Leaving it on the lees

Hi everyone! I had a question about a mead I'm currently making.

I'm making my first mead (just like everyone else who starts threads in this forum) and I've decided to try making it a traditional sweet mead (also just like everyone else in this forum!).

I've got a 6 gallon batch with a total of 20 lbs of regular clover honey. I used Lalvin D47 for the yeast. I also added energizer and nutrient when I started (I added the amount recommended by the manufacturer). As of this weekend, it has been in primary for 4 weeks.

My OG was about 1.118. As of this weekend, it was down to about 1.070 (I pulled off the airlock because a bug managed to drown in it. I figured while I was in there, I may as well check the gravity). It's still fermenting; maybe the bubbling has gotten a bit weaker lately, but it's still going pretty strong.


So anyway, my problem comes from two rules of thumb that I was always told about making beer and cider:

1) Don't disturb the brew until primary is over, and
2) Don't let it sit on the lees for more than 5 weeks or so.

Now that I've gotten into week 5 with primary still going, I find these two rules clashing. My gut instinct is to leave it in until primary is done and I have the desired gravity and taste, since most of the yeast is probably still alive. But I also don't want a nice batch of decayed yeast to drink either.

Any thoughts?
Thank you!

leave it until it's mostly done.

This seems to be taking extremely long to ferment. I was recently informed that slow fermentation like yours is because the yeast are lacking nutrients.

Add a teaspoon of yeast energizer if you haven't already. if you never added any yeast nutrient, I'd toss a tsp of that in there too.

I actually added both nutrient and energizer right before fermentation started. About how long should primary take?

Thanks!

Well, mine usually take a month, assuming 3lbs of clover honey per gallon of final volume.

But when I said that on another mead forum, I was informed that you can get through primary in just 2 weeks, and that I wasn't providing enough nutrients for my yeasties. Good oxygenation also really helps build healthy yeast that ferment more actively.

I also just read up on Gotmead.com today that they suggest .5-1tsp of nutrient & energizer per gallon of must, but don't add too much or you'll taste it. I think Schramm's book recommended 1tsp of each prior to pitching, and then another tsp of each a few days later.

On my next batch, I'm going to follow those guidelines, as well as using my pure oxygen system to aerate at pitching, and again 24 hours later to see just how healthy my yeast will get.

That's about what I added in the beginning. I used .5 tsp per gallon of energizer and 1 tsp per gallon of nutrient. That was what the manufacturer recommended, and it seems like they would know above everyone else.

Perhaps I should add a bit more energizer. If you can get yours done in a month, then mine is definitely taking way too long, as I've used roughly the same amount of honey as you have. Although your comment about tasting the energizer worries me a bit.

Thanks a lot!

Just remember, before you add any nutrients to a fermenting mead first dissolve it in some boiled and cooled water and make sure you degas the mead before pouring it in!

How are you guys rehydrating your yeast? Ever try GoFerm?

Hey ALPS, I have a question. Why should I degas before adding the energizer? Perhaps I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that I would degas before bottling to remove the extra CO2 and prevent explosions.

And actually, while I'm thinking about it, should I degas the mead before bottling? I guess I thought degassing was a wine thing, and wasn't planning on degassing the mead at all. Does secondary or teritary fermentation remove the extra CO2?

Yet41 said:

Hey ALPS, I have a question. Why should I degas before adding the energizer? Perhaps I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that I would degas before bottling to remove the extra CO2 and prevent explosions.

And actually, while I'm thinking about it, should I degas the mead before bottling? I guess I thought degassing was a wine thing, and wasn't planning on degassing the mead at all. Does secondary or teritary fermentation remove the extra CO2?

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Right now, while it's still fermenting, you have a huge amount of CO2 in solution. Adding anything to it, especially things like nutrients with a lot of surface area, provides nucleation points, or a place for the CO2 to come out of solution. You'll end up with a volcano of foam. Stir it up well first to knock some gas out of the mead, then slowly add your mixture of nutrients/energizer. Stir it in slowly to avoid too much foaming.

Meads typically age long enough to degas on their own. Most people who degas are doing so to bottle the wine early, before it can get rid of excess Co2 on it's own.

Ok, sorry to bring this thread back from the dead, but I still have some related questions.

I added nutrient and energizer a while back (as I described in my earlier posts), and there really wasn't much of a change a far as fermentation rate goes. I read somewhere that after a point, the yeast is unable to process the additional nutrients, which may be what has happened with mine. The mead had been in fermentation for a bit over a month when I added the extra nutrient and energizer. Does this sound like a possibility?

As of now, the gravity is about 1.048. I'm using Lalvin D-47, so I was hoping to hit the max ABV of the yeast (which I believe is 14%). I had an OG of 1.118, so I was hoping to end at maybe around or a bit below 1.020. As it stands now, the gravity seems high.

Would it be advisable to rack and add more yeast? I have another pack of Lalvin D-47 available. Fermentation seems to be at a standstill right now.

But I even have few questions about racking (sorry, I'm still learning!):

1) Should I add more honey? I've always heard from people that more honey should be added when racking. But my situation seems a bit different. Should more be added even for a stuck fermentation?

2) Should I add the entire pack of yeast? The packet is just the standard 5 grams size. The mead doesn't have too much further to go, so I wasn't sure if it would make sense to throw it all in. Maybe half?

3) I will rehydrate the yeast if I pitch it, but should I add more nutrients and energizer for this new yeast? I guess this goes back to my earlier question: Is there still nutrient sitting in the fermenter? I don't want to just keep throwing more and more in until it tastes like yeast nutrient and energizer.

I appreciate the help! I was hoping this would done fermenting by now!

so this was only a 5g packet to begin with? should've used two, or made a starter with a lot of oxygen to get a better pitch rate.

do not add more honey. people only do that to 'feed' a mead to get more alcohol...yours is stuck and is on target to be a decent sweet mead...more honey will only make it too sweet.

add the whole sachet of yeast. rehydrate it, but I wouldn't add any more nutrient or energizer at this point, out of fear of tasting it in the finished mead. I think you're already at your limit.

if all else fails, you could turn this into a melomel. I had to do that on my last batch (first mead in 9 years, and was prior to reading all the nutrient info in Schramm's book). it got stuck about 1.044 from 1.124. I put it on raspberries and let it go almost another 4 weeks, and it finished at 1.020 and just over 13% ABV...which is all I expected from the strain of yeast I'm using.
luckily its already fairly mellow, and just needs to clear before I keg and carb it up.

as long as the mead still tastes ok (no sour infection flavors or appearance) its always salvagable somehow.

Well, thank you very much everyone! I've racked, and then pitched another packet of yeast. I will give this some time, and hopefully it ferments all the way. I'd really like to keep it to just a traditional mead for now, as it's my first. But if need be, I'll go to the fruit. To be honest, I've only had one melomel before, and I wasn't impressed. It was a strawberry mead from White Winter Winery.

Hey Malkore, one question about the yeast. Is it normal to need two packets from the beginning? You just seemed a little surprised when I mentioned I used only one 5g packet. I had read a few things online, and nothing really mentioned the amount of yeast to use, so I just went with a single packet, like I normally do with beer and cider.

One other question for whoever has done this before: I've seen a lot online about adding nutrients and energizer in steps. Does this improve the fermentation at all? When I did this batch, I simply added the amount of energizer and nutrient recommended by the manufacturer in the beginning. I only threw more in once fermentation slowed down. How do you guys add nutrients and energizer?

Thanks!

Ive had that same strawberry melomel, and I agree overall I was very unimpressed with it.

tooomanycolors said:

Ive had that same strawberry melomel, and I agree overall I was very unimpressed with it.

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I've had a few of their meads recently and I was also not terribly impressed. The homemade mead I had was much, much better. The White Winter ones tasted like weak wine with honey added after the fact. Not bad, per se, but not as good as I expected.

nb

I try to add my nutrients/energizer up front...day 1. Get the yeast as healthy as possible, then leave them alone. Not that that's the BEST way to do it, just how I've been doing it.

I've never had strawberry mead, but as I understand, its hard to get it right...you need very sweet strawberries, and a lot of them. I find the other berries a lot easier to work with: raspberry (my favorite), blackberries, blueberries.
If you do end up needing to go that route, just buy frozen, unsweetened berries, thaw them half way, then squeeze the bag to mash up the fruit and break the cell walls. You'll get great flavor extraction that way.
then just add to a carboy and rack the mead on top of the fruit for a few weeks.

Only commercial mead I found locally was Chaucer's Mead, which has a strange medicinal aroma to it, and they honey doesn't really come thru. I steeped it with their mulling spices and it only got worse.

as for the yeast, if its a 5 gallon batch, you need a decent amount of yeast present to get through all that honey. since mead recipes aren't very standardized or consistent, it just takes experience and research to learn these tricks. I made my first mead 13~14 years ago when I was only 17. I made a lot more when I was just barely 21. Now I'm 30 and there's even more mead resources available (gotmead.com and Ken Schramm's book).

Yeast will grow to a population that can ferment the sugar, but doubling up to 10-12g at pitching is a huge boone, especially if you're not aerating the must adequately.
I've been using my pure oxygen system on my mead must, and its stellar. the more oxygen in the must, gives you a longer lag time after pitching because the yeast will use up all that O2 to reproduce, before they start the fermentation phase of their life cycle. Gives you a better yeast colony size...rather a more optimal colony size.

So it's been almost a week now since I pitched the second packet of yeast, and there is no activity at all from the air lock. I'm going to give this a few more days, just to see if anything starts up. But I'm not very optimistic.

Ok, so I guess I could go the fruit route. I feel like I don't have much of a choice at this point

Raspberry sounds good to me; I certainly like the flavor. How many raspberries should be added? I know this is an issue of personal taste, but I don't have much of an idea. I was thinking something like 1 lb per gal, but a few recipes online used a bit more, something along the lines 1-2 lbs per gal. Malkore, how many do you use?

Also, would thowing the raspberries into a blender before hand help more then just mashing them up? Or is that just overkill? I have some pectic enzyme too; should some of that go in as well?

Thanks!