STLExpat

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Decided to put these out where I could get more light and see what's going on



Bread yeast one is definitely coming along nicely, however the sweet mead yeast batch is not progressing as well. I may need to toss some energizer in, but I'll defer to the experts. Thoughts?

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Arpolis

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When you say not progressing well fo you mean the level of how clear it is? Have you taken gravity readings? If you are soley going by how clear it is..... Patience my friend. Some meads take a while to clear. I recently had one that was cloudy up untill around the 2 month mark and only really started after I racked off the lees. Just leave it be for the experiment and at the 3 month mark if you take gravity readings and see that the sweet mead yeast pooped out and this is cloyingly sweet you can take that as a result and then try and fix the mead.

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TheBrewingMedic

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Seems you are running into the same issue many have the wyeast sweet mead smack pack is a pretty fickle high maintenance yeast, not saying it doesn't make good mead but it is notorious for producing cloyingly sweet stuff and needing constant supervision

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Watch and Listen to your Mead....It will tell you when the next step is.

STLExpat

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Well, checked them last night and now both are starting to clear up. Pictures will follow later.

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STLExpat

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Ok guys, the fruit has dropped so now it's time for bottling.



Couple things I noticed (can't really tell with these pictures) was that the bread yeast batch had a lighter color than the liquid yeast batch. The way the fruit fell was also different.



With the bread yeast the oranges dropped individually and separate from each other, but with the liquid yeast...







The oranges were all clumped up and stuck together. Some of them looked bound together with what I believe to be krausen, or I'm hoping it is. The peel on one or two pieces looked a little odd.

There was also a difference in smell as well. The bread yeast batch smelled just like honey, oranges and vanilla. The liquid yeast batch had a very strong alcohol, medicinal smell in addition to those scents. Take with a grain of salt, but I'm liking what I see with the bread yeast. I'll find out come Christmas when I serve the results to my family which is better.

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huesmann

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Are you sure the smell difference isn't just because the bread yeast didn't produce as much alcohol?

Curtis2010

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What's the FG of each?

STLExpat

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No idea why there is a smell difference to be honest, I'm still pretty new compared to a lot of guys here. There is a taste difference though. The bread yeast batch had a strong alcohol kick to it, while the liquid yeast batch just tasted like honey.

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STLExpat

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Due to some lack of planning and thinking I didn't get one. Planning to test with a refractometer in December though

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fatbloke

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Which actually means very little. If you take 2 different wine yeasts, you'd have got differing results. Whether it's different levels of colour, higher levels of "alcohol hot" flavour, greater quantity of gross lees, etc etc.

The experiment at it's most basic, is to use the same ingredients, except the yeast, then probably through tasting, confirm when one or the other is "ready for drinking", while at the same time, highlighting the differences over time i.e. mead A was fine for christmas, yet mead B wasn't and needed nothing more than another 6 months to become good. Or if they're both drinkable at the same time, then highlight other differences in your findings i.e. the colour you already alluded to, or maybe the more obvious differences in taste.

It would be good to have enough info to work out how they actually came out, strength-wise/% ABV etc......

Keep us informed, I'm enjoying reading about the differences etc.

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