.

The TL;DR (but seriously, read the rest)

If you want your mead to turn out the way you imagine:

  • Use a hydrometer before and after fermentation
  • Choose a yeast that fits your goals
  • Control your fermentation environment
  • Consider back-sweetening for precision
  • Taste constantly, and take notes

Hydrometers: Your Best Friend in the Meadery

Before we touch yeast or talk about backsweetening, we need to cover the basics: sugar levels. Specifically, how we measure them.

A hydrometer is a simple but powerful tool. It floats in liquid and tells you the specific gravity (SG), which is essentially how dense your must (unfermented mead) is compared to water.

  • Original Gravity (OG) – This is your must’s SG before fermentation begins. It tells you how much sugar you’ve added. A typical traditional mead might have an OG of 1.090–1.120.
  • Final Gravity (FG) – This is your mead’s SG once fermentation stops. The lower the FG, the less sugar is left. An FG of 1.000 is “dry”; anything above is progressively sweeter.

Pro tip: Always sanitize your hydrometer and testing jar before each use. And write down your readings—you’ll thank yourself later.

If you’re new to using a hydrometer, this excellent visual guide from Northern Brewer will get you up to speed: Hydrometer Basics

Yeast Matters (More Than You Think)

Different yeasts have different alcohol tolerances and flavor profiles. If your yeast has a high alcohol tolerance (like EC-1118 or Lalvin K1V-1116), it’ll keep fermenting until nearly all sugars are gone—leaving your mead dry, even if your OG was high.

If you want residual sweetness, you have three main options:

  1. Choose a lower-tolerance yeast (like Lalvin 71B-1122 or D-47) that will stop fermenting earlier, leaving some sugar behind.
  2. Control the environment (more on this below).
  3. Back-sweeten after fermentation.

Need help picking a yeast? Oculyze has a helpful yeast comparison chart (scroll down a bit): Mead Yeast Comparison

Controlling Fermentation (a.k.a. Taming the Beast)

Here’s where the craft meets the science. You can influence how far your yeast goes with a few environmental tweaks:

  • Temperature: Lower fermentation temps slow yeast activity. For example, D-47 is best around 59–68°F. Keep it cool if you want more control.
  • Nutrients: Too little nutrient, and your yeast will stress out. Too much, and they’ll go full beast mode. A staggered nutrient addition (SNA) approach is usually best.
  • Degassing: Removing CO₂ during fermentation helps yeast thrive, but can also accelerate sugar consumption. Be mindful if you want to retain sweetness.

Stopping fermentation mid-way (cold crashing, sulfites, sorbate) is possible, but it requires precision and sanitation. This is an advanced technique that deserves its own blog post—but for now, just know that it’s possible with the right gear and timing.

Back-Sweetening: Sweetness on Your Terms

Once your mead is fully fermented and stabilized, you can back-sweeten it—adding more honey (or other sugars) without restarting fermentation.

Steps:

  1. Stabilize with potassium sorbate and potassium metabisulfite (a.k.a. sorbate and campden). This prevents yeast from waking back up.
  2. Add your sweetener slowly, mixing gently and tasting as you go. Honey, agave, fruit juice, or even sugar syrups are fair game.
  3. Bottle only once you’re sure it’s stable. Bottle bombs are fun until they’re not.

I use this guide by Ken Schramm (author of The Compleat Meadmaker) as a reference for safe backsweetening.

Targeting Sweetness: FG Benchmarks

Here’s a rough guideline I use when tuning the sweetness profile:

  • Dry: 0.990 – 1.000
  • Semi-Dry: 1.005 – 1.010
  • Semi-Sweet: 1.010 – 1.015
  • Sweet: 1.015 – 1.020
  • Dessert: 1.020+

Of course, sweetness perception also depends on acidity, tannins, and alcohol content—so use your palate, not just numbers.

Sweet, dry, or somewhere in between—mead is a canvas. Learning how to control sweetness is one of those milestones that separates new brewers from confident meadmakers. Take the time, learn your tools, and soon you’ll be crafting batches that taste exactly like the vision in your head.

Got a wild experiment or success story with back-sweetening? Drop it in the comments—I’d love to hear it.