Did I kill my mead yeast?

I'm sure this is a classic newbie question/mistake. I made my first batches of mead today. I used a packet of wyeast sweet mead and divided it between 2 one gallon batches. I boiled up the water and added the honey after I removed the pots from the heating element, then I let them cool at room temp for about an hour, then got rushed an put them in a cool water bath with some ice until the pots felt cool enough to handle and pour. I poured the first batch and added half the yeast packet. The mead was warm but I hope it wasn't too warm because its been about 6 hours and there is no activity in the airlocks. Am I being impatient? My cider batches seemed to have activity after 2 hours or so. Also, I see that the re-hydration temps for yeast are high, so how can a yeast have a re-hydration temp be around 100 when the temp of the mead has to be around 80 so the yeast aren't killed? I know I didn't have to rehydrate the wyeast, but I was curious anyway. Thanks for any help!

You're probably fine. How hot was the must when you pitched the yeast?

Wyeast Sweet Mead is one of those PITA yeasts, so you might end up fine. Either way, panic after 6 hours of no airlock activity is a good 24 hours premature.

Yes, you are being impatient.
You didn't kill your yeast and it is way too soon to think there is anything wrong.

I feel much better, I've been checking on it every half hour-a watched mead never ferments...Hopefully there will be some activity by tomorrow morning! Thank you!

Meads take longer to start, ferment rather slow compared to beers and even ciders.
I'm sure your OK, make sure you have vodka/sanitizer in the air lock, a good seal, and just wait.
Remember brewing beers is measured in days and weeks.
Meads are measured in months and years.
Best of luck.

I pour a dry yeast packet right into my carboy from 75º - 90º. I dont rehydrate either. Before I go to bed it is usually in full blown fermentation mode. Buble bubble bubble.

Mead is very, very slow. Don't be surprised if it takes a week to start and a year to finish fermenting.

did you add yeast energizer? honey lacks nitrogen, which yeast need to be healthy. lack of nitrogen will slow fermentation down.

My first batch of mead (blueberry) shows virtually no airlock activity. I can tell when I open it up to punch down the blueberries that it is fermenting, but I only have a 2.5gal batch going in a 6.5gal bucket, so I'm guessing the CO2 is just compressing in the headspace. The airlock is showing a pressure differential, just not enough to bubble. Foamed like mad when I punched it down yesterday though. I'm not worried!

It seems like you have too much head space. Do you have something smaller you can rack that into?

I will once it's down under 1.030 and I rack it off the fruit. It'll go into a couple of gallon jugs at that point. I have my choice of gallon jugs, a brew bucket, or 5gal carboy. I prefer to keep fruit in the brew bucket, much easier to clean than the carboys. This is my first mead, and from my reading, other than some differences in the chemical additions, it seemed as though the process was similar to wine, so I wasnt too concerned about the headspace in primary...

malkore said:

did you add yeast energizer? honey lacks nitrogen, which yeast need to be healthy. lack of nitrogen will slow fermentation down.

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I didn't add the energizer, I thought that the nutrients that came with the wyeast would be enough. I also included some raisins which I thought might provide some nitrogen. There are signs of life though, as of this morning I have bubbles! Yay! Thanks guys!

Great! Just don't rely on the airlock as your sole indicator of (my new word here) fermentingness.

I wondered why my airlock wasn't bubbling for 3 days and did a little HBT freakout session of my own -- only to find out the piece that makes it bubble wasn't even IN my airlock and all I had was the housing and lid, so the co2 was just pushing right up the tube and out the top!