Malkore's Mead help

Khyber · 09-23-2009, 06:15 PM

Making a Mr. Beer full of this currently. (first attempt at mead making) I didn't have my hydrometer at home when I pitched the yeast (used the sweet mead smack pack), and it seemed to take a while to get cranked up. Did this Saturday.

Recipe was 2 gallons of water, 5 pounds of clover honey from Sam's, zest and juice from one orange, two sticks of cinnamon. Steeped for 10 mins at 140 degrees, then cooled in ice bath with particulates removed when placed into Mr. Beer.

Now it's burping away through the fermentation lock around every 18 seconds, and the SG is around 1.070. Should I toss in some nutrients, or just shake it up to aerate it?

**claphamsa** · 09-23-2009, 06:33 PM

doing it the RIGHT WAY would be to add nutrient. I rarely do, but first time you should get into good habits!

**Nurmey** · 09-23-2009, 06:39 PM

Honey does not have any nutrients for the yeast so adding some would be very beneficial.

Khyber · 09-23-2009, 08:23 PM

Should I get some nutrients from the LHBS, and if so, which one, or is there a version that can be made easily at the house.

jcobbs · 09-23-2009, 09:08 PM

Malkore uses yeast nutrient instead of the raisins which were in the original Joe's Ancient Orange Mead recipe. The raisins were there to provide nutrients for the yeast. You could add some raisins if you have some around. I believe JAOM calls for 25 raisins for a gallon batch. I don't count them out myself, I just use about 1/2 of a snack-size box for a gallon batch.

Khyber · 09-25-2009, 01:13 AM

Tossed in a snack size box of raisins and stirred it good with a sanitized spoon. Burping speed has increased a bit, and its still going. So far so good, i guess.