To add more O2 & nutrient or not?

I made my first mead yesterday. 1.090 OG, 10 lbs Wildflower Honey into 4 gallons water. Added about 4 tsp of yeast nutrient (beer stuff, nonspecific). Blasted it with oxygen for 5 minutes prior to adding yeast. Lalvin 71B-1122 Yeast. Sitting at about 68F now.

Fermentation took off overnight no problem. Shook it up this morning, degassed it and about 4" of foam appeared. Shook it again this evening, same deal.

Let me preface before I get into my questions, I'm lazy.

Should I really add more nutrient / check SG? Can't I just degass for a week, and then let it be? I mean, John Lennon wasn't totally full of $hit, was he? I added 4 tsp of nutirent hoping that would be enough.

I'm one of those Ronco homebrewers - "Set it and forget it". I don't like secondaries, I don't like peeking inside the fermentor. I like patiently waiting for my beers to finish, then slam them down for making me wait so long...

But, if you suggest I check SG, degass, hit it with more O2 and nurtient, I guess I will.

Geez, Dad. Why do you always have to be right all the time?

allthingsgiant said:

I made my first mead yesterday. 1.090 OG, 10 lbs Wildflower Honey into 4 gallons water. Added about 4 tsp of yeast nutrient (beer stuff, nonspecific). Blasted it with oxygen for 5 minutes prior to adding yeast. Lalvin 71B-1122 Yeast. Sitting at about 68F now.

Fermentation took off overnight no problem. Shook it up this morning, degassed it and about 4" of foam appeared. Shook it again this evening, same deal.

Let me preface before I get into my questions, I'm lazy.

Should I really add more nutrient / check SG? Can't I just degass for a week, and then let it be? I mean, John Lennon wasn't totally full of $hit, was he? I added 4 tsp of nutirent hoping that would be enough.

I'm one of those Ronco homebrewers - "Set it and forget it". I don't like secondaries, I don't like peeking inside the fermentor. I like patiently waiting for my beers to finish, then slam them down for making me wait so long...

But, if you suggest I check SG, degass, hit it with more O2 and nurtient, I guess I will.

Geez, Dad. Why do you always have to be right all the time?

Click to expand...

Well, I'd suggest a couple of things, firstly I'd be thinking of adding a further 2 or 3 lb of honey (take gravity reading, then add the extra honey then measure again, so you've an idea where it's likely to be).

I'd be aerating it at least once a day, until it hits the 1/3 sugar break (which would be 1.060 using your original numbers, but a bit higher if you did add the extra honey).

At the same 1/3 break, after it's had it's final aeration/stir, I'd add the amount of nutrient, then airlock it and leave it to finish - hell, at that stage, I usually leave them until they've pretty much cleared, only then do I think about racking etc. It's not caused me any problems that way.

You could, indeed, just leave it "as is", but I'd suggest the extra steps would make for a better end product.......

regards

fatbloke

Curious why you suggest the extra honey? Seems as if this is going to finish anywhere between 12-14% abv. Isn't this good enough for you? Do you normally add extra honey at 1/3 sugar break? Curious why you wouldn't add it all at the beginning.... Either way, I don't have any more honey (from the same source anyway), so I'm going to leave it as is. Next time I'll be sure to order enough honey for the whole batch. I didn't want this to end up too strong (I don't know if that's even possible with mead), so that's why I went with 1.090 OG.

By aerating, you mean simply shake / stir to degass, add O2, or both?

I'll see where its at tomorrow. If I'm at or slightly above 1.060, I'll add nutrient. If I'm below that, I'm leaving it alone.

Thanks for the tips.

A starting gravity of 1.090 is going to give you around 12% ABV which is fine for a traditional mead. In my opinion, it is easy to make the ABV of a mead too high, throwing it out of balance.

The nutrient amounts depend on what your nutrient is. If that nutrient is DAP (white crystals that look like salt) then you have added enough. If it is a tannish powder (more like an "energizer") then you probably need to add another 2 tsp to be safe. 71B is not a nutrient hog, but it always helps to make sure your yeast aren't starving.

It does help to aerate after pitching as the 1-time saturation of a must with oxygen is generally not enough to allow wine yeast to develop maximal biomass. You need to aerate/oxygenate at least once after pitch - preferably around day 2 in order for the yeast to produce enough sterols in the cell membranes to reach maximal biomass. The typical routine to aerate daily until the 1/3 fermentation point might be overkill, but it does work, and doesn't cause oxidized mead.

Mead actually is ideally suited for the "set it and forget it" approach for the most part. It needs a little coddling during the fermentation, and afterward, it need racking once in a while, but otherwise it mostly benefits from benign neglect. A word of caution - 71B is a yeast that is known to sometime produce "off" odors and flavors if you leave the mead sitting on the lees. This is not one to just leave in the primary until you are ready to drink. You will improve you odds of a really good outcome if you rack it once the fermentation finishes, and rack it again in a few weeks when a thick layer of sediment has formed.

Good luck!

Medsen