Making your own nutrient

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There are all sorts of alternate nutrient opportunities but usually commercial yeast nutrient works "better" most of the time. I want to use the term better very loosely here because that can be a matter of opinion and many can argue one way or the other. Here are some things I have used and/or are common methods for introducing nutrients to yeast in a mead.

1) boiled bread yeast - 2-3 tsp of dry yeast boiled in water for 5 min or placed in a cup of water in the microwave for 10 min will kill the yeast and allow your brewers yeast to feed off of the bread yeast remains.

2) raisins - many use a small handful of chopped raisins as nutrient. About 25 per gallon is a good amount and will not impart too much flavor.

3) B Vitamin pills - when I want my yeast to have a boost to colony growth and I am low on DAP or yeast energizer I will use one 100 mg pill of B6 in a gallon to help promote cell growth. A B Complex pill would be good as well.

There may be many more ways but these are the top 3 I know off the top of my head.
 
I use old yeast slurry as a nutrient occasionally. It seems to work well, but it is hard to tell. It is my understanding that SERVOMYCES is made from yeast which is where I got the idea. I just add the slurry to my boil. I would be interested at what others on the forum think about the idea.
 
yeast live off fruit, so if you want to feed yeast give them fruit.

For best nutrients, the entire fruit is used. For wine - it woudl be best to leave all parts of the grape in, but they usually have to filter it out prior to fermentation, and then add back in the nutrients that are lost (kind of like how the US food system works, lol).
 
I use old yeast slurry as a nutrient occasionally. It seems to work well, but it is hard to tell. It is my understanding that SERVOMYCES is made from yeast which is where I got the idea. I just add the slurry to my boil. I would be interested at what others on the forum think about the idea.

I like using a yeast slurry from prior wines but I use that as my active yeast. Then I add my nutrients in top of that. But your idea is a lot like the boiled bread yeast but i am sure there are many other trace nutrients in that slurry depending on the prior brew. So it should be a great way to go if you don't have other options.
 
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3) B Vitamin pills - when I want my yeast to have a boost to colony growth and I am low on DAP or yeast energizer I will use one 100 mg pill of B6 in a gallon to help promote cell growth. A B Complex pill would be good as well.

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Pretty sure it's B1 a.k.a. thiamine that is the one for cell growth. Haven't checked out B6, though it likely does no harm.....
 
Pretty sure it's B1 a.k.a. thiamine that is the one for cell growth. Haven't checked out B6, though it likely does no harm.....

Your right B1 is great for cell growth. I forget the resources I was pulling from when I started using B6 but I believe it had a lot to do with helping the yeast to process and absorb proteans and also helped to prevent cell death due to CO2 and SO2 related deaths. Which all promoted for a healthier yeast colony. At the time when I was researching around it seemed like a good choice and my yeast never seemed to complain when I used.
 
Thanks for all answers until now!

I really think this a great thing to debate. I was studing a little aboute nutrientes when came this idea of manipulate my own. So I think that we should start making the nutrient using yeast cell hulls, thiamin (B complex) and I also found a research work here in Brazil about the protective effects of magnesium against alcohol and temperature stress on yeast.
 
Thanks for all answers until now!

I really think this a great thing to debate. I was studing a little aboute nutrientes when came this idea of manipulate my own. So I think that we should start making the nutrient using yeast cell hulls, thiamin (B complex) and I also found a research work here in Brazil about the protective effects of magnesium against alcohol and temperature stress on yeast.

That is interesting about the magnesium. One thing I noticed with my latest batches is that I had two fruit meads side by side with pretty much the same recipe lack one used white grape juice and the other used apple juice. The white grape juice fermented all the way down to .990 about 5 days faster than the apple. The yeast type and pitch amount should have been the same and nutrient additions/aerating should have been all the same. Looking at the web site Nutritiondata.com it breaks down the average nutritional compounds of many items and what grape juice compared to apple juice had was over twice the amount of magnesium and double the B6 but still only trace amounts of B6. It was just fun to see a large amount of magnesium in there and see the results I got from this last set of batches.
 
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