first mead started

ok so i made my first mead today. i decided to make a semi-sweet straight mead. i'm making a 10 liter (2.5 gallons batch). my ingredients are:

3.5 kilos of honey (couldn't find any specific type so i chose one that looked good. It's wildflower honey)

A little more than a gram of yeast nutrient.

Madeira yeast (enough for 30 liters)

enough water to fill it up to 10 liters in the carboy

i boiled the water, took it off the heat poured the honey in with the nutrients and mixed it up. i poured it in the carboy with enough water to fill it up. i let it cool to 23 Celsius. so like 73 Fahrenheit. the gravity was about 1.1. i pitched the whole bottle and now it's sitting in my basement which is at a constant 21 Celcius.

So how's it sound? did i do well? also i was wondering if i made a mistake by pitching the whole yeast thing when i was only making 10 liters.

so it's been 2 days now and it hasn't started bubbling yet. like 1 every 2 minutes, and no foam or anything. it had a rather high gravity, could it be too much for my yeast?

Unlike beer, mead doesn't really make a big show of fermenting. It just sits there and quietly does its thing.

I started a mead almost a year ago and its still quietly fermenting. just have patience and you will be rewarded!

i don't know if my mead is slow, or if this is normal but it's been 6 days since it started fermenting and the gravity has gone from 1.1 to 1.095. but there is a bubble every 2-3 seconds.

Make sure you are within the recommended temperature range for your yeast, and be patient.

You didn't talk about oxygenation, so you might consider sanitizing another container, transferring the must to that container and back to add some O2; yeast need O2 during replication, especially in high gravity situations.

well i did run a portion of it in my blender until it was all foamy. like 3/4 full blender. should i do that again?

and the temp is fine. it's at 21 degrees celcius.

Arau said:

well i did run a portion of it in my blender until it was all foamy. like 3/4 full blender. should i do that again?

and the temp is fine. it's at 21 degrees celcius.

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Agreed on your temp. I missed that in your OP.

I wouldn't run it through your blender again - that seems like a sanitation nightmare. *If it were my mead* I'd shake the container for a few minutes to introduce some O2 since you are getting activity.

Was your yeast dry or liquid, and do you have the exact vendor and strain information?

shaking it seems like it would take a really really long time. not to mention be a a pain in the ass since the carboy is pretty much full. i don't think there is enouogh air in the carboy to make a big difference.

as for the yeast it was a liquid madeira yeast. the store i got it from doesn't sell strains. just champagne yeast and wine yeast (either strong or weak). i got madeira because it'll go to about 13-15% ABV.

but i was thinking. i mean the lag time is over. it's obviously fermenting with 1 bubble ever 2-3 seconds. do i really want to introduce more oxygen into me must now? i'm thinking i should just leave it the **** alone. it feels like i'm worrying about it too much, like adding vitamins and yeast nutrient, and how fast it's fermenting, etc. i think i'm just gonna forget about it for a month then check on it

ok so i racked it to secondary yesterday. the gravity was at 1.025. i racked it over a split and scraped vanilla bean and topped it off with strong rooibos tea with honey. Today when i checked it, there was a thick ass cake of something on the bottom of the carboy. i don't know what it is, but i suspect something. it has cleared a lot compared to what it looked like yesterday.

http://s924.photobucket.com/albums/ad90/Phishead/

The sediment in your album looks like yeast settling out to me. I certainly wouldn't be worried. Check the gravity over the next several days and see if your attenuation is done.

ok that's good. the whole fermentation has been rather sluggish. it's been about a month now and it's gone from 1.1 to 1.025.

i'm not sure what to do, since the cake is pretty big i don't wanna leave it on there for 4 months, but if i rack it i'll loose mead and have a bigger head space

Wait and watch attenuation - when its held steady for 3-4 days then I *might* consider it done. I certainly wouldn't worry about the cake until its done, and probably not for a month or two after. That will give it time to clean up after itself, and compact. Once its held steady gravity for a week, cold crash it to clean, then siphon.

alright so it's been a while and its pretty much done fermenting. it's pretty dry, maybe with a little sweetness to it. i'm gonna backsweeten it later. so i racked it off all the gunk onto campden tabs and some potassium sorbate. unfortunately it kind caked together and didn't dissolve fully. i poured in my bentonite and stirred the hell out of it with my degasser in hopes of breaking up the powder cake at the bottom. i got most of it but there are still some chunks floating around (not huge or anything) and some stuff floating at the top.

just wanna know what's gonna happen. will they dissolve? or should i put a cheese cloth at the end of my hose when i bottle them?

thanks