new at mead making and need diractions :)

Hi, i'm new at mead making and brewing at general.

i have two qustions;
1. i live in a hot place (temperature can get up to 32 c outside) and i need to cool the batch of mead so i'm cooling it with ice, but to replace the ice i need to move the carboy and i'm afrid it will disturb the yeast, would i?

2. as i said i'm living in a hot place so im cooling the mead, when could i stop cooling it? should i cool it with ice the whole fermentation process?

Thanks!

Look up "Swamp Coolers" and see if that would help. At worst, you can freeze some bottles of water to place in a water bath and maybe run a fan constantly to help evaporate the water. You'd have to top off the water bath every so often, but that's probably better than having to move the carboy.

Why would disturbing the yeast be a problem? Are you making a JAOM? That I cannot speak to, but if you are making a conventional mead using wine yeast then you want to aerate and stir the mead several times a day until the gravity drops close to 1.005. Because - stirring vigorously
A) provides the yeast with needed O2
B) removes CO2 that will increase pH and inhibit yeast activity
C) will help the yeast be more evenly distributed in the carboy and prevent the yeast's tendency to stratify (only a significant problem in larger fermenters)

A proper head space in your fermenter will provide ample 02. In a high colored wine to much o2 will brown it like an cut open apple. Constantly mixing it will only mix up sediment you want to settle before you rerack so it don't end up in your next racking. After all to want a clear wine with no sediment when you bottle. If you have no temp control and natural seasons like I do a good idea is to make wine with the season. Idk if that helps at all.

But we are talking about mead here and not beer. You want to allow the mead to age 6 - 12 months and so you will be racking 3 or 4 perhaps 6 times before you even consider bottling... As to agitating the lees, a) if that is a fear then you should be stirring a few inches above the lees and the yeast you use should be one that compacts when it drops out of suspension and b) most wines benefit form the sediment been agitated certainly while in the primary (see the technical sheet for D47, for example).

Edues, How certain are you that head room with no agitation will provide sufficient O2 to the yeast a foot or so below the surface?

I do 5gallons at a time an leave about 8" for head space. I be done a number of light an dark wines. The only one to fail me was a mountain dew version of sangria. And that is what it is. Just take you time an let the yeast do what it needs too. I also resecondary about every 3 weeks till there's minimal dead yeast and sediment. Cause who likes to drink either. Mixing the dead yeast and sediment just keeps it around longer. Let the yucky stuff settl an keep what you're going to drink.

Get one of those 18 gallon size plastic tubs & place your carbouy in it. Then fill the tub about 3/4 of the way full with cold water (tap water is fine). Next fill some plastic soda bottles with water & freeze them. Place the frozen water bottles in the water in the tub with the carbouy. Monitor the water temp & add or subtract frozen water bottles as needed. Once you've determined how may frozen water bottles are required to maintain the desired temp, keep a 2nd set of that many water bottles in the freezer so you can simply change out the water bottles without having to move the carbouy or the tub.
Very simple & easy.
Regards, GF.