concerning the apparently slow fermentation in mead.

Hi everybody, I'm a noob and I'm full of questions

I recently kicked off my brewing hobby by making my first mead which was a straight mead with 750g honey in 2L water. I used forest honey, 'cause it was cheap , the amounts translate to 1.65 lbs, 0.53 gallons for those living in one of the three remaning countries that don't use metric . The fermentation was left to proceed for a month before I killed the yeast with sulphite and cleared it using bentonite. It tasted weird, I suppose that's what honey tastes like without the sugar...

Anyway, I always figured all those yeast nutrients must leave behind a bit of flavour that you might not want. Sure, if you don't add the nutrients you won't have as much yeast but the yeast will survive so you just get a slower but cleaner fermentation. Is there anything against nót using yeast nutrients? (Or perhaps a teaspoon of DAP at most). I used port yeast from Kitzingers.

I'm now fermenting 2L of ginger mead using Champagne yeast from Kitzingers. It seems to be a much faster fermentation. I haven't bothered to take density measurements. What might be the reason for this difference in fermentation rates and how might it impact my mead? Is the ginger a good nutrient for the yeast?

Meads need nitrogen...aka DAP/Yeast Energizer.
you need to use your DAP per the label instructions, as using too much can cause off flavors.

how long did this age? mead needs to age...a while...months...sometimes even years.

Nerro said:

Anyway, I always figured all those yeast nutrients must leave behind a bit of flavour that you might not want. Sure, if you don't add the nutrients you won't have as much yeast but the yeast will survive so you just get a slower but cleaner fermentation.

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Slower, yes. Stuck, possibly. Cleaner, probably not. Stressed yeast (like, oh, yeast that don't have the necessary nutrients) produce off flavours.

Honey has basically no nutrients for yeast, but for 2L you wont need much so it wont affect the flavour (Try putting 2 grams of table salt in 2L of water and see if you can taste it),
champagne yeast would probably like a small amount of citric acid as well (not enough to flavour the mead).
And yeah...mead is much better after 12 months in my opinion (if you scale it up to 2 gallon batches its easier to age it for longer after the first batch)
My friends dad (who makes 2 tonnes of honey a year) usually leaves his for 3-4 years before drinking it...he even let me sample some he made in 1986.

with mead you should really let it ferment out imo. If you want it sweeter use a different yeast or add more honey so the yeast eventually crap out.