Servomyces? Overkill?

Hi guys. So my glass carboy inexplicably destroyed itself after two weeks of fermenting, resulting in an entire batch of mead going down the drain, but I have all the ingredients for my next mead prepared, and I just wanted to ask a question. Primary fermentation this time will be in plastic (Speidel), while secondary fermentation will be in glass (5 gallon glass carboy). Hope my carboy doesn't destroy it again this time (crossing my fingers).

I'm planning on using DAP, Fermaid K, Go-Ferm Protect, and Servomyces to keep the yeast healthy (not to mention a few other things that aren't being used for yeast health). Is that overkill? I'm wondering if using the Servomyces along with the other yeast nutrients can have any negative effects. From what I've read so far, it seems like it can only have very positive results. The DAP, Fermaid K, and Go-Ferm Protect should help strengthen the yeast and give them all the nutrients they can't get from the honey, while the Servomyces should strengthen the yeast cell walls, increase attenuation, improve yeast growth, and so on.

But, as I've never done this before, I wanted to run this past you guys before I end up using the Servomyces just to make sure that this can't end up hurting the mead.

Thanks!

How did your carboy destroy itself? Did it jump off the kitchen counter? WVMJ

WVMJ said:

How did your carboy destroy itself? Did it jump off the kitchen counter? WVMJ

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I'm not sure. After about two weeks of fermenting, I noticed that there was a little bit of moisture close to the bottom of the carboy. At first I thought it was condensation from the ice packs I use to keep the fermentation temperature within optimal range, but when I wiped it up and smelled it, it smelled like alcohol. I looked all around the carboy and couldn't find any cracks or weak points, so I went to pick the thing up to see if there were any cracks on the bottom, but the moment it lifted about an inch off the ground, the glass on the bottom broke clean off in a split second and the five gallons of mead poured into my fermentation bag. The break was perfectly clean. In the end, there were only two pieces: the bottom and the rest of the carboy, with the break in a perfect circle around the bottom. It looked almost like some master ninja had slashed through it with a sword, cleanly separating the bottom from the top.

There were a few suggestions about what could have caused it, the most plausible of them being that the glass had been weakened from heat about a month or two earlier (even though I couldn't see any cracks of weaknesses on it before I put the mead in there and even though there were no leaks from the carboy until about 2 weeks after the fermentation started), but I really have no idea...

Suicidal carboys...

Bummer, it bites to lose a batch, however it may happen ... I had the unfortunate accident of sneezing while moving a 5 g carboy of IPA many years back, it slightly bumped against our laundry tub (I believe it was very old school concrete tub, we moved 15 years ago) and ended up with 5 gallons of cascade flavored beverage on the basement floor....LUCKILY, the floor was graded and there were drains in the floor, so cleanup was relatively painless. I dread something like this occuring in the place we own now, I'd be screwed..been uber careful ever since, carry carboys in milk crates, do primary ferments of mead in buckets (haven't made a beer in some years.....hmmmm...) .... might've just been (bad)luck o' the draw, perhaps a defective carboy ripe to fail.....anything man-made is prone to the occasional lemon.

I've found that glass carboys are very sensitive to temperature changes. I had a 1 gallon jug crack in my hands while washing it with hot water in my sink.

Before the carboy was ruined out of nowhere, I had assumed that the glass carboy horror stories came from people dropping them and things like that, but then I found out that things like a dog's tail wagging and hitting a carboy could be enough to make it shatter.

I'm still going to use my smaller glass carboy for secondary fermentation from now on, but after that first experience, I've gotten paranoid. I HAVE heard some say that they've done secondary fermentation for mead or cider for 6 or more months in a plastic carboy without off-flavors, but to me, that sounds kind of hard to believe.

Sorry about the broken carboy and the lost batch, that truly sucks.

Makes me kind of worried now...

Had that happen also, saw a few drops of liquid at the base of a 3 gal carboy, looked and could see crack going around the base so we carefully slid it off of the table into a bucket and saved the wine. Glad no one got hurt! WVMJ

WVMJ said:

Had that happen also, saw a few drops of liquid at the base of a 3 gal carboy, looked and could see crack going around the base so we carefully slid it off of the table into a bucket and saved the wine. Glad no one got hurt! WVMJ

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I was actually telling my brother about the carboy yesterday and he asked me "What would you do if that happened again? If you found a leak around your carboy?" I told him I'd probably try to rack it off into another carboy or even into my bottling bucket. That way, even if it broke, I could probably manage to save most of the mead beforehand. I always keep my fermenters on the ground, so sliding it off into a bucket isn't an option. I definitely wouldn't want to pick it up before emptying it. Even if I put one hand under it, if the glass was weakened on the side, it could fall apart in my arms and seriously injure me.

I have my new batch of mead fermenting away in a Speidel fermenter, but I'll be transferring it to a secondary fermenter in about 3 weeks or so, but I'm a bit worried about that because my secondary fermenter is glass. Truth is, though, that I can't see any way around using glass for long term fermenting/storage. Eh.