Question about my first batch of mead

Alright, I made a 5 gallon batch of mead with 16lbs of clover honey, 4 gallons of water, and white labs sweet mead yeast. It has been in the primary fermenter for 4 days and I haven't seen a single bubble come up out of the airlock. My O.G. Is 1.100 and I haven't taken a second reading to see if it's fermenting or not but I don't think it is. What do I do to fix this problem? Please help

Curious what the temperature is doing, do you have a temp strip on the fermenter? And what is the temperature in the room where you are fermenting? You may need to warm the room up a bit to get it kicked off.
Hopefully others will have other ideas. You may need to get another batch of yeast and try pitching again.
Good luck!!

My temp strip is reading 72 degrees. Is it to late to add yeast nutrients to it?

Well temp should be good, u might be careful with the nutrient. Maybe boil it in a small amount of water first. What r your thoughts on pitching more yeast too?

I'm definitely willing to pitch more yeast. I'm just worried about it doing the same thing. Why do you say be careful with the nutrients and what will boiling it do? I'm very new to mead and wines?

I'm just thinking about sterilization in regards to boiling the nutrient, only talking for about 10 minutes too.
I've only done one batch of Mead myself, still have about 20 bottles of it. I'm letting it set. Wish I had back sweetened it some as it finished a little bit dry for my taste. I wanted it a little bit sweeter.
The fermentation went real well though, no issues at all with it starting, and it finished at a real low gravity.
Sure wish someone else would chime in here to help you with some ideas.

Did you aerate/oxygenate the must at all? Did you add ANY nutrient to the must when you first mixed it? If you've not added any nutrient, get some DAP, Fermax or Fermaid... Might be a good idea to get some yeast energizer too. Dose the must per the instructions (per total volume) and see what happens.

I've added nutrient to musts dry before (after pitching the yeast) without any issue at all.

Also, look at the top of the must... Does it have any bubbles forming on it? I had my first batch with Wyeast Eau de Vie in it take a few days longer than I expected (started the airlock moving after 5-6 days). I fed it, gave it pure O2 at the start and such. It just took a longer time to reproduce and exit the lag phase than I expected. I started it on December 5th and I'm STILL getting gas out of it. I think it's done, but it's producing CO2 every day no matter what the temperatures do...

Found some links for you that may be helpful! If you type in "slow start mead fermentation" in the search slot in the mug on the top right hand of the homebrewtalk page you can get even more results.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f30/apparent-slow-start-my-first-mead-159234/
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f30/possible-slow-mead-fermentation-110616/
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f30/total-mead-noob-questions-100890/

I did aerate it really good before I pitched the yeast and I did not add any nutrient or anything else to it. There's no bubbles what do ever.

I will check that link out later on today.

Thanks for all the help. I think I'm going to give it a couple more days to make sure it's not just a slow start and then I'll figure out if I'm just going to pitch it again and if I'm going to use any nutrients or not. Thanks again

IMO/IME, adding nutrient to the must is a good idea... You don't have much to lose by adding it now, since it's not doing anything. I would add the nutrient BEFORE I pitched more yeast (it's also the cheaper option)...

Go to the LHBS and get Fermaid/Fermax and yeast energizer. It will have the dose amount on the package (x per gallon)... Add that and see what happens in a few days.

Something else you can try... Swirl the fermenter and see if you get any activity (at all)... Just roll it on an edge, nothing violent, and don't open it up.

A staggered nutrient addition is best. Check out high tests honey haven for the article and other neat stuff

This post should be moved to the Mead Forum. The recipe database is reserved for "Tried and True" recipes.

Ok do last Sunday I popped the lid off and there were a bunch of tiny bubbles coming up but my still none coming out of the airlock. I just got home and popped the lid off one more time and it still has tiny bubbles coming up. So my question is, is this ok or how should it be? Thanks for any inputs and sorry I posted this in the wrong spot. I don't know how to move it over.

Bubbles forming means the yeast is producing CO2, which means it's eating the sugar and also producing alcohol. A SG reading will reveal by how much.

With a bucket fermenter, there's a very real possibility that it's simply not sealing enough to have the gas produced go through the airlock.

What happens if you gently swirl the fermenter (fully closed up)?? Does gas go through the airlock??

BTW, IME, 16# of honey in a 5 gallon must isn't all that strong. Confirmed by the OG of 1.100. You're probably looking at ~13.5% ABV there. With the yeast you used, it might peter out before then though. You won't know until you've established the FG.

Give it a couple more weeks. Take a gravity sample next week and see where it's at. As long as it's lower than the OG, it's fermenting. With mead, you want to space the SG readings (for determining FG) at least a week or three apart. If it doesn't move at all in a month, then it's probably at FG. It can still move lower though. This is yet another reason to give mead TIME in bulk form, or before bottling it...

Ok just an update. 1 month in and I racked it over to the secondary. There is no movement again in the must. I took a reading at 1.070 so I know it fermented down a little bit. After reading about yeast nutrients I decided to add a teaspoon of it just to see if it will get going a little more. Much to my surprise, it started to valcano out on me. Definitely wasn't expecting that. After about 10 seconds it stopped. I cleaned the airlock out and returned to the carboy. It's bubbling out nicely now. I definitely learned my lesson with the nutrient. Who knew? Oh well, looks good now. I'll keep you updated on how it goes. Thanks everyone for the help.

I never rack a batch of mead until I KNOW it's done fermenting. That could be one month or four months. Since you didn't add nutrient initially, that's why it didn't drop all that much (gravity) before you prematurely racked. Next time, take a SG reading BEFORE you rack, not after. Also, either add nutrient in steps, during initial fermentation, or add the full dose at the start. Not adding some kind of nutrient for the yeast is just foolish when it comes to mead. That could be anything from DAP, Fermax, Fermaid, to raisins. Also, using some yeast energizer isn't a bad idea.

I have a batch of hard lemonade/skeeter pee in primary right now. Even though I added nutrient to the initial mix, I've added more energizer to it the other day. It's going better again. I'm just waiting (now) for it to finish fermenting and for the yeast to flocculate out before I go to the next step.

Thanks for the info. I'm definitely learning with this one. Question though, why not rack it until its completely fermenting?

demons210 said:

Thanks for the info. I'm definitely learning with this one. Question though, why not rack it until its completely fermenting?

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Would you pull a turkey out of the oven before it was confirmed done?? IMO very close to the same thing. Just because it might be long enough someplace else doesn't mean it's done where you are.

demons210 said:

Ok just an update. 1 month in and I racked it over to the secondary. There is no movement again in the must. I took a reading at 1.070 so I know it fermented down a little bit. After reading about yeast nutrients I decided to add a teaspoon of it just to see if it will get going a little more. Much to my surprise, it started to valcano out on me. Definitely wasn't expecting that. After about 10 seconds it stopped. I cleaned the airlock out and returned to the carboy. It's bubbling out nicely now. I definitely learned my lesson with the nutrient. Who knew? Oh well, looks good now. I'll keep you updated on how it goes. Thanks everyone for the help.

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I didn't see about whether you used any other ingredients, or just honey, water and the yeast pack. A batch like that, is known as a "show mead". The lack of nutrients/energiser for the yeast in these type batches makes for very long, slow ferments, the same honey/water/yeast but with nutrients/energiser is termed "traditional mead" - they're different classes in competition, hence the different nomenclature.

When adding nutrients/energiser to an already fermenting batch, it's always safer to place the fermenter in a sink or somewhere that will contain any spillage. Then it's recommended that you aerate/stir the brew first, starting gently as you will be resuspending some of the yeast cells that have sunken - they will create nucleation points for the dissolved CO2 (carbonic acid) to collect around and come out of solution as foam - hence the gentle start in stirring, to preven the mead eruption/fountain. After a couple of minutes of stirring/aeration, use a sanitised turkey baster to withdraw some of the liquid and use it to mix with the nutrient/energiser, then the mixed liquid can be poured back in and stirrer a bit more to fully incorporate it.

demons210 said:

Thanks for the info. I'm definitely learning with this one. Question though, why not rack it until its completely fermenting?

Click to expand...

When racking, you will leave some of the sediment in the bottom of the primary fermenter, now this might just seem like dead yeast, but dead yeast also acts as feed for the active/live yeast cells, some of which will also be in the sediment, so racking to secondary before it's necessary will reduce the size of the yeast colony and can cause a stuck ferment, or at least a further "lag phase" while it's building up again.

One of the advantages of using dry yeast, is that the cell count is considerably higher than with the liquid yeasts - a lot of people recommend that a yeast starter is made if you want to use the liquid yeasts - the other advantage is dry yeast is cheaper and less prone to having problems caused by poor storage (the liquid stuff usually has to be kept chilled until ready for use).

Presuming you're a new mead maker, here's the best link for you to read - yes it's a fair amount to read through but it contains a hell of a lot of excellent advice and guidance about most aspects of mead making.