Made my first batch of mead today

Hey guys made my first batch of mead today. I started with a 5 gallon mixture in a 6 gallon carboy. I used a champagne yeast and a simple traditional recipe.

15 lbs of honey
4 gallons of water
25 raisens
Champage yeast.

My question is. When will I start to see bubbles in my air lock. It's been sitting 2 hours and I only noticed like 5 bubbles pop out. Is this normal? This is my first go around and I just want to make sure I didn't get bad yeast or I messed up some how.

Thanks in advance for the help

I'd say wait a day or two to notice what happens with the bubbles in your airlock. I just made my first mead today as well (although I've done a few beer batches) and it can take a day or two to notice fermentation occurring. Good luck with your mead! I'm pretty sure I ruined mine when heating up the solidified honey in its container (I melted the container -___- )

I decided I needed a hobby and why not one that yields tasty beverages. we are all going to have hiccups along the way with our processes. I am considering getting some more carboys and trying to experiment with some flavored meads. best of luck man thanks for the reply.

2 people melted containers today... What's going on... But basic mead isn't hard, honey, water, yeast nutrients, and yeast.... BAM!!!! Mead...

its bubbling good now.

25 raisins gonna be enough nutrients for 5 gal? Why not hit it with DAP/energizer?

I heard its better not to use any chemical energizer. I have one do you think it's too late to add? My musk is a day old. If I remove the air lock am I going to get a ton of air in it and ruin the batch?

who the hell told you that?

and no i don't want to smell your armpits..... =) it's must... MUST!

A common practice is step feeding nutrients while degassing. Obviously you need to open the bucket for that. Mead is less susceptible to oxidation than beer, have no fear. Check out the newbee guide at the GotMead website/forum or read The Compleat Meadmaker. Lotta great info

I read that they never had that stuff in the old days so the purest are against that. Thanks as you can tell I am a noob at this? Just I run and throw it in now or wait till it has calmed down?

I dropped in another 25 raisens the other website stated 5-10 raisens per gallon so I am at 50+ for my 5 gallons of mead thanks for looking out for me

Any purist who tries to impose standards on something that generally has none is a control fascist who should just f*** the hell off.....

Lack of nutrients is why "show" meads are often overly sweet with off flavours.

Plus because there were no real records of mead method from its dark ages heyday, any recipe or method that claims authenticity is likely a load of bollocks.....

If you're worried about late addition, either FermaidO if you can get it locally or failing that, boiled or microwaved bread yeast.

Better to try and nourish the yeast than not and end up with a high gravity waste of time and money.......

fatbloke said:

Any purist who tries to impose standards on something that generally has none is a control fascist who should just f*** the hell off......

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:manlove: