First batch of mead > need advice on what to do

[Ropi88]

Good day,

On 22-4-2020 I made my first batch of mead ever.
The last 4 weeks it has been fermenting really good. It slowed down and there was an inch of lees at the bottom of the carboy, so I thought it was a good idea to rack it.
Did some things to get the gravity down a bit, and now I wonder what I need to do.

Background information:
I follow the traditional mead recipe from CS Brews on Youtube (raw honey, water, yeast, tannin tea with orange)
The yeast I used: Bulldog Mead Yest + Nutrient.
The SG of my batch was around 1.116
I thought it was a bit high (the recipe said 1.105), but I was focussed on not overfilling the carboy.

I took a reading on 7-5-2020 (16 days later) just to see what was happening > it was at 1.085

Yesterday (31 days later) I measured it after racking to another carboy: 1.06

Because the syphon I used wasn't very good I left some more stuff in the first carboy just to make sure I wouldnt transfer any lees.
There was a lot of space in the carboy so I thought I could fill it up with water.
I knew it was going to dilute it a bit, but thought it wouldn't be to big of a problem.
Gravity after filling up and slowy turning the carboy upside down to mix the water in: 1.03.
After setting the carboy away with a new airlock, I noticed no activity (no bubbles).
Today, 1 day later, still nothing is happening.

Now, looking at the SG and the gravity before diluting, the alcohol percentage was around 7.35%
Since the gravity after diluting is 1.03, there should be more room for fermentation.

What should I do now?

 

[bernardsmith]

Hi Ropi88 - and welcome. It's not entirely clear to me where your mead is at. If you started with a gravity of 1.116 (so probably about 3 lbs of honey or more to make 1 gallon of mead) and the gravity was at 1.060 when you racked it then the yeast ate through 56 points of sugar. That suggests to me that your mead is searingly sweet (because about 1.5 lbs of unferemnted sugar in each gallon.) and the mead is at about 7% ABV as you say.
At that level of alcohol it's hard to believe that the yeast you selected simply gave out because of alcohol poisoning. So I would think that your mead has stalled - assuming that is that your reading of 1.060 was stable - and not simply a reading you took once and and done. If the yeast is still actively fermenting then let it go until it's done. Adding more water to bring the gravity down by 30 points makes it a little complicated to calculate the potential ABV but if you have some idea of how much water you added then we could simply use that total amount of water with the calculated amount of honey you used to begin with to determine the nominal "starting gravity" and so the potential ABV that this mead has.

 

[Ropi88]

Hi @bernardsmith
Thanks for your answer.
The mead has stalled I think, because its not showing any activity in the last 2 days (its hardly able to push the water in the airlock out of balance).

I have an approximate amount of water I added, so I'll give all the numbers:
The recipe said 3 pounds of honey per gallon.

I use a 5 liter carboy (or 1.3 gallon)
I added 1.8 kg of honey ( or 4 pounds)

That would mean that of the SG of honey is 1.4, I started with:

1.3 liter of honey
3.5 liter of water (didnt fill it to the top)
Then, when diluting it after racking, I added around 0,5 liter of water.

Can you do anything with these numbers?
And another question: isn't it going "bad" if its just sitting like this?

Thanks!

 

[bernardsmith]

By my calculations you are for all intents and purposes fermenting about 2.8 lbs of honey in a gallon (that's including the added half liter so the nominal gravity of that would be close to 1.100 and so potentially an ABV of 13% . If the gravity is now 1.060 (or perhaps 1.050) and has been there for a few days then it does look stalled. unlikely that it will go bad given that the mead is about 6 or 7% alcohol and there is another pound of sugar in solution.

What I might do to kick start the stalled fermentation is a) cap your carboy and shake the bejeeesus out of it to introduce oxygen. b) if you did not provide the yeast with nutrients I would do so now. At 7% ABV the yeast can still uptake nutrient and c) I would create a new starter with a fresh batch of yeast and upend your process by
measuring the volume of the starter and when that is actively fermenting add the same volume of the stalled batch to the starter and wait. If and when the starter is going gangbusters WITH the added stalled quantity, add the SAME volume as the starter has now from the stalled batch and watch... and repeat this process until 100 percent of the stalled batch is now fermenting in the starter.
That approach helps neutralize any systemic problems that may be in the stalled batch: if you simply add a fresh pack of yeast to the stalled batch any systemic problem may overwhelm the fresh yeast in precisely the same way that it may have overwhelmed the first pack. Upending the process ensures that you have a large viable colony of yeast actively fermenting and able to ferment the next volume of problem mead you add each time.
Good luck.

 

[Ropi88]

@bernardsmith, thanks for your help.
As shaking the bejeesus out of it was the simplest solution, I gave that a try.
Shook it real good yesterday and this morning I saw that it was active again, although really slow.
Now I just let it sit for a while?

 

[bernardsmith]

I would monitor the gravity. Check daily to see that it continues to drop. A fall in SG is the only indication that you have that fermentation is continuing. Bubbles by themselves are not a good indicator - they could simply be the result of CO2 collecting with enough energy to fall out of suspension and rise to the surface.

 

[CKuhns]

+1 what @bernardsmith Said

Also. The temperature range for your yeast is pretty wide and higher than most yeasts. 20C - 30C or 68F to 86F if you are fermenting at the lower or middle of the range you might want to kick it up 5 deg F or so. Caution though, some yeasts when you shoot for higher temps tend to throw some off flavors without a good dose of nutrients. (DISCLAIMER - I have never used that particular yeast so cant speak to it from experience.)