First Mean - what yeast should I use

I was planning on making my first mead tomorrow. I forgot to get mead yeast at my LHBS (which is like an hour away). I'm making a recipe from radical brewing that's made with orange blossom honey and muscat juice.

I have a packet of montrachet (sp?) dry wine yest, S-04, and S-05.

Would any of these yeasts make a suitable mead or should I wait until I get my hands on some mead yeast?

Edit: sorry for the typo in the title

Sublime8365 said:

I was planning on making my first mead tomorrow. I forgot to get mead yeast at my LHBS (which is like an hour away). I'm making a recipe from radical brewing that's made with orange blossom honey and muscat juice.

I have a packet of montrachet (sp?) dry wine yest, S-04, and S-05.

Would any of these yeasts make a suitable mead or should I wait until I get my hands on some mead yeast?

Edit: sorry for the typo in the title

Click to expand...

Mead yeast ? WTF is mead yeast ? Other than some **** that a couple of the makers have decided to call "mead yeast" (Liquid yeast producers that is).

There is no standard for meads in most of the world. The only ones that I've learned off are the Polish Government regs about how much honey to water a batch must contain before it can be called a certain type.....

Most makers, either home brewers or professionals, will have their favourite wine yeast that they like, or they're familiar with the properties of a couple of different yeasts that yield certain results when used in a specific way, so they'll use the yeast that conforms to what it is that they're trying to achieve with a certain batch.


You can use any of the yeasts you already have, but unless you have some idea of their properties, you won't know how much nutrient you're likely to need, whether they have any particular issues (like D47 and fermenting it below 70F so it doesn't produced loads of fusels etc).

The lalvin range of dry yeasts has enough data published about them to be able to make an informed choice, as to the type you want, according to the yeast properties, alcohol tolerance, nutrient requirements, etc etc.

I just wouldn't use a champagne yeast, because they blow a lot of the aromatics straight out the airlock, along with some of the more subtle flavouring elements. So if you've got a nice varietal honey that was expensive it's a waste....

I would suggest something easily obtained, so K1V-1116, which is a hard working yeast, with a wide temperature range, higher alcohol tolerance and low nutrient needs. It's a good yeast for traditionals.

the montrachet will work, most any wine yeast will if its like Red Stars it has what is considered a low floccuation and a 13% alcohol tolerance. Here is a good chart that gives a ton of info on different yeast brands/strains:

http://www.winemakermag.com/guide/yeast

Montrachet tends to produce off odors if not properly supplemented with the correct nutrients. If you use it I'd be sure that you add some nitrogen to the must. In my experience, mead turns out best when treated as a white wine. I would recommend using a yeast strain suited for that purpose. Any form of Saccharomyces bayanus will ferment very cleanly with little attention. EC-1118 is the most popular strain. Just about any yeast will do the trick though, good luck.