Yeast nutrient

jim_reaper1066 · 02-07-2010, 02:28 AM

I just put my first mead on tonight and ran out of yeast nutrient! The must is suppost to sit on campden for 24 hours before pitching the yeast, but I wont be able to buy any more nutrient until monday. Will it be alright to sit on campden longer than 24 hours, or should i just pitch the yeast and add more nutrient when i get it? Here is the recepie:

5 lbs Frozen Blueberries
16 lbs Honey
5 tsp Yeast Nutrients
2 tsp Yeast Energizer
3/4 tsp Pectic Enzyme
5 Campden tablets
3 packets of Lalvin D47 Yeast

Mix 13 lbs of honey with about 1 gallon of water. Shake until your arms are tired. I use about a half a gallon of hot water from the tap per half gallon of honey. Pour into fermentor and add one gallon of room temp water. Add nutrients, energizer, pectic enzyme and crushed campden tables. Allow blueberries to completely thaw and mash them with your hands to just crush or split the berries. Add the blueberries to the must and cover for 24 hours.

Make a yeast starter with a cup of water and a cup of the must, around 84 degrees. Add the yeast and make sure it is working. Pitch the yeast after 30 minutes and stir to suspend.

Be careful how much water you add at this point as the blueberries will rise to the top start to swell. Not over 3/4 full in the fermentor. Cover with a towel or something that can breath. You need the O2 now. Stir every day for 10-14 days. Rack off into secondary and top off to proper level. Put the Air-lock on the secondary and rack about every 30 days for 4 months. Add 1 lb of honey for the next 3 rackings for a sweeter mead. It should not be in the dry range but it is much better in the semi-sweet range, the yeast should take this to about 14.5% ABV before it is overwhelemed.

MedsenFey · 02-07-2010, 03:04 AM

I'd go ahead and pitch the yeast. Staggering the nutrients a bit actually helps the yeast to achieve maximal alcohol production.

If this is a 5-gallon batch, I might also consider cutting back a tad on yeast nutrient (to perhaps 3 tsp) and increasing the yeast energizer (to 5 tsp) to make sure there are more yeast hulls and vitamins in there, but that is probably not a big deal.

I would suggest that you rehydrate the yeast properly. You don't need to build a starter, but you might as well maximize the number of viable yeast you pitch. If you use GoFerm in your rehydration, you'll get results that will make you never want to go back. If you don't use the GoFerm, use plain water to rehydrate, but it needs to be warmer than 84 degrees. At a temp below about 86 F, phospholipids in the cell membrane of the yeast may crystallize, causing damage to the membrane. It would be better to have the water at 100-105 F. Also, you do not want to add any DAP or DAP containing nutrient to the rehydration water as it can be toxic to the yeast while the membrane is rehydrating (and still leaky).

After 15 minutes in the water, just pitch it in.

I hope it turns out well.

Medsen

KenSchramm · 02-07-2010, 12:34 PM

Medsen's comments are good. FWIW, in the future for musts that are going to be sulfited, I'd avoid adding the nutrient and energizer to the must until just before, or even shortly after you have pitched the yeast. Same for the blueberries. Sulfites don't kill everything, and by adding the micro nutrients and the nitrogen source before the yeast, you are giving whatever bacteria and wild yeast that does live a head start at reproduction and consumption of the nutrients, and/or infection of the fruit mass.

I prefer to add all the honey up front, as would be the condition in the kinds of grape musts to which these yeast strains have been acclimatized. I'm not one to feed honey to the yeast after the fermentation is underway. You end up artificially selecting for cells that can produce alcohol while enduring progressively more stressful conditions. In my experience, that can tend to elevate levels of higher alcohols. YMMV.

jim_reaper1066 · 02-11-2010, 01:38 AM

Thanks for the tips guys. I went ahead and pitched the yeast after rehydrating in water alone at 40 C, the brew shops around here only carry generic yeast nutrient and energizer so no go-ferm for me. I covered it with some cheesecloth to let it breath and it took off fermenting after a day.
I'v been stirring quite vigorously about 5 min each day in order to aerate, but I was wondering if tit would be enough? After reading about people aerating their must with air stones and pure oxygen, would simply sloshing and stirring my a long handle spoon introduce enough O2 to keep the yeast going.
I also taste the few drops left on the tip of the spoon once im done, and so far it tastes a little mediciny, is this to be expected so early in the fermentation or could something have gone wrong? contamination, oxidation?

MedsenFey · 02-11-2010, 01:49 AM

I often use a whisk to aerate. It's low-tech, but very effective. As long as you open it to air and stir it around, the yeast will get enough oxygen to do the job.

Young mead often tastes a bit harsh and sometimes medicinal. With D47, keep the temp below 72F it at all possible (in the 60s will be best). At temps in the mid 70s D47 tends to produce a lot of fusels and gives results that taste like paint thinner for a long time.

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