Info about Wyeast 4632 Dry Mead Yeast

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Boerderij_Kabouter

Boerderij_Kabouter

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Hi everybody,

I have been trying to find some information about Wyeast 4632 (Dry Mead). I started a dry mead with this yeast in mid-November. Standard mead recipe, 3 lbs/g orange blossom honey, and a few cups of heather tips. This should be a subtle varietal mead and I am hoping it will finish out rather dry. I used energizer and nutrient as well.

This is my first time using this yeast. All other meads have been fermented with various wine yeasts and finish in or around 1 month with main fermentation, or at least with visible bubbling.

This mead (Nov. 07) is still chugging away pumping out a bubble in the air lock once every 20 seconds! I know, I know... RDWHAHB. I was just curious if anyone else has had this. 18% ABV is a lot and I expected this ferment to take a while, but a 4 month primary fermentation is setting new records for me.

Thanks for any info you have.
Justin
 
I don't like dry mead...so I have not.

My question is, what was the OG, and what is the current gravity?

Airlock activity means nothing unless you can quantify it with a gravity reading.
 
Sorry, can't believe I didn't post that...

11/02/07: OG = 1.094
12/25/07: SG = 1.064
01/06/07: SG = 1.058

Haven't checked since January. This mead has been at a steady 70-71 degF the entire time and has been racked twice when the lees got over 1/2 inch thick.

I'm not all that worried about it just rather curious.

Thanks for the help!
 
that IS weird. I've used their sweet mead strain a few times, and it hits 12-13% ABV in about a months time (goes really slow at the end).

kinda looks like it got stuck. at this point I'd suggest repitching. you could use lavin EC 1118 which is supposed to be great at re-starting a stuck fermentation, and it'll get dry too.

only other suggestion is adding fruit. my raspberry mead in my signature wasn't originally a melomel but I used about 5 lbs of raspberries, and that kicked off fermentation and dropped me another 30-35 points.
 
Seriously... No love for dry mead? Am I the only one? Thanks for the replies Malkore, I know airlock activity is not a sure sign of fermentation, but at the same time I don't think the beer is magically creating bubbles with having some activity. This leads me to think that fermentation has not stalled but is just plugging away at the same slow and steady pace it has been the whole time.

If anyone has used this yeast before, please chime in and just let me know how it worked out for you. Or just give us poor dry mead lovers some assurance we are not alone in the world!:tank:
 
I have used this yeast before and had to repitch with lalvin on a dry cherry mead. I would recommend that, or add another pound of honey- or better yet do both.

I wonder if Rien Poortvliet intended his drawings as beer labels.........I probably shouldn't complain as I will use Maxfield Parish's Ecstasy on my Blueberry mead once in bottle.:mug:
 
Good pick-up on the Poortvliet :mug:

This batch is still bubbling away!!! Unbelievable! It is still maintained at ~71 degF and bubbling once or twice every minute. I have not taken a gravity reading in months nor had a sample so I cannot say with certainty what is going on in there, but it is still producing CO2. I will comment more when it finishes. On the upside, maybe if it takes a year to ferment, it will be almost ready when we bottle it. (probably not)

Why did you have to repitch? Similar problem? Or did yours get stuck?
 
I wonder if the Wyeast cant tolerate above 13% Mine finished out in the 18-19 range and very dry after adding the Lalvin 1118. I was trying to recreate some Rocky Mountain Mead I sampled. There were plenty of cherry trees in the back yard.... My Lab loved to eat the low hanging fruit and leave huge piles of cherry pits around the back yard.

I left mine for 2 years after final racking. That was some good mead. It took me over a year to drink the 5 gal.
 
This is from Wyeast

YEAST STRAIN: 4632 | Dry Mead™

Back to Yeast Strain List

Best choice for dry mead. Used in many award winning meads. Low foaming with little or no sulfur production. Use additional nutrients for mead making.

Origin: France
Flocculation: Low-medium
Attenuation: NA
Temperature Range: 55-75°F, 13-24°C
Alcohol Tolerance: 18% ABV
Click to expand...
STYLE: Dry Mead

Back to Styles List


Aroma: Honey aroma may be subtle, although not always identifiable. Sweetness or significant honey aromatics should not be expected. If a honey variety is declared, the variety should be distinctive (if noticeable). Different types of honey have different intensities and characters. Standard description applies for remainder of characteristics.

Appearance: Standard description applies.

Flavor: Subtle (if any) honey character, and may feature subtle to noticeable varietal character if a varietal honey is declared (different varieties have different intensities). No to minimal residual sweetness with a dry finish. Sulfury, harsh or yeasty fermentation characteristics are undesirable. Standard description applies for remainder of characteristics.

Mouthfeel: Standard description applies, although the body is generally light to medium. Note that stronger meads will have a fuller body. Sensations of body should not be accompanied by noticeable residual sweetness. Overall Impression: Similar in balance, body, finish and flavor intensity to a dry white wine, with a pleasant mixture of subtle honey character, soft fruity esters, and clean alcohol. Complexity, harmony, and balance of sensory elements are most desirable, with no inconsistencies in color, aroma, flavor or aftertaste. The proper balance of sweetness, acidity, alcohol and honey character is the essential final measure of any mead.

Ingredients: Standard description applies. Traditional Meads feature the character of a blended honey or a blend of honeys. Varietal meads feature the distinctive character of certain honeys. "Show meads" feature no additives, but this distinction is usually not obvious to judges.

Comments: See standard description for entrance requirements. Entrants MUST specify carbonation level and strength. Sweetness is assumed to be DRY in this category. Entrants MAY specify honey varieties.

Commercial Examples: White Winter Dry Mead, Sky River Dry Mead
Click to expand...
 
This mead, is STILL FERMENTING! We are getting close to eclipsing the one year fermentation date! We racked again a few weeks ago and forgot to take a gravity reading :mad: (it was a busy day). We thought maybe it was just entrapped CO2 or something, but no. Once it settled down in its new carboy, back to bubbling. It is down to a bubble about once a minute or so, but still going.

We did a quick tasting, and this is already the best mead we have made hands down or that I have ever tasted and it is not even done fermenting. It is starting to dry out and has an incredibly smooth an subtle flavor.

I will keep you all updated.
 
Still bubbling away.....:rockin::drunk:

This is one hard core fermentation. We have far surpassed the one year mark and it is still bubbling away at about 2 burps per minute. I think we will take another gravity check sometime soon, maybe this weekend. I will post when we do.
 
Based on what I've read in this topic, it appears that this mead must may have been nutrient deficient. Regardless of the yeast type, a mid-level gravity must (1.094) that only drops 36 points after 2 months (where the area temp is 70-71°F), and appears to still be still fermenting after 1 year would concern me.

Even before I began my staggered nutrient research, I never had any mead ferment for that length of time. If it did, I would be checking the SG every 2-4 weeks just to ensure it was fermenting instead of reacting to some form of contamination... :( Perhaps the heather tips introduced something aside from its fragrance... :confused:

I'd be very interested in a current SG reading. If it truly is still fermenting, then this mead should be the poster-child for what can happen in a nutrient deficient honey must. ;)
 
It is possible that it was nutrient deficient, but we did use the recommended amount of nutrient and energizer. This is the same method we always use and have not had any weird ferments with other yeasts.

The heather tips may have done something weird, but again I doubt it. We pasteurized this batch with the tips in it. Also, we tasted at the 6-7 month mark and it was super clean and smooth tasting with no off flavors of any kind. If it is an infection or contamination it is the slowest and cleanest bug of all time.

I still haven't found a single person on the net who has personal experience with this yeast. My LHBS guy doesn't use it very often and this didn't sound familiar to him. Until a SG I can't really know what is going on, but I think it is just very slowly churning through the sugars.... weird.
 
Update:

Still getting bubbles every once in a while. The airlock only burps every once in a long while, but you can see very small bubbles rising through the crystal clear mead... the bubbles originate at the lees (an extremely small dusting, we have racked 4 times) and float slowly to the surface.

Do you think we can bottle it? Should we try degassing it? I can't believe this beast!!!
 
Hey all,
New to the forum and posting on a 3 year old thread probably isn't the way to go...but anyhow. Started my first mead 1 week ago using what seems to be a fairly standard recipe:

3Kg Honey
10L water
~1/2 tsp nutrient (Wyeast brand)
1/2 packet Wyeast Dry mead yeast (yes, as the one above)

So I followed standard procedure, kept everything as clean as I could. I'm a biologist so sanitary technique is pretty second nature to me. The initial SG was 1.098. After 1 week the lees had piled up a bit and what had been fairly steady bubbling (1 every 10s or so) slowed to 3x less. Since i was anxious I racked the (very) carbonated product and added some more (1/2 tsp nutrient dissolved in hot water, cooled to ~37degrees C). For what it's worth the SG was 1.075. There now seems to be more activity than there was initially, so progress seems to being made.

Looking for a bit of reassurance on all of this if possible. So many different ways to skin the cat, really had to know what to expect...

Here's hoping that this doesn't take more than a year; I don't have that kind of patience.

S
 
With mead, you really want that kind of patience. Trust me. Mead is a "years" project, not a "weeks or months" project.

Why did you pitch only half the packet? That is unusual. Just because you started with a smaller volume? If you still have the other half and have maintained it in a healthy and contaminant free state I would pitch that into the fermenting mead now.

In my experience, this yeast is a long slow eater that will eventually take down all the sugars in honey and leave a very nice dry mead (exactly what I like). But it will take a long time to get there.
 
Whoa... I realized I didn't keep up with this thread. So it stopped bubbling in the summer of 2009. We then degassed and bottled it around August 2009, and started drinking it int he winter. I think we have 1 bottle left of the 2007 vintage mead.

We brew a vintage mead with a different varietal of honey and heather tips every November. The dry mead yeast always takes a long time to ferment fully.
 
Well, patience it is then. Thanks for your reply.

I suppose it was more like 3/4 of the packet. Yeah, I figured because of the smaller volume it made sense. I actually used the other 1/4 in an attempt at ginger beer. We'll see how that one ends up.
 
Bit of an update on this.

I racked again tonight as the airlock activity seemed to have ceased. The SG reading was now 0.992. I assume this is basically complete since it gives ~15.5% (the yeast tolerates 18%) alcohol and the SG is so low. I've placed back into the vessel for now as I'm waiting on a capper so that I can bottle this stuff. I will be sure to test the SG again to see if it's steady.

Does it seem strange that this has happened so quickly? I was prepared for a year and this has taken only about 2 months to ferment almost to completion.
 
Nope I had the same experience. Mine was done in even less time though (about 2 weeks) It was a beast! I believe I ended up at 18% though I am sure it would go even further but 18% is going to take long enough to mellow out!
 
Waking a dead thread...

I'll be starting a mead this weekend with this yeast...other than what is posted, any recommendations? Recipe or tasting notes?
 
I really like this yeast. It can be slightly slower than some yeasts (such as 71B) but I think it does a great job, is very neutral, and seems to tolerate extended aging on the lees without any off flavors (which is great for me as I tend to be a bit lazy on the timing of my transfers at times...)
 
Thanks!

I've been reading up on basic dry meads, but havent nailed down a solid recipe yet. Any suggestions?
 
If you look back a page or so the recipe I used for a very basic mead (my first) is there.

It's simple enough to start, but I would suggest some additional flavour components. Don't use too many or you'll lose the mead aspect. The nice thing about that recipe is that it's a fairly neutral one, so you really taste MEAD. This would be great for experimenting with flavour profiles of different honeys or as a base for something else.

In particular I would imagine that adding some orange essence (or just some zest) would be nice. If you wanted to bump that up a single star anise pod during the heating phase would be nice. You can filter all that out with cheese cloth when you transfer to your fermentation vessel. I use a funnel from Lee Valley that you can thread the cloth into for that purpose.
 
Boerderij_Kabouter said:
It is possible that it was nutrient deficient, but we did use the recommended amount of nutrient and energizer. This is the same method we always use and have not had any weird ferments with other yeasts.

The heather tips may have done something weird, but again I doubt it. We pasteurized this batch with the tips in it. Also, we tasted at the 6-7 month mark and it was super clean and smooth tasting with no off flavors of any kind. If it is an infection or contamination it is the slowest and cleanest bug of all time.

I still haven't found a single person on the net who has personal experience with this yeast. My LHBS guy doesn't use it very often and this didn't sound familiar to him. Until a SG I can't really know what is going on, but I think it is just very slowly churning through the sugars.... weird.
Click to expand...


Hi there,

I used Wyeast Dry Mead for a cyser (4 gal cider + 5.5 lbs honey) that I started back in March. OG was 1.084 and it finished at 1.000 about a month later. I racked it 3 times I think, and it finished clear, and tasted good. I let it sit in secondary (and tertiary) for another month +, and intermittently filled bottles and drank some (when friends came over, etc.). It DEFINITELY got better the longer it sat. Over all I was pleased with it though. Just started a new batch of the same recipe (but I added some strawberries this time too).
 
I did a cyser as well about 1 year ago with this yeast. It took 9 months to get good.
 
I started out using this yeast exclusively. I found if I added K2CO3 and copious amounts of nutrient (staggered of course), I could get the ferment done in less than 2 weeks.

Overall, it's not a bad yeast, just finicky. It has a buttery quality that is good with Orange Blossom honey. Definitely needs at least 8 months of age.


Better brewing through science!
 

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