...eat ALL the honeys?

'lo all. I have a question I'm pretty sure I know the answer to but I wanted to ask more seasoned mead vets. I threw together an orange mapfelwein mead. There is a layer of lees forming on top of a layer of honey/syrup at the bottom of the carboy. My question is will the yeasties eventually make their way down there to eat what is on the bottom? Seeing as how S. cerevisiae exhibit chemotaxis I assume they will as long as they don't hit their EtOH tolerance beforehand. If I need to stir, I'm screwed since I don't have a wine whip or lees stirrer. Either way I'm not *incredibly* worried. Just curious.

For reference:

1 Gallon Batch

2# honey
1# dark amber grade A maple syrup
25ish raisins
1.5 L Martinelli's pressed apple juice
juice and zest of 1 medium orange
1 large cinnamon stick
1 packet Fleischmann's Active Dry (DON'T JUDGE ME!!)
filtered water to top off carboy

the yeast should eat their way through it, but you don't get accurate hydro readings. I assume its still fermenting, so oxidation shouldnt be an issue. Id would a rack some of the liquid off, and shake the jug to dissolve the honey and syrup, careful not to do it to hard at first so it doesn't foam over. Then add the racked off liquid back on.

I gave it some time (mostly because I'm lazy) and they made their way down and ate the honey and maple. It's all roiling around and bubbling away nicely now. I'm hoping the orange zest doesn't overpower the maple. I kept some syrup to backsweeten/flavor just in case. Do you think Christmas would be too soon for this guy to taste alright? I have given my others about 7 months before I broke into them but I think this will be a nice winter mead.

Aquavitae said:

I gave it some time (mostly because I'm lazy) and they made their way down and ate the honey and maple. It's all roiling around and bubbling away nicely now. I'm hoping the orange zest doesn't overpower the maple. I kept some syrup to backsweeten/flavor just in case. Do you think Christmas would be too soon for this guy to taste alright? I have given my others about 7 months before I broke into them but I think this will be a nice winter mead.

Click to expand...

Nah! should be fine. In fact, given that you've basically got even more sugars in the batch (the apple juice) than an equivalent JAO, it'll likely finish sweet anyway.

If it doesn't then you've the syrup to sort that.