Question about first mead

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mizzoueng

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Just racked my mead to the secondary after the month in the primary.

Major questions / concerns:

1. There was no yeast cake on the bottom of the fermenter. Nothing, not a drop of yeast. Is this normal?

2. Look at the pics below. The mead is not the gold color it was when I brewed it last month, it has since dulled.

3. Smells like alcohol. Strong, it felt like my nose was on fire. But is still sweet, very sweet.

No idea was the OG was as my h-meter was broken, readings at this stage are 1.030

m_a23ed5cad6133d1419519e8635138d3c.jpg

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That looks like its still fermenting. This stuff can ferment for months, but i'm a little surprised that there was no trub. What kind of yeast did you use? It might be highly flocculent and got stirred up during the transfer. Either way, it looks good so far. Stick an airlock on it and RDWHAHB :)

mike
 
I used white labs WLP720 Sweet Mead Yeast, heres the info:

WLP720 Sweet Mead/Wine Yeast:
A wine yeast strain that is less attenuative than WLP715, leaving some residual sweetness. Slightly fruity and will tolerate alcohol concentrations up to 15%. A good choice for sweet mead and cider, as well as Blush wines, Gewürztraminer, Sauternes, Riesling.
Alcohol Tolerance: 15%
Attenuation: <75%
Flocculation: Low
Optimum Fermentation Temperature: 70-75°F

I pitched two vials. The first one got pitched when the mead was too hot, around 95 I would say. After 5 days of no activity I went and bought another vial at LHBS and repitched. I let the vial get to room temp.

It was hard to tell what was going on for the first month, I used a S-type airlock and it said there was a pressure differential in the fermenter, but that could be due to many things.

I looked at it this morning, bubbling away about once every 5 seconds.
 
FWIW, I used Sweet Mead on my last one and it took a few months to clear. Now it's completely brilliant. I'm giving it one more week before I rack. I'm thinking of just dumping it in a corny and forgetting about it for a year or more, until I decide to bottle it.
 
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