Ah keep shakin mah mead

[Husher]

Seriously, I made JOAM in a 80 oz bottle, and the first few weeks fermentation was slow, in that there was very little airlock activity, so I followed instructions and topped up the water. THAT'S where the airlock started getting active. And I have often (daily for a few weeks now) have JOAM in the tube of the airlock (3 piece), and will bounce the bottle on my knee to have it settle back into the fermenter.

And in the process, up comes the amazingly large yeast cake from bread yeast, swirling about in the bottle and eventually settling back down.

So Am I ruining my mead by doing this?

 

[Husher]

Seriously? no one can comment on excessive exposure to bread yeast? I only needed to do it for 2-3 weeks BTW.

 

[vonbonbon]

No issue at all. As long as you're careful not to shake liquid from your airlock into the mead (and even then, if it's vodka no big deal, if it's sanitizer it could be bad) you have nothing to worry about.

Yeast, whether in a cake or suspended, really won't cause any issues for three months or so. Even then, if you do what you're doing (shaking up regularly) you can still avoid any issues basically forever.

You're basically doing a ghetto sur lie fermentation.