Yeast question

My mead experience so far has been with making melomels. But now I'm going to make a couple of traditional batches and a metheglyn. I was going to use tupelo honey for one of the traditionals and local wildflower honey for other and for the jasmine metheglyn. I like my meads on the sweet side. My yeast choices are D-47, EC-1118, 71B, and Cotes-de-Blanc. I was thinking about using the 71B in the tupelo mead and Cotes-de-Blanc in the other two. Does this sound like a good strategy to those of you with more experience?

Egghead said:

My mead experience so far has been with making melomels. But now I'm going to make a couple of traditional batches and a metheglyn. I was going to use tupelo honey for one of the traditionals and local wildflower honey for other and for the jasmine metheglyn. I like my meads on the sweet side. My yeast choices are D-47, EC-1118, 71B, and Cotes-de-Blanc. I was thinking about using the 71B in the tupelo mead and Cotes-de-Blanc in the other two. Does this sound like a good strategy to those of you with more experience?

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Hum? Well, it depends on a few things. I'm not a big fan of RedStar yeasts, there's not enough published data about them.

So, with D47, while it's a good yeast, you really need to get it fermenting under temperature controlled conditions (so if it gets warm in your part of Illinois, and you don't have temp control to keep D47 below about 70F......), keeping the ferment temperature to the lower levels of the range - otherwise you can easily end up with paint thinners.....

EC-1118, while also good, seems to have a habit of blowing far too much of the flavour/aroma elements straight out the airlock, hence I'd only suggest it, if you intending to make a champagne or sparkling mead and/or you have a stuck ferment.

C-d-B ? No comment, only used it a couple of times and wasn't happy with the results - the lack of data, meant I couldn't work out how to improve those batches (plus some laziness on my part).

71B - well I do prefer the likes of K1V and/or D21, but would suggest that is probably the way to proceed. It often produces product that can be drunk early. It's got a reasonable range and low nutrient needs. Though I prefer to ferment dry and back sweeten as there's far more control that way, hence I prefer the above mentioned two....

I'm with FatBloke. If you have the option of K1V, go for it. It's pretty widely available at most LBHS that I've been to.

That said, I've heard good things about 71B. But a word of caution: it is not a yeast that you want sitting on the lees longer than necessary; ie when it's done fermenting, rack it.

FatBloke's spot on the the EC, it's gonna blow all the flavor out of your traditionals, so you'd be wise to avoid it for the traditionals or a lighter metheglin like jasmine.

And Cotes des Blanc: it can produce a nice mead, but it can also really screw you if it doesn't get enough nutrient, and as FatBloke stated, not much info as to what's enough.

Thank you both, especially for the warning about the need for enough nutrient for C-d-B. I'm going to do a staggered nutrient addition schedule, so I'm hopeful that I'll be providing enough nutrients.

Just a quick update. Both meads are chugging away in the fermenters quite nicely. A very delicate aroma is coming from the wildflower honey/CoB must's airlock, and a stronger, fruity aroma is coming from the Tupelo honey/71B must's airlock.

Glad to hear it's fermenting along; cheers!