Mead slow/no start

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jpickett

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louisville
On 12-10-12 I pitched a six gallon batch of traditional mountain honey style mead. I used the no boil method. I brought the honey up to a pourable temp and poured that into three gallons of tap water. Checking with louisville water company the Tap water is cleaner than any available bottled spring water. TDS. From the tap is 51. Completely mixed that in and then added water to bring to six gallons. Must temp is at 70'. I then introduced yeast that is at 70' as well. Dosed nutrients and then stirred that for 10 mins. Air bubbles to the max. Blanked the must with CO2 snapped the lid and installed airlock.

24 hrs later. No bubbles. Added 1/2tsp nutrients and stirred for 10 more min. 12-11-12. Reblanked with CO2

12-12-12 Again no sign of fermentation. Added 1/2 tsp of nutrients and then 10 more minutes of having a numb arm. "Note buy wine degasser for drill"

Question is. Do you believe this is stuck or just REAL slow to start? This is my first batch of mead so I am a complete nube to this. Could be normal behavior and I wouldn't know. The yeast smack pack proofed to about 50% of what my cider yeast packs due. Thought that was a tad strange. But also thought it could be due to it being a different strain of yeast. Mfg date was 18jun12. I have been brewing ciders for a year now and have yet to have this happen with any of those.

Now what would you pros do. Wait it out. Place the must into a fridge to prevent spoilage until new yeast can arrive. Or some other wisdom you have.

Recipe

15 lbs Dutch gold orange blossom honey
5 lbs Dutch gold wild flower honey
One smack pack of wyeast sweat mead yeast 4184
1/2 tsp yeast nutrients on pitch date. Food grade urea and diammonium phosphate


12-10-12. SG @ 70'. 1.123
12-11-12 SG @ 72'. 1.120.
12-12-12. SG @ 70' 1.122

Thanks.
 
Issue # 1 is the Wyeast Sweet mead yeast. That stuff is a Pita when dealing with traditional meads. Traditional style meads with no fruits or spices have very little nutrients. If using the Sweet mead yeast with a batch size 3 gallons or more it is best to make a starter first that the smack mack pours into.

Second is that you will need more than DAP to get the sweet mead yeast to go properly. If you can get some yeast energizer which is the Tan powdered type nutrient, then that will help a lot. The original DAP dosage for a 6 gallon batch should have been a minimum of 6tsp, 1 tsp Energizer and step feeding an additional 5 tsp of yeast energizer up to the 1/3 sugar break point.

If you do not have access to get any energizer soon then 60 raisins cut in half along with 6 tsp of bakers yeast boild in 2 cups of water over a period of 15 minuts can be added to provide some much needed nutrients.

I personally think you are just having a long Lag phase because of the yeast used and a lack of nutrients. Add in the lack of nutrients that was not added as explained above and let it go for about 48 - 72 hours and see where it goes.

One good thing about mead is that it is really hard to mess up. You do not need to blanket the mead with CO2 unless you are bulk aging after the fermentation has stopped. So don't worry about doing that just yet, the oxygen is your friend at this point. Your must can probably sit at room temps for a long time without any spoilage as long as you kept things clean. Don't worry there either.

Worst case scenario is that you go another 3 - 4 days and still no fermentation. Go and get some Lalvin K1-V1116 yeast & make at least a 2 cup stater. Once the starter is fermenting strong start adding 1/2 cup of your must to the starter once every 2 hours untill you have about 4 cups of liquid. As long as the starter does not stop fermenting you can pitch that and it will definatley start & finish your mead then.
 
Hum? The quantity of nutrients you mention is tiny. I used combined nutrient like Fermaidk or similar as honey is famous for being very low. Not at all like beers, cider or wines. I also use 1tsp per gallon minimum, usually 1 tsp of Fermaidk and a half tsp of DAP, per gallon......

Also, the wyeast sweet mead yeast is finicky as hell. Famous for causing stuck ferments or not starting at all. A search would show that the number of people who use it successfully is out weighed by those who have problems.

I mean, a "mead" yeast ? How the f*** do they know ? When there's little known about historic meads and nothing about yeasts as they didnt understand yeast or fermentation much more than what? 50? 100 years ago? Personally I think that yeast is ****.

Get yourself a pack of Lalvin K1-V1116, rehydrate it as per pack instructions, pitch and add a minimum of 1tsp Fermaidk or fermax or similar combined nutrient per gallon. Stir like hell and wait. No need to use CO2 blanketing, that's a beer thing (unless youre trying to store a finished mead in an oversized fermenter/carboy with too much head space. Thats the time to worry about oxidation, not before).
 
Good deal. I was thinking I just messed this up royaly. Good to know that's not true. So. Tomorrow ill try to locate the k1-v1116 and get that pitched. So for tonight should I add any additional of the nutrients that I have. Or just wait until I can get some energizer and fermax tomorrow and feed the hell out of it? Thanks for all your help. I'll have to reread y'all's post tmr. Way to tired to process it and make wise slow methodical changes to the must. Good thing mead takes patiences. One slack night won't kill it.....right?
 
Several days at room temp shouldn't be a problem, honey kills Most everything it touches, hence it not fermenting right now. The 1116 is top notch yeast for meads though, if it don't start there there's only one more wine yeast that could, 1118 will start a car, but you won't get any of the subtle flavored you want. Try everything you can before 1118. Good luck.
 
Cool. Thanks. I've got about five places around town that have a good selection of yeast. Hopefully they will have it in stock. So many yeast so little time. Kinds like my motto for life.
If it flies, ferments, or French kisses stay on top of it Just didn't want to let my second chance slip out from underneath me and not even know it.
 
Just be aware, using K1V means [most likely] the mead will go to dry. As in below 1.000 dry. If you want to have a sweet mead at the end, you'll need to either feed it more honey to get the yeast to it's limit and then add some more to sweeten to taste. OR stabilize the batch when it's done (or stops) and then back sweetend to taste. Either way, on those, you're months away from that time frame. Since the potential for your batch is about 15.5-16%, I would plan on not going to bottles for at least a year. Rack every few months, once it's absolutely DONE fermenting, and when it's crystal clear (as in you can read through it), either age it some more (in bulk) or stabilize, back-sweeten and then bottle it up.

Before you start another batch, I would also suggest going over to the Got Mead forums and see how other mazers are doing it. There are a few of us on both boards. :D fatbloke is one of them.

BTW, in all my mead batches I have yet to use a yeast labeled (or marketed) as a 'mead' yeast. I'm using Lalvin strains (which K1V is one of) with great results. I did use Wyeast Eau de Vie in ONE batch, because I wanted to go to 21% ABV in a flavored mead. That's still in process after more than a year (about to start the flavor additions actually). That one isn't planned to go to bottles for another 6-12 months. I'm also getting ready to try another yeast, that I plan to push to it's limits, and beyond. Not something I would suggest a newbee attempt. :D

Remember, be PATIENT with your mead. It's not at all like brewing beer. Completely different time frames, processes, etc.
 
Well I was lucky today. I was able to pick up six sachets of k1v and two bottles of yeast energizer. I'm gonna start the starter using orange juice later this evening. I will post a step by step of what I do later. Should I add any more DAP today? Or just leave it be. Total to date it's been dosed with 1.5 tsp of DAP.
 
Well I was lucky today. I was able to pick up six sachets of k1v and two bottles of yeast energizer. I'm gonna start the starter using orange juice later this evening. I will post a step by step of what I do later. Should I add any more DAP today? Or just leave it be. Total to date it's been dosed with 1.5 tsp of DAP.

Why orange juice?? You're not going to use all six packs of the yeast, are you?? I would start off by adding the nutrient after checking the SG. If the yeast you pitched originally isn't doing anything, then rehydrate ONE pack of the K1V and add that. You can use a little energizer in that solution.
 
Old habits die hard. I always use it to start my cider yeast. My starter recipe has always been 1 cup orange juice, 3tbs white sugar, and 2 cups water and one packet of yeast. Never had a failed start using it. I am only using one packet. I use that in my cider some times and just got the extra to have on hand. The also gave me a vial of white labs mead yeast. Who knows if ill ever use it. It's not old. Mfg date of nov 2012
 
Manufacture date or best used by date? Wyeast puts the production date, White Labs puts the Best by: date on their vials. Production date is typically 4 months prior to that. So, the WLP099 I have in the fridge, has a Best by date of March 7, 2013. Which means it has a production date of about November 7th of this year.

What is the shelf life of White Labs Yeast?

Quick Answer: 4 Months
Long Answer: Yeast is a living organism. As such, it needs to be in the right conditions to survive. Dry yeast can stay alive for one year, but yeast left in liquid form, even though it's a better product in terms of taste and performance, is more perishable. At White Labs, we are constantly working on our recipe to maximize the viability of the yeast in long term storage. The longer we can make the yeast last in the vial, the better shape it will be in for fermentation. After 30 days in the vial, the viability of our yeast is 75-85%, which is very high for liquid yeast. Yeast that is harvested after a brewery fermentation will typically have a viability of less then 50% after 30 days. Our high viability is due to the health of the yeast and nutrient content of our liquid at packaging. After 6 weeks, lag time before active fermentation is usually between 15-20 hours. The shelf life for White Labs Yeast is four months. Yeast used after this point is usually fine, but lag times will be longer. There will be living yeast in most vials for 6-12 months, so if a starter is made to activate the yeast, successful fermentations can be carried out with aged yeast.

If the vial you have lists a best by date of November X, 2012, it's already over 4 months old. Which means you will want to use a starter there.
 
Good call on the date info. 12 hr days are catching up with me. May just use the white labs on some cider. If it wont pitch no harm no foul. This summer we aged spring water in just from the distillery bourbon barrels. Gotta love living 15 mins from bardstown KY And owning a landscaping company that can buy directly from the distilleries. Using it to bottle some really good apple bourbon cider. Next year we are going to pair up with KY gentleman cigar company and age some Excellent tobacco in our barrels we bulk age cider in. Then we will use that tobacco to hand roll cigars that will match our ciders flavor profile. Can't wait for that. But that's one year of bulk ageing cider then one more year for the tobacco. Oh we'll good thing I'm patient person
 
12-13-12. Checked must SG and it was still at 1.122@ 69' so I did the following.

Started a starter using one packet of k1-v1116 in two cups of 70' water. Starter contained 2 tbs of white sugar and .5 tsp of energizer. Let this work for three hrs. 1.5 hr into the starter was booming. So I added 1 cup of the must into the starter. 1.5 hrs later it was foaming like my kids bathtub. So I added an additional 1 cup of the must. Two hrs later its going even harder.

I introduced the starter into the must along with 1/2 tsp of additional energizer. Bring the total of energizer to 1 tsp. Mixed that in with the degaser for three minutes.

Should I add any more energizer & nutrient "DAP". If so how much. I'm getting mixed procedures from reading here and got mead on the slow feed schedule. Would really appreciate hearing what y'all's slow feeding schedule for this mead would be

Thanks
Joshu
 
12-13-12. Checked must SG and it was still at 1.122@ 69' so I did the following.

Started a starter using one packet of k1-v1116 in two cups of 70' water. Starter contained 2 tbs of white sugar and .5 tsp of energizer. Let this work for three hrs. 1.5 hr into the starter was booming. So I added 1 cup of the must into the starter. 1.5 hrs later it was foaming like my kids bathtub. So I added an additional 1 cup of the must. Two hrs later its going even harder.

I introduced the starter into the must along with 1/2 tsp of additional energizer. Bring the total of energizer to 1 tsp. Mixed that in with the degaser for three minutes.

Should I add any more energizer & nutrient "DAP". If so how much. I'm getting mixed procedures from reading here and got mead on the slow feed schedule. Would really appreciate hearing what y'all's slow feeding schedule for this mead would be

Thanks
Joshu

You can either step feed nutrient until you hit the 1/3 break, or add it all at this time. You'll want to degas and aerate the must until you hit the 1/3 break though.
 
What do you prefer to do? Do I need to add any more energizer?

Energizer is typically 1/2 tsp per gallon of must. Nutrient is typically 1tsp per gallon of must. Depending on how much you already added, you may need to add more.

I've used both methods. My first batches I did the step feeding of nutrient and many SG readings. Next set I gave the total amount to and then just degassed and aerated until it seemed like it was time to stop (didn't go nuts with it). I'm starting to bottle those second batches now. So, will see (in time) how they came out. I have a BIG batch on deck that I'll be doing a lot of tending to while fermenting. Due to the high target, I'll not only step feed it nutrient, but also more honey. Mostly due to my high ABV goal. I want to push WLP099 to it's listed limit, and beyond. :D Yeah, I'm nuts. lol

If you have a pure O2 system already, you can hit the must with that for the first couple/few days, once (or twice) a day. After that I would probably not do any more. If you don't have a pure O2 system, then you need to decide which method to try out.

IMO, you need to do both and then decide for yourself which you like better and which gives you the better result.
 
Like that ans. I don't have a pure o2 setup but can get one tmr. We do landscaping at local hospitals and have access to outdated o2 cylinders and gauges. Can't get them refilled but there's almost a constant supply. I may try to pick one up. Then prob go full dose and just hit it for the next two days with o2 and let her age. But yep I'm gonna have to add more. I see already that I'm gonna have to hit my buddy up for some new kegs. He's a driver for bluegrass distribution and can damage out kegs whenever he sees fit. May need to put in an order:cross:
 
Well it's bubbling like shrek in the tub. Now the waiting game. Onto the next batch of cider. We're looking at brewing a full 50+gallon bourbon barrel full this late winter or early spring. Man that's gonna be a huge undertaking.
 
WOW. what a turn around. This morning I went ahead and introduced the full amount of dap and energizer to my must. Then mixed the heck out of it. Tonight the airlock was clicking away. So I popped the bucket open and grabbed the Dewalt. Slow speed degas ahead. Spin stop. Spin stop. Spin. HOLY ****. What the......How do I stop it. That stuff took on a mind of its own. It foamed up over four inches above the top of the bucket. Lucky for me I was able to pull the wand out and spin the foam back down into the bucket. I was REAL lucky I only lost maybe a table spoon over the side. Disaster dodged. Must of missed that warning in my readings. Now I know. Lol.

Important stuff. I checked the SG and it was 1.114. Man my basement smells good. Cider on one brew bench. Mead othe other end. Micro berry mead in the sink. It's pucking currently. Then Bourbon barrel on the other side. The garage smells even better. Fresh staves and barrel head from bourbon barrels that were emptied today. They are dripping bourbon. I'm almost positive one could catch a contact buzz from It. Oaking time. :ban::ban:
 
Yep I sure missed that thread. I'll only learn that lesson once. Man that could sure make one heck of a mess in short order. Lol I bet that carboy looked like a solid fuel rocket going off. Gonna go degas.
 
Golddiggies comments about the eruptions is spot on with carboys.

If you wanted to take the lazy way and not aerate/de-gas but that's considered poor practice for good mead making. You can still use them, just that you have to think ahead and make up the target volume, then remove some of the must into 2 litre soda/pop bottles (sanitised of course) and chuck them in the fridge until the brew has passed the 1/3rd break, as by then, the mad foam making part of the ferment has settled down and you can give the batch a whizz with a lees stirrer, or whatever device you use to aerate/degas for the last time and then add the reserved must back in.

It's why I learned to start batches in buckets, then transfer back into carboys to finish - glass/plastic carboys are handy as you can see how it's doing better, but the constriction created by the shape of them can be a nuisance early on.

S'up to you and what you can get hold of really.

Oak also seems to help meads generally, whether you make enough to be able to utilise a 225litre industry standard barrel or not is a different question. Most of us don't make that much so end up with oak cubes/staves/spirals/chips (a.k.a. oak sawdust).

I got an oak barrel stave a couple of weeks back. All the dirt etc came off fine with an electric plane. The stave was then cut into 4 inch/10cm lengths and I then split them into 1/4 inch/6 or 7 mm section "sticks". Finally they were then toasted in the oven, changing from a nice like off yellow/beige of the clean wood to a medium looking grey - to approximate "medium" toasting.

I made these to add to this years "fresh grape" pyments, adding them at 1 stave/stick per gallon (imperial, not US), to the 18 gallons of the pyment that is now ageing/dropping sediment. I don't want to "over oak" as that would end up giving a saw dust type flavour, but I can always add more when I get round to tasting them next summer........
 
All wood is good in da hood.
Hum? pull those trousers/pants up, tighten that belt properly, put the laces back in and tie them properly.

And the whole point of the peak on the ball cap is to shield your eye's from the sun - they look plain silly worn back to front! (he says stepping back from the lectern and off the soap box/platform)

:mug::ban:

Sorry..... couldn't resist :);)
 
I am sure glad I started this in a bucket. I can see how a carboy could be a real mess maker. I'm gonna oak this mead to taste later next year. I am fortunate to have access to day fresh bourbon barrels and staves. Now I just need to decide what bourbon I want the barrels staves to be from. I've got wild turkey American honey, makers mark, four roses... But those will be to dry when the time comes around. Gonna have to pass those along once I get the favors sorted to the staves. That's the hard part lol.

Well it hit the 1/3 sugar mark tonight. Now what's y'all's common practice for this point in the venture. I was gonna degas tonight for the last time and then transfer to my carboy. Then rack off lees once that times reached.

Looking for advice on this section of the venture
 
I am sure glad I started this in a bucket. I can see how a carboy could be a real mess maker. I'm gonna oak this mead to taste later next year. I am fortunate to have access to day fresh bourbon barrels and staves. Now I just need to decide what bourbon I want the barrels staves to be from. I've got wild turkey American honey, makers mark, four roses... But those will be to dry when the time comes around. Gonna have to pass those along once I get the favors sorted to the staves. That's the hard part lol.

Well it hit the 1/3 sugar mark tonight. Now what's y'all's common practice for this point in the venture. I was gonna degas tonight for the last time and then transfer to my carboy. Then rack off lees once that times reached.

Looking for advice on this section of the venture

Leave it in primary until fermentation is 100% finished... I put more in the PM I sent... :D
 
Thanks, golddiggie and crew, for providing the mead advice and pointing us noobs to the gotmead website. It's been a great help in starting me out with turning honey into something more divine.
 
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