BrewStooge
Well-Known Member
Good evening all, just went down to check on my first batch of mead that was started last week and wanted to get some insights. The recipe was nothing complicated, just honey, water, some yeast food and yeast. OG was figured to be around 1.14. Anyhow, I noticed there wasn't any visible activity and investigated further. Checked gravity and smell, I notice it still smelled slightly like sulfur from the tablets with none of the normal CO2 that I'm accustomed to with beer. Gravity was still sitting as high as ever too.
The yeast was an 'activator' pack from Wyeast, 4184. I didn't really get a proper started done before pitching it but did give it a few hours to wake up and swell.
TL;DR, how long should a mead usually take to start up? Will there be as active a ferm as beer? If I potentially poisoned the yeast with campden tabs (it sat overnight first, but not a full 24+ hours as we've done with wine) would Montrachet yeast be a reasonable booster since we've got a bunch of that around?
The yeast was an 'activator' pack from Wyeast, 4184. I didn't really get a proper started done before pitching it but did give it a few hours to wake up and swell.
TL;DR, how long should a mead usually take to start up? Will there be as active a ferm as beer? If I potentially poisoned the yeast with campden tabs (it sat overnight first, but not a full 24+ hours as we've done with wine) would Montrachet yeast be a reasonable booster since we've got a bunch of that around?