Beware yeast in the fridge

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Bluespark

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I made a tropical melomel. At 7 days I transferred it to a carboy off the fruit. There was an extra litre of mead that I put in a swing top bottle and stuck in the fridge for topping up when I racked.

At the point I racked it the fermentation had slowed right down. I carefully checked the swing top in the fridge(popping the top to let off excess co2) for the 4 days after putting it there, to make sure the yeast had 'gone to sleep' in the cold fridge. I figured it should be good after that, so I left it in there for a couple weeks(near freezing). Yesterday I racked the gallon off the sediment and went to top it up with the swing top. I'm actually shocked the bottle didn't explode in the fridge. I popped the top and promptly had mead EVERY WHERE. The whole kitchen, tables, counters, cupboard, garbage can, EVERYTHING, was coated. It smelled great, but what a mess!

I have never seen a more carbonated bottle of anything. It wasn't far off the results from putting a few mentos in a bottle of coke.

Lesson learned: never trust yeast not to work in the fridge!
 
Once they get going, they are pretty hard to stop until they say so. There was probably a lot of active fermentation still going on especially if you didn't use any nutrients. (doesnt say if you did or didn't but there you have it).
 
What strain of yeast? I'd like to know which ones may need close watching even in the fridge.
 
Ha, 71b was that active cold? I would have thought 1118 or 1116 was what you used but it is fun to see 71b fermented that well. I like that yeast and use it a lot. I may need to have a few fridge experiments.
 
Arpolis said:
Ha, 71b was that active cold? I would have thought 1118 or 1116 was what you used but it is fun to see 71b fermented that well. I like that yeast and use it a lot. I may need to have a few fridge experiments.

Brings up an interesting line of inquiry. Would a cold fermented mead have different characteristics. We know that too high of a temp can have an effect.
 
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