Hydromel Stuck with pH 2.5

My first attempt at a Sage Wildflower Hydromel is stuck! after 6 weeks of fermenting in a 5 gallon carboy in my fermenting fridge at a constant 64 degrees with Lavlin 71B-1122, my SG is resting at 1.050, OG was 1.116 at 70 degrees, putting my current ABV around %8.8 I'd tried adding additional DAP and Fermaid K which seems to help a little but not as much as it should. I'm still getting occastional burps on my airlock so the yeast is still doing something, just very very slowly.

what do you guys recommend? is 2.5 too low of a pH for this yeast? should I adjust the pH with some gypsum or baking soda? i have additional packets of 71B but i don't want to re-pitch until i'm sure i'm giving the yeast a good environment to take my mead the rest of the way to 1.010.

thanks in advance for the help.
- Jones

Yes, 2.5 is too low for yeast to function. However, gypsum will not help (that will make the pH a little lower), and baking soda adds a lot of sodium and can make your mead taste a little salty in some cases.

Adding potassium bicarbonate (preferred) or calcium carbonate will allow you to bring th pH up to a level where the yeast can function and you probably won't need to pitch more yeast. If you get the pH up to 3.2 the yeast should be able to function pretty well (they may be able to make it even with it lower)

Endeavor to persevere!

Medsen

Thanks for the advice Medsen. my local brewing supply is out of both potassium bicarb and calcium carbonate so i'm seeing what i can find online, what would the downside be to using calcium carbonate? i would hope/assume that the chalk would settle out and get lost in the next racking but should i be worried about any adverse effects?

calcium carbonate is hard and slow to dissolve. pot bicarb dissolves easier so its much easier to work with.

have you got your recipe there? just wondering how the PH got to be so low. how are you measuring the PH?

12 lbs raw local Sage Wildflower Honey
3 lbs raw wildflower honey
5 grams fermaid K
5 grams DAP
purified water to 5 galons
2 packets lavlin 71B-1122

mixed honey w/ 2 gallons warm water
added fermaid and DAP
added room temp water to 4.5 gallons
rehydrated yeast in purified water at 90 degrees
pitched yeast into must at 81 degrees
aerated for 5 minutes with drill whisk
siphoned into 5 gallon carboy leaving the bulk of the protein foam behind
added water to 5 gallons
airlocked and placed into my son of a fermenter at 64 degrees

OG was 1.116


i think that the sage wildflower honey is a very acidic honey and i failed to account for that in my preparations. fermented fine for the first three weeks, kept pace with a straight wildflower and buckwheat hydromel that was started the same day with the same process, but around 3 weeks it started slowing and now three weeks later i've dropped a massive 0.01 in three weeks and by ABV is hovering at 8.8%.

how are you measuring the PH?

i'm measuring the pH with scientific grade 4 color tab pH test strips rated 0-14

cyclejones said:

i'm measuring the pH with scientific grade 4 color tab pH test strips rated 0-14

Click to expand...

Not a big fan of test strips as some of them have proved to be rather inaccurate (not necessarily the ones you've got though - I don't know those ones), so I just use a cheap "pen type" digital pH meter, and I calibrate it once a year with some 7.01 and 4.01 calibration liquid......

either way, concur with the above points about the "stick" likely to be caused by the low pH....... and hence follow the suggested ideas to raise it some.....

regards

fatbloke