5 days, no fermentation

I am so pissed off.

I put my mead together on Sunday (6/1). 18 pounds of clover honey, spring water up to 5 gallons, yeast nutrient (followed directions, 1 tsp/1gallon must), and Wyeast Sweet Mead yeast. The smack pack was hit late friday night and was on the verge of bursting by pitching time. I also oxygenated the must with pure O2 through a carb stone.

On Tuesday, I opened the bucket and took a gravity. 1.138, same as Sunday. i stirred it, added a few more teaspoons of nutrient. put a different lid on the bucket in case it was a seal issue. Anything I could think of.

Last night (6/5), took another hydrometer reading. Same gravity. No action. The bucket has been at 72 degrees ever since Sunday.

Plese help me, as I am ready to Hulk out.....

I'm still a newbie myself so feel free to ignore me...

Based on what I've read (and not experience) I'd say you have two options. Wait and see... Or repitch with a starter... Maybe someone else here has a better idea?

I think it was the amount of honey you started out with. 18 lbs is a LOT for 5 gallons and I'll bet the yeast were shocked from the weight of the sugar. Your OG is massive!

Do this; get a gallon jug, and fill it up about a 1/4 of the way with your must, and fill to halfway with apple juice and oxygenate it. At this point you can either repitch, or see if the yeast in suspension are still alive and see if it picks up.

The apple juice has nutrients in it, and is less dense than the honey. Give it a day and add more of the must to the jug. Shake it up and wait a day again for activity to pick up. You can oxyenate for five days after you start your fermentation. Since it hasn't started at all, you can start at day 0 again when you do this.

Ideally, it's best to start this in another 5 gallon carboy or bucket so you can keep making additions to your must without too much racking. I had to do this one time because I did the exact same thing. The OG has to start rather low and let the yeast ramp up. A dry mead has 2.5 lbs per gallon, a regular mead has 3 lbs per gallon, and a sweet mead usually has around 4 lbs per gallon.

Yeah, underpitched into an extremely high gravity. anything more than 3lbs a gallon, I suggest you lower the honey, and then feed more into the must after a couple of weeks.

I just made my first mead today.
1 Gallon jug
4 lbs Honey
juice from 2 lemons
some fruit
water to top off

I used half of a wyeast sweat mead smack pack (the other half went into 1 gallon of cider).

Should this take off?

I would think since the yeast was ment for 5 gallons, half would work for the one gallon.

Whatcha think?

Plan9 said:

I would think since the yeast was ment for 5 gallons, half would work for the one gallon.

Whatcha think?

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It will be fine....BUT!
Use the whole pack of yeast...especially when using dry yeast.
AND
Avoid a 1 gallon batch...You will eventually end up with something that is freeken amazing and you'll have 4 bottles.

I'm so lucky...the LHBS has $14.00 glass 3 gallon carboys....It takes $100 worth of diesel to get there.....but the carboys are great for mead.

It was liquid yeast, but I see what your saying.

I've never even tried mead before, so I wasn't planing on investing much.

If I like it my LHBS has the 3s for $18

Update: On Sunday (6/8, one week after pitching) there was activity. Slow bubbling, so I swirled the bucket. Air came rocketing out of the airlock, a machine gun-like burst of air firing out of the airlock, expelling the red cap and half the vodka. It then started bubbling like a normal fermentation. When it has slowed, I have swirled and the machine gun bubbling happens again.

I am going to take a gravity reading tonight, but I am thinking that the thick must is trapping CO2 in it? If so, I'd imagine that it will thin out as the honey is turned to alcohol, and might bubble more regularly. It gives me hope that it is working though.

Thoughts?

Thoughts: be patient. mead takes a lot longer to ferment than beer, and is much slower about it.

Some people get really good fermentation rates, but it seems like most do not. yeast used, energizer and nutrients, specific honey types, the pH of your must...all of these things matter a fair amount.

its fermenting now...that's good. leave it be.

This means nothing, I just had a mead take TWO WEEKS before it finally got going. Now it's bubbling like a madman.

Give it time. (if need be, weeks.)

Thanks guys! Yeah, it's been going for a while now. It's funny though, still when I swirl it around it motorboats out of the airlock like mad... Wonder why that is?

I am at the RDWHAHB stage of it though. When it's a month out from pitching, I'll take a hydrometer reading and see if it's time ot move it to 2ndary and leave it until it clears.

Thanks for the help and for calming me down!

DubbelDach said:

Thanks guys! Yeah, it's been going for a while now. It's funny though, still when I swirl it around it motorboats out of the airlock like mad... Wonder why that is?

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Outgassing, most likely. Agitation releases CO2 from solution.

OK, so it's been one month in primary. I took a gravity and it's 1.090, down from 1.138. So we're at about 6% abv, with quite a ways to go. I racked it to a carboy.

Now I know meads take a long time. But there wasn't much action on the airlock leading up to the transfer. Do you think I need more yeast? I can't imagine it's going to come down .080 after being racked off the initial yeast.

Suggestions, or RDWHAHB?

Yes, you should have just left it in the primary! When you racked it you left a ton of yeast behind, so now you may have to pitch again. Meads can get down to the 0.998 range and you still have a ton of sugars left.

Yeah....... Well there's a very good reason for moving it. Ants.

I kept the bucket in the garage and they swarmed it. Some even drowned in the airlock. Yes, there was honey on the outside of the bucket. Should have seen that coming.

It's bubbling very slowly today, but at least it's clean, in a carboy, and on a table in the basement. It tasted really good last night, so I think I'll just get more yeast, make a correct starter (like EvilTOJ mentioned above) and repitch.

You might want to pitch a different strain of yeast. Wyeast says their sweet mead yeast will only ferment to 11% ABV, which is about 83 points of gravity. If your original gravity was 1.138, the yeast would drink itself to death around 1.055 (very sweet). Maybe a white wine yeast like EC-1118, Premier Cuvee, or K1V-1116. The EC-1118 or Premier Cuvee should be dryer than the K1V-1116.

GinKings said:

The EC-1118 or Premier Cuvee should be dryer than the K1V-1116.

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Got 2 packets of the K1V-1116 today. Should I do the must + apple juice thing suggested by EvilTOJ in the 2nd post? Or just rehydrate and pitch?

after reading several articles on mead, the last batch I made I degassed 2Xdaily(for the first week after fermentation began) to allow more O2 for the yeast, punch the mango and blueberry down and to rouse the yeast. I made 1/4 teaspoon nutrient additions on day 1, 3 and 5. My OG was 1.146, it started bubbling on day three and went strong for 15 days then it slowed down. I'm into week three and its still bubbling slowly. I punch down every day and will continue until the fruit stops floating or fermentation ceases. It smells so good. I used ec1118 for the alcohol tolerance, figured I could always backsweeten if needed. for the K1V1116 I would go with the apple juice starter, but then again this is only my third batch and have done no more than hot tasting on the other two.

Made a half-gallon starter with 50% mead must and 50% natural apple juice. Pitched the 2 packets of K1V-1116 last night. The starter is bubbling like mad this morning.

When it settles down, do you think I should add more must? Or just pitch it?

Just pitch it. Two packets of yeast in a half gallon starter should be plenty. Temperature could also be an issue in your slow ferment. What's the temperature of your mead?

It's been 65-70 degrees since day 1.