Didn't use campden, am I screwed?

[Drinksahoy]

Hello all. I'm brand new to home brewing. My first batch was a cider and I didnt use a campden tablet and today was 2 weeks in. Fermentation had completely ceased nearly a week ago and it smelled and tasted absolutely awful today when I determined and has confined from someone much more experienced that it had gone bad.

A friend said it's probably because I didn't use a campden.

Well last night I started a batch of mead as my second go.
I used:
-1 gallon water,
-4lb honey(to get the OG at 1.100 where I wanted it)
-yeast energizer
-71b yeast.
I poured the honey into a pot with the water and got it pretty warm but definitely not boiling.
Added yeast energizer, then hydrated and pitched the yeast.

My first batch screw up has me terrified I'm going to waste this batch too!
Thanks!

 

[bernardsmith]

Hi Drinksahoy, and welcome. Assuming that 1 lb of honey will raise a gallon of water from 1.000 to 1.035 then 4 lbs will raise that gallon to 1.140 which means that your must has a potential ABV (alcohol by volume ) of 18% . Mead is a wine and not a spirit so you have a hellavu lot of alcohol for the amount of flavor that 4 lbs of honey might impart (of course some honey is very flavor rich). Bottom line? You gotta hope that the yeast will simply die from alcohol poisoning before they can ferment all the sugars in this batch. That will leave you with a slightly sweet or a sweet mead and that might hide some of the heat that 18% alcohol will produce.
For your next batch you might want to use between 2.5 and 3 lbs of honey... But I wonder what was the purpose of heating your must? Were you trying to remove the oxygen? Books by Schramm or Piatz on mead making might be useful. They are published by reputable publishers and are not self published so they have to go through some internal reviews to make sure what the authors suggest has some basis in the science and indeed the art of mead making rather than comes from the whole cloth on which self publishing authors rely.

 

[Drinksahoy]

Thanks for the timely reply.
I started with 3 lbs of honey but the reading was at 1.08 and I thought it was supposed to be 1.10 so I kept added until I got that; which was about 4lb.

I was under the impression I could make it stronger that way and then backsweeten when I'm done to make it sweeter with more honey.

Did adding the extra honey put me at risk of ruining the batch to bacteria or vinegar? And did neglecting to campden tablet it first also do the same?

Edit: could I also just use potassium sorbate to cease fermentation when it's at like 1.02?

 

[CKuhns]

Agree with Bernard your OG was likely higher than measured. I target an OG of 1.120 to 1.125 typically takes about 3.5+ pounds of Honey per gallon of water.

With that said - Relax, you are likely OK. If it is fermenting just let it go.

I have not used 71b but everything i have read is that it should chew though the sugar pretty well. Yeast nutrient and aeration is a good idea and will help.

As far as Campden - I personally never use it. Never have had an issue but am pretty careful about sanitation. If you have an active ferment the 71b will likely out compete everything else, you should be OK.

As far as being concerned about the extra honey - No concern!!! Hopefully the yeast will crap out before you go bone dry. Again, I would let it go until done, when your FG does not change for 1 week solid then primary is done.

When ferment is over, taste it and inhibit or adjust by sweetening but let it age a bit before you adjust too much. Keep an air lock on it and be sure to rack to a smaller container reducing head space once your FG settles out.

 

[madscientist451]

If the cider you made smells bad, it might not have anything to do with not adding chemicals. There are too many possible variables including, what kind of apples/juice, what yeast, what fermentation temperature, any additions of sugar or and anything else?
Can you describe the smell? What does it taste like?
Making mead is similar to making cider, but it is a little different.
The meadmaker at Groennfell meadery in Vermont has an extensive blog with lots of tips and recipes, and he does sulfite his mead must. Check it out:

http://www.groennfell.com/blog

 

[Drinksahoy]

Okay I appreciate all these links and resources. Im going to research the hell out of this. I am quite addicted to this hobby already.

The cider smell and taste got worse over the course of several days and make me sick when I drank a glass for the whole day. I dumped it.

You say to aerate my mead, but I'm afraid that aerating my cider so often was why I went bad!

Everything is fermenting right now and looking good. I was planning on leaving it sealed and measuring it once every few days to keep oxygen at a minimum.
And racking to secondary when the airlock slowed down to once every 30 seconds and reads SG 1.0??