Weak Mead?

Axxx · 04-30-2008, 04:10 PM

Hey,
I just brewed 2 gallons of mead, I used a jar of unprocessed honey, and added some refined sugar to aid fermentation.

However, after leaving it for about a week, and fermentation grinding to a halt, I am dissappointed with the results. It seems the mead is incredibly weak, I am not sure exactly how weak, but after drinking about a quarter of a gallon, I'd say weaker than your average beer (4%).

I suspect it could be the very cheap yeast I used ("Allinson Dried Active yeast")
which is £1 for 125grams.

Any way I can beef up my mead?

Excuse my noobishness,
Axx

**Yuri_Rage** · 04-30-2008, 04:17 PM

How much honey/sugar did you use?

FatDuc · 04-30-2008, 04:23 PM

Well, you might want to let us know what size jar of honey, and how much, by weight, sugar you used. You very well might have simply not used enough to produce the alcohol volume you thought you might get.

Then there's your yeast selection. I'm not familiar with that type, is it for beer/wine? I imagine that only a pound for 125 grams indicates that it's a baking yeast, not brewing. Next time you give this a shot figure on about 1.5kilos of honey to a gallon (UK) of water, and try using a wine or mead yeast. I don't know if you can get Lalvin or Red Star dry yeasts nearby your location (which I'm assuming is the UK somewhere, since you used £, not $, and you don't have you profile filled in more), but something like a champagne yeast should get you closer to a high alcohol count you want. It will give you a much dryer, wine-like product as well, which you might not like, though.

**Yuri_Rage** · 04-30-2008, 04:28 PM

Ok, I just looked up Allinson yeast - it appears to be baking yeast.

This thread approaches a hooch thread...

...let's keep it civil.

Docapi · 04-30-2008, 05:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yuri_Rage

This thread approaches a hooch thread...

...let's keep it civil.

LOL!........

**olllllo** · 04-30-2008, 05:43 PM

With a proper yeast it should be fine and you'll escape the hooch charge.

tooomanycolors · 04-30-2008, 07:34 PM

In all fairness JAOM assumes using a bread yeast...

**Nurmey** · 04-30-2008, 11:10 PM

Since the OP profile says he is 19 years old, maybe we should ask a few other questions like where he is located.

**olllllo** · 04-30-2008, 11:31 PM

London, UK

**Nurmey** · 05-01-2008, 12:38 AM

Cool! (Sorry, felt I had to check before contributing to the delinquency of a minor.

)

The upside of doing a weak mead is that it ages a lot quicker than regular strength mead. I have some "lighter" mead that tastes really good after only a month or so, however, I am letting it age for a few more months.

You can feed it more honey to give it a little more oomph. I have not used bread yeast but from my understanding it ferments out pretty completely. You can sanitize the bottle and just add more to the top of your fermenter. The honey will drop to the bottom but the yeast will find it and kick your fermentation back up. Or you can heat a little water, add honey to liquefy it, cool the mixture and add that to your fermenter. I've just dumped the honey in without heating and it worked fine. Either way you get more honey in there is going to help up your alcohol.

Welcome to HBT!