1st mead 4 months ago

Chombo · 05-08-2010, 02:12 AM

Hey, so my girlfriend and i made our first any only mead back in december, and we bottled it today. it was the ancient mead recipe but we used champagne yeast, i think it was called Lalvin ec-119 or something. and no nutrients/energizer.

it seemed as though the fermentation took forever, it was showing activity for the first 3 months which seemed strange as i have always brewed beer and it has always finished fermentation after 2 weeks. is this normal? a 3 month fermentation?

also after we bottled today, we had a sample of what wouldnt fit into the rest of the bottles. it was really really sweet, and tasted a bit like cough syrup, it was also quite a bit thicker than beer. would it have finished fermentation? i didnt have my hydrometer on hand so i couldnt measure. and it didnt taste bad to me, my gf didnt like it but it was definitely drinkabe in small amounts. anything seem abnormal here?

thanks!

klcramer · 05-08-2010, 02:51 AM

I just tried My first batch. Mine was a peach mead and it fermented for a long time. Almost 4 months. Been bottled for a few months and is very mild with a hint of peach at the very end. No alcohol burn at all and according to my calculations should be around 10% ABV. It's not bad but It needs more flavor. I can get the cinnamon and clove flavors at first and peach at the end. The honey flavor is faint but lingers. All in all it's not bad. Soon we will be trying our mixed berry mead made at the same time. I will post the results of that as well soon.

KCWortHog · 05-08-2010, 03:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chombo

Hey, so my girlfriend and i made our first any only mead back in december, and we bottled it today. it was the ancient mead recipe but we used champagne yeast, i think it was called Lalvin ec-119 or something. and no nutrients/energizer.

it seemed as though the fermentation took forever, it was showing activity for the first 3 months which seemed strange as i have always brewed beer and it has always finished fermentation after 2 weeks. is this normal? a 3 month fermentation?

also after we bottled today, we had a sample of what wouldnt fit into the rest of the bottles. it was really really sweet, and tasted a bit like cough syrup, it was also quite a bit thicker than beer. would it have finished fermentation? i didnt have my hydrometer on hand so i couldnt measure. and it didnt taste bad to me, my gf didnt like it but it was definitely drinkabe in small amounts. anything seem abnormal here?

thanks!

Bolded the stuff that stands out. Sounds like you're noticing the right things:

1. It's extremely sweet
2. Fermentation took forever
3. You didn't use energizer or yeast nutrient

Solution? Don't do #3 again.

Honey ferments almost completely, so with the assumption that you used the recipe's amount of honey and you're not exaggerating when you say "super sweet", the yeast couldn't finish the fermentation.

Here are probably two of THE most useful and helpful things I've seen on understanding how to promote a healthy mead fermentation:

Optimizing Honey Fermentation by Ken Schramm
and
Making Great Mead by Kristen England & Curt Stock (NHC 2008)

I've been following Schramm's advice in various forms and all my fermentations finish within 3 weeks. I'm going to try England's/Stock's advice on my next few batches (this month) and note the differences. Should be interesting!

Good luck.

**AZ_IPA** · 05-08-2010, 03:50 AM

In my opinion, Joe's Ancient Orange Mead (if that's what you made) comes out really sweet, and thick.

Chombo · 05-08-2010, 04:18 AM

KCworthog, thanks great info, next batch i make i will for sure use energizer. im just hoping i dont get bottle bombs on this one. it was good mead, way overly sweet but still drinkable (added an ounce of sugar during bottling to make it sparkling). Im still new to mead and not sure what to expect and hoping nothing went wonky. it was joes ancient orange mead, and i just assumed energizer wasnt used because it was an "ancient" mead.

beauty on those links, thanks, ill definately give them a good read!

az_ipa, thats good to know, i wasnt expecting it to turn out like that at all, i have read, as KCWorthog said that honey ferments completely and expected it to be very dry, which it was not.

thanks all for stories and advice, definitely helped me understand a bit more!

**AZ_IPA** · 05-08-2010, 04:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chombo

az_ipa, thats good to know, i wasnt expecting it to turn out like that at all, i have read, as KCWorthog said that honey ferments completely and expected it to be very dry, which it was not.

Since you used EC-1118 (I'm guessing, based on your description) - it should have come out drier that using the bread yeast that is called for in the recipe.

I would recommend trying Joe's Quick Grape Mead and see if you like that better. It's drinkable somewhat quick (3-6 months - though MUCH better at a year), and isn't as sweet.

I have nothing against sweet meads - I just personally like them a little drier.

Chombo · 05-08-2010, 03:22 PM

yep thats the yeast i used. i guess maybe i had a stuck fermentation, or it was still going really slowly. oh well, live and learn. ill try joes grape mead next for sure, looks like a good recipe.

KCWortHog · 05-09-2010, 08:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chombo

i have read, as KCWorthog said that honey ferments completely and expected it to be very dry, which it was not.

well, let me go back and correct what I said - honey will ferment completely to the extent that the yeast can continue to convert the sugar. A couple of things that can hinder the fermentation are yeast health (which has been covered above) and the alcohol tolerance of the yeast. So let's say you make a mead with a starting gravity of 1.080 ... that would be a pretty dry mead and would ferment to 1.000 or even a tad lower. But if you start out at 1.120, the yeast are going to lose their ability to survive once the alcohol hits a certain level - and that depends on the yeast strain you use. Some have a higher tolerance than others.

EC1118 (assuming that's what you used) has a really high tolerance (around 18%) so it should have been dry. In any case, like you said - live & learn