I'm planning on making a dessert muscat, and I'm aiming for as much as
5% residual sugar. As suggested in this group, the easiest way is to
add back sugar and sorbate AFTER everything else is finished. But
rather than add a wine conditioner or just cane sugar, I've been
thinking of adding an infused honey such as a lavender honey. Has
anyone had experience with sweetening a finshed wine with honey? I
tried it on a small sample of one of my dry rieslings, and it's not
easy getting the honey dispersed and thoroughly mixed with the
wine...it took a lot of shaking and stirring to get rid of the glop of
honey...and that was only 1 test glass. I'm working with a full 6
gallon carboy.

Any thoughts? I've had similar sweet wines from Provence and, in
small quantities, they're pretty good.

Lee

On Tue, 25 Sep 2007 10:24:15 -0700, Lee > wrote:

>I'm planning on making a dessert muscat, and I'm aiming for as much as
>5% residual sugar. As suggested in this group, the easiest way is to
>add back sugar and sorbate AFTER everything else is finished. But
>rather than add a wine conditioner or just cane sugar, I've been
>thinking of adding an infused honey such as a lavender honey. Has
>anyone had experience with sweetening a finshed wine with honey? I
>tried it on a small sample of one of my dry rieslings, and it's not
>easy getting the honey dispersed and thoroughly mixed with the
>wine...it took a lot of shaking and stirring to get rid of the glop of
>honey...and that was only 1 test glass. I'm working with a full 6
>gallon carboy.
>
>Any thoughts? I've had similar sweet wines from Provence and, in
>small quantities, they're pretty good.
>
>Lee

I have sweetened with honey before, a Fireweed Blossom Wine. Your
wine will drop significant lees/sediment after sweetening with honey.
I stabilized my wine with ¼ tsp potassium metabisulfite and 3 tsp
Potassium sorbate for 23L/6 gal of wine.
I racked off one gallon and sweetened that to taste with Fireweed
Honey. Then I added 5 times as much honey to the 6 gallon carboy and
stirred with a rod until the honey dissolved. My wine had about ¼
inch of fine lees after two weeks but was brilliantly clear. I racked
the wine and let it bulk age for 4 months. The wine did not drop any
more sediment. The result was good. My family enjoys the wine.

Later,
A.J.
The Anchorage Fishwrapper and Litterbox Liner Press

Lee > wrote:

> I'm planning on making a dessert muscat, and I'm aiming for as much as
> 5% residual sugar. As suggested in this group, the easiest way is to
> add back sugar and sorbate AFTER everything else is finished. But
> rather than add a wine conditioner or just cane sugar, I've been
> thinking of adding an infused honey such as a lavender honey. Has
> anyone had experience with sweetening a finshed wine with honey? I
> tried it on a small sample of one of my dry rieslings, and it's not
> easy getting the honey dispersed and thoroughly mixed with the
> wine...it took a lot of shaking and stirring to get rid of the glop of
> honey...and that was only 1 test glass. I'm working with a full 6
> gallon carboy.
>
> Any thoughts? I've had similar sweet wines from Provence and, in
> small quantities, they're pretty good.

My first suggestion is to use a wine yeast with the alcohol
toxicity for which you are targeting for a dry wine and then
calculate how much honey you need for 5% residual sugar.
If you go this route, I would suggest adding the honey in
stages during primary fermentation.


Now if you've already brewed the wine and the FG = 1.000 or less,
my trusty calculator says to add 8.5 lbs of honey. However, a
gallon of honey should weigh 12 lbs so if your 6-gal carboy is
full, you will need to split it and do some Quality Assurance
Sampling. If you do split it, put the honey into the original
carboy so that it may get some fermentation. Also put the
honey and the wine in a santize pot and heat it to 100F to get
the honey to blend into the mixture more readily

I know almost nothing about wine, but I do know honey.

Dick