Fermentatation, timeline and percentages

[Nate]

Hey all,

Still pretty new to meads and was wondering, for those of you who closely track it, what your typical fermentation timelines were for a basic traditional mead with aeration and staggered nutrient additions.

Our first traditional mead I had planned on doing nutrient additions and aeration on days 1, 3 and 5. By day 5 though we were already at 42% attenuation so didn't do the final nutrient addition. After 2 weeks, we were at 72%. It's not finished yet but I was wondering if these numbers were typical for a traditional mead.

I see some recommendations for doing aeration and/or additions out to days 5, 6 or 7 if less than 30% attenuated so I'm assuming this first batch is somewhat ahead of the typical curve?

Thanks in advance!

 

[FrodeM]

The fermentation of traditional mead can vary greatly depending on a whole lot of factors. Nutrients is one importaint one, but then there is also yeast type, fermentation temperature, original gravity, how you treat it (staggered nutrient addition, degassing, etc.) and in particular the acidity of the brew.

From what I understand, with the perfect conditions a mead can ferment in about a week. On the other hand, my first mead almost took 2 months before fermenting to more or less dry. I didn't use a HP-buffer though.

One thing to keep in mind is that honey is not always the same. There is a whole lot of variation depending on the type of nectar the bees made it from, the climate where the beehives were located, what processing it has had before reaching the store, and a whole lot of other things.

 

[Nate]

Yeah, only on our 5th batch and have seen different behavior on all but, again, this is our first traditional. From what I've seen, the different fruits definitely have different effects on the fermentation.

Speaking of acidity, I think it might be a factor in the cranberry melomel that is currently fermenting. It started off very strong but has pretty much died at only around 9% ABV... looks like this is probably going to finish very sweet.

 

[JJack887]

Don't overthink mead too much. Mead can be great without a nutrient schedule ( I've never done that, and they all ferment in about two weeks ), and traditionals ferment slower since there's no added nutrients from fruits/juice. I might be in the minority, but I say forget all the gravity readings and just let the mead go with an initial DAP addition at the beginning of making it and rack when it's around 1.010. Speaking of cranberry, I just bottled my batch a week ago and I got 100% attenuation. Still tasted a bit sweet, too, and very good. But it took 4 months of clearing and sedimentation-dropping.

 

[MarshmallowBlue]

This digs into it a little bit, but there's more charting to do I think.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/mead-making-the-profiling-of-honey.html

 

[MarshmallowBlue]

hella' sweet brew stand you got by the way.

 

[Nate]

hella' sweet brew stand you got by the way.

Thank you sir... and that chart was pretty much exactly what I was looking for.