No activity on the airlock

My airlock has no activity at all. I watched it for one minute and nothing. I took a sample, tested the gravity, it was at 1.02. OG was 1.065. It tastes ok, not very honey tasting though. It was still really cloudy. Has the fermentation stopped? If so, what should I do about it?

Hi Phil. Wait another day or so and then measure the gravity again. If it has not budged at all then your fermentation may have stalled. Can't say what you should do until you advise us what you have done and are doing... so.. some questions:
What yeast are you using?
Did you add nutrient?
Do you know (did you measure) the pH of your mead?
What is the ambient temperature of your "meadery"?
What honey are you fermenting? Did you add any other fruit or herbs or spices?

You say that it does not taste very honey like.. but if your OG was 1.065 then you have about 1.5 lbs of honey in a gallon of water. That is a pretty dilute mixture when all the flavor comes from the honey itself. In other words, to make a reasonably honey flavored mead you really want to begin with a starting gravity of at least 1.090 and perhaps 1.120 which would be about 2.5 - 3 lbs of honey in every gallon of water.
Some things that you might do to restart a stalled fermentation is
increase the temperature if it is too low,
whisk air into the carboy
add nutrient
increase the pH if it is too close to 3.00

I'm using a champagne yeast, don't remember the brand right off hand. I added 5 tsps of nutrients, It's a 5 gallon batch. I used 15 pounds of Dutch Gold clover honey. The temp is about 71 too 72 degrees. No spices or anything else added to it.

I think I didn't stir it well enough when I started. That might account for the OG reading. I did stir it for 5 minutes, but I may not have mixed it well enough. I didn't test the ph, and I don't have a way to test it. The first week or so it was bubbling really good. Like 8 or so times in 15 seconds. Last night, and again this afternoon, there is no activity at all.

What I took as a sample last night, I poured into a glass and put in the fridge overnight. It does have more of a honey taste than I thought at first. It definitely has some alcohol in it.

Have you agitated it to degas it at all?

9mmruger said:

Have you agitated it to degas it at all?

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No. I've just let it sit since I put the lid on it.

Unlike beer, mead will benefit from de-gasing by either stirring it gently or sloshing it around in the fermenter. This removes excess carbon dioxide and makes the yeasties happy.

9mmruger said:

Unlike beer, mead will benefit from de-gasing by either stirring it gently or sloshing it around in the fermenter. This removes excess carbon dioxide and makes the yeasties happy.

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I find that beers appreciate it as well, particularly lagers.

noblesquirrel said:

I find that beers appreciate it as well, particularly lagers.

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I've actually just been thinking about this, and I think I'm going to experiment with a batch and degas a couple of times a day for the first couple of days of fermentation and see how it goes.

I gave it a sloshing, I did see come bubbles in the airlock. I'll check again later to see if it's bubbling again.