Refermenting in bottle???

So I made a plain oaked mead that I began on March 24, 2012 with an OG of 1.096. By July 13, 2012 I had an SG of 1.004, after I re-pitched yeast in April after a stalled fermentation early on. I fermented until it stopped. I filtered it on February 1, 2013 onto 1/4 tsp of Potassium Metabisulphite, and bottled on Feb 2, 2013. The first 10 bottles or so have been great, in perfect condition. I am drinking a bottle now, and there is a bit of sediment in the bottle, and it is fairly sparkling. I checked the balance of my bottles, and they are all beginning to show sediment. The temp in the room is fairly consistent at about 15* C. All signs point to fermentation, and if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck. I thought I did everything right. Is there any explain action for this? Could the potassium sorbate be that important even when something is left to ferment for over 10 months? Thanks guys. This has been my first mead, and a great success until now.

if there was infection, yes, it's possible. the only bottle-bombs i ever had years ago was a porter that had been in the bottle 6 months

How many gallons of mead and how much sulphides did you use?

Sorry, 5 gallon batch, 15lbs of honey. 1/4 tsp of metabisulphite after #2 filter. Taste is still great once the gas comes out. Before that, it's just gassy and that takes some of the taste out.

What was missing from your description seems to be those two magic words.......

Potassium Sorbate.

Never to be used on its own of course, but in conjunction with the sulphites would likely have done the trick..........

You don't say what yeast you used but all the time there's room in the tolerance for further fermentation and even the smallest amount of residual sugars, correct stabilisation should be carried out.......

Was your F.G. 1.004 or did it drop lower? If it was anything other than dry, you still had fermentables in play. Mead is notorious for taking abnormal amount of time to drop those final points.

To be honest, I kind of assumed that 1.004 was the final gravity. It was consistent for a couple of weeks, and given the higher ABV, I figured that was it. I also was under the impression that filtering would remove any yeast. But why start now?

machinist09 said:

To be honest, I kind of assumed that 1.004 was the final gravity. It was consistent for a couple of weeks, and given the higher ABV, I figured that was it. I also was under the impression that filtering would remove any yeast. But why start now?

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Have you rechecked a SG to see if it has dropped? If it is a referment now who knows what triggered it, but this would not be the first one that has happened even this far out. FWIW, 0.003 is a great SG to bottle at for a sparkling-in-progress! And unfortunately many are under the impression that filtering removes live cells, but even with absolute filtration you have to make a few runs and hope you got them all.

I've had gravity at .992 before, so 1.004 may be dry for a beer, but not the same for wine/mead.

Also the number 3 filters are used for sterilization, so to speak, but those shouldn't be solely relied upon when adding sulfite/sorbate is so simple.

machinist09 said:

To be honest, I kind of assumed that 1.004 was the final gravity. It was consistent for a couple of weeks, and given the higher ABV, I figured that was it. I also was under the impression that filtering would remove any yeast. But why start now?

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At 1.004, it wasn't done. With an OG of 1.096, it should have stopped at .990. I don't know why it restarted when it did, but unless you did a "sterile filtration" with a .5 micron pad, the yeast would have remained in the mead.

For future reference, how did you get that number? There gotta be a standard formula, especially since all I used was water and honey(aka sugar). ,

I just took an SG reading, and it is at 0.999. I suppose my best option at this point is to put it all in a fridge at about 0*C(32*F). I just took a look at my calendar, and on Feb 2, 2013(bottling day) it says FG 1.004, but to be fair, I may have just copied that from July 2012, as I also noted OG. I may have just wrote them there so it'd be in the same place. Next batch will get a heating belt for months, and I'll make sure to keep a much closer eye on SG. I figured that a .004 change in 2 months would have meant it would have finished 8 months later, but maybe not. Would also explain why there was so much CO2 near bottling time. I had expected the CO2 to come out on its own after so long as well, but there was A LOT in January.

Yes, all the CO2 is due to fermentation still ongoing. I want to see Yooper's response on how she determined how low the FG could potentially go. I look at my yeast's potential and know it tends to produce a bit more than the range indicates. But, just keep those bottles cool and open carefully.

saramc said:

Yes, all the CO2 is due to fermentation still ongoing.

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I fully understand that it is now, but back when I was brewing, I had never stirred it. I thought by leaving it for nearly a year, the gas would have escaped. It had not. In fact, I have not seen something with so much gas ever. That was lesson #1. Connecting the dots now tells me that it was because of very slow fermentation, rather that just a tendency to hold carbonation. This batch received two packages of Wyeast for "Wine, Mead, Cider, Distilling and Sake", not sure strain number. It sat for nearly a year. Seems really long to me. Is this normal for meads? I expected months to ferment, not years.

Well, I had a mead push 9 months before it finally dried out. My gut says if that if your yeast a Wyeast Sweet Mead yeast that could be the culprit. A history of slow, slow going. But knowing the tolerance of the Wyeast wine/mead yeasts and your OG of 1.096 I would've anticipated the batch to dry out. Alas, lesson learned and hopefully others will gain something from your experience.

Out of curiosity, was this dropping lees after your last racking, before you bottled? I follow a rule of it has to be lees free for a period of 60 days after most recent racking, gas free and clear, before I even consider moving toward stabilizing/bottling.

It never dropped anything on it's own from about month 7 forward. Only towards the end when I used chitosan and kieselsol did anything fall out.

machinist09 said:

For future reference, how did you get that number? There gotta be a standard formula, especially since all I used was water and honey(aka sugar). ,

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With an OG of 1.096. ANY wine yeast will finish dry. It's true that some have higher alcohol tolerance than others (champagne yeast can go to 18+%) but all of them will easily go dry (to .990) with simple sugars like fruit and honey and an OG of 1.096 (14%).

I get that the yeast should go to dry, but how do you know in this case that dry for 1.094 is .990. Say, as opposed to .995, or .985, or anything else.

machinist09 said:

I get that the yeast should go to dry, but how do you know in this case that dry for 1.094 is .990. Say, as opposed to .995, or .985, or anything else.

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Well, it can't get below .990 so that's the "floor" so to speak.

It could stop higher, like at .995 but not if you're not close to the ABV tolerance of the yeast strain, and almost every yeast strain will easily go to 14% without a problem.

Since simple sugars are easily fermented by wine yeast, it's rare for it to "stick" but it's possible if there are a lack of nutrients. It's not done, it's stuck.

"Done" is when it gets to .990, and is stablized, OR incrementally fed until the alcohol tolerance is reached.

Thanks for the help. Appreciate it. Always new stuff to learn. Although I understand what going on fairly well, I probably don't have the experience most of you folks do.