First Brews and a Possible Issue

[vincanis]

Hello all,

I decided to get into homebrewing over Christmas and I finally got my equipment in. Right now I have a 5g batch of Porter, a 1g Batch of sweet mead and I decided to try to be adventurous and try to make a 1 gallon batch of Apple Pie spiced mead.

The ingredients I used for the Apple Pie mead were:

3 lb of Honey
1/8 tsp of Cloves
1/4 tsp of Nutmeg
1/4 tsp of Allspice
3 Cinnamon Sticks
Apple Cider (to top off the gallon, and pasteurized obviously)
.5 tsp of Yeast Energizer
.5 tsp of Yeast Nutrient
1 packet of Lalvin D-47 yeast

Now here's where the problem comes in. My normal mead and my beer are fermenting away to their heart's content. But my Apple Pie mead was fermenting rather slowly compared to the others, and oddly enough it seemed like the yeast took refuge inside the cinnamon sticks as that was where a majority of the bubbles were forming.

Compared to the other two ferments it seemed to be moving at a snails pace so I decided to toss in some extra energizer and yeast nutrient (1 tsp each just a couple minutes ago) and it seems like I may have stopped the ferment?

I think my problem was I may have let in some bacteria when I put in the spices. I didn't boil them or anything first. Does anyone have any advice? Should I pitch in more yeast? Should I just start the batch over?


EDIT:

I suppose I should put my process for the meads in here as well.
1. Boiled water.
2. Sanitized all Equipment with C-Brite.
3. Rinsed equipment with boiling water.
4. Put on a new batch of water to be boiled and used in a mead.
5. Heated honey to about 185 degrees Fahrenheit with a double boiler and then quickly chilled to kill anything that may have been in it.
6. Poured my honey: 3.5 lbs in the Sweet Mead and 3 in the Apple Pie mead.
7. Poured the boiling water into the sweet mead, shook it, put a solid stopper on top and let it cool down in some cold water.
8. Topped off the Apple Pie mead with the Apple Cider and then added spices, then shook it up.
9. Added yeast Energizer and Nutrient to both batches.
10. Waited until the normal mead was cool enough not to kill the yeast then prepared and pitched it.
11. Shook both batches to aerate the yeast.
12. Put an Airlock on both and let them go.

 

[fatbloke]

-----%<-----

1. Boiled water.

OK

2. Sanitized all Equipment with C-Brite.

Don't know that one i.e. whether it's one that needs to be rinsed off or whether it's a "no rinse" sanitiers.....

3. Rinsed equipment with boiling water.

As above....

4. Put on a new batch of water to be boiled and used in a mead.

fine.

5. Heated honey to about 185 degrees Fahrenheit with a double boiler and then quickly chilled to kill anything that may have been in it.

Using current suggested technique, that's a waste of time and may have damaged the honey inasfaras, it's natures most anti-bacterial, anti-fungal substance. Heating honey is considered to remove a lot of the aromatics and possibly some of the finer flavouring elements. Even raw honey is considered fine, as any hive/bee debris will drop out during the fermentation and racking processes.

6. Poured my honey: 3.5 lbs in the Sweet Mead and 3 in the Apple Pie mead.

The actual amounts of honey used will depend on gravity readings and how strong (%ABV-wise) you want the end product to be - the higher the %ABV, often, the longer the finished mead will need to be aged for as a common result can be an "alcohol hot" flavour, which usually ages out over time.

7. Poured the boiling water into the sweet mead, shook it, put a solid stopper on top and let it cool down in some cold water.

Ok

8. Topped off the Apple Pie mead with the Apple Cider and then added spices, then shook it up.

One of the main reasons to start a batch, initially, in a bucket that has a larger volume than the intended batch, is to give expansion space during any aeration that might be used at primary stage/during SNA (staggered nutrient addition). As when it's stirred/shaken or however you aerate the batch, CO2 is released, causing batches to foam like hell, and the larger bucket will allow for this, whereas a carboy that holds the batch with little head space can result in an eruption of foam/mead fountain (fermenter place in a sink can reduce possible mess from this).

9. Added yeast Energizer and Nutrient to both batches.

Lots of people do this at this stage, yet if you read the Gotmead NewBee guide, you'll follow that during the earliest stages, any DAP in nutrient is thought to be detrimental to yeast cell development. Hence why it's thought best to rehydrate yeast using GoFerm (little to none DAP, but plenty of other stuff nutritionally beneficial to yeast). Then once the pitched yeast is showing signs of fermentation, normal nutrient/energiser mix or combined nutrient type products are added.

10. Waited until the normal mead was cool enough not to kill the yeast then prepared and pitched it.

As above and/or at the NewBee guide.

11. Shook both batches to aerate the yeast.

Fine. There are a number of ways to aerate, some reading/research would show that mixing/stirring/shaking are often used, but also blitzing must in a sanitised liquidiser, bubbling air or O2 through an air stone, or even just setting the fermenter on a stir place with a sanitised stirring bar in the batch (sometimes for a set period, sometimes for the entire ferment).

12. Put an Airlock on both and let them go.

Ok.

The difference in the speed of fermentation is something that there's lots of talk about. It seems that there's not one particular thing that will guarantee the quickest method for fermentation. There's a number of things that are thought, or have been shown, to slow things down though. For instance, temperature, yeast type, sugars/fermentables level, excess acidity and/or low pH. Even honey types seem to vary the fermentation speeds.

I'd have thought that the Apple pie mead might be having issues with pH as honey is acidic enough, but the apple juice (sorry, I'm in the UK and "cider" here, is fermented apple juice, not cloudy apple juice as is often the case in the US) is also acidic. It may be that it just needs a bit more aeration, which is worth a try, but it may be that if you can test pH, you'd find that you'd need to add something to bring it up a bit. The "sweet spot" for pH and yeast, seems to be IRO 3.2 to 3.6 pH. There's a number of things that can be used to bring pH up a bit if needed, calcium carbonate comes to mind, but there's others (and they often have pro's and con's, hence a little research is often needed for you to work out which one you think best or prefer....)

Dunno if any of that lot is of any use or not. It might just give you some "food for thought" and pointers to look into other info. The NewBee guide is certainly worth a read as there are a number of differences between mead, beer and wine fermentations (meads are usually fermented more like wines).

p.s. Oh and D47 is considered a good yeast for meads, but if you looked it up on the Lalvin yeast chart, you'd notice quite a narrow temperature range. I understand it needs to be kept below 70F/21C, otherwise it can produce fusels and a "paint thinners" sort of taste that isn't easily aged out/removed.

 

[vincanis]

Well knowing all of that kind of makes me want to buy some GoFerm and some wyeast and start another batch of the apple pie one.

I also need to buy some pH test strips.

Small Edit:

I just checked my meads and beer. The sweet mead is going strong still, my beer (thank god I went with the blow-off tube, because I had about 1.5 quarts of blow off there.) is fermenting like a bat out of hell and it has only been 16 hours since it was brewed, but my Apple Pie mead seems pretty dead. There's no sign of life whatsoever for the yeast.

I made the meads on Tuesday the 17th, so I think it's safe to say that it isn't done fermenting, but it also never fermented all that much. Should I get some GoFerm, a better yeast strain and pitch it in or just start over? It's had an airlock on the entire time except for when I tossed in the Nutrient+Energizer.

 

[Insomniac]

Don't start over, if you do this have thick mould growing on it that's never the best solution. I would get some new yeast,and repitch

 

[vincanis]

I have two packets of D-47 on the way.

I wasn't going to toss out the old one, just start a new batch and see how it fares compared to the original. I'm not sure what Yeast to get though. I've been reading that guide and I'm leaning toward the Wyeast brand, but I'm not sure which one of the yeasts to get.

I also plan on boiling the spices in a cup or two of water before putting them in if I do it.

 

[fatbloke]

I have two packets of D-47 on the way.

I wasn't going to toss out the old one, just start a new batch and see how it fares compared to the original. I'm not sure what Yeast to get though. I've been reading that guide and I'm leaning toward the Wyeast brand, but I'm not sure which one of the yeasts to get.

I also plan on boiling the spices in a cup or two of water before putting them in if I do it.

I'm unaware whether wyeast sell a range of dry wine yeasts or not. Dry ones tend to have a much higher cell count than liquid ones (avoid their sweet mead yeast as it's complete PITA to use). If you do go for a liquid yeast, I'd recommend making a starter to make a much larger yeast colony before pitching, whereas with the dry yeasts, you can just rehydrate them according to the instructions, but it seems to be better if you rehydrate them with GoFerm, as it makes for a more healthy colony.

If you're not too worried, then you can just make a batch and follow any recipe instructions you might have, or course, that's a bit "trial and error", but that's not to say that it won't come out well. The Gotmead NewBee Guide I linked to in my first response does have some excellent advice, so it's worth following (hell, have a good dig round Gotmead while you're there, they have a plethora of recipes, advice, etc etc....)

good luck with whatever you settle on...

 

[vincanis]

I wasn't aware that Wyeast was all liquid yeast.

Hmm. I assume I'll go with the Lalvin EC-1118 and do a little more research on the flavored meads.

Plan now is to go:

3.5-4 lbs of honey (whatever I have left) unboiled/heated
1 cup of water with goferm and my yeast
Original spices, boiled in another cup of water
Fill the rest with apple cider

and let my other batch ferment as it is. It apparently still has SOME activity as the lid popped on my airlock a couple more times when I checked it.

 

[vincanis]

Sorry to double post, but there's good news. In preparation to pitch one more packet of yeast to attempt to save the batch, I siphoned off a couple ounces of liquid from the mead.

Lo and behold either the air it got while I was siphoning or because of the little bit of headroom I added, the yeast started working doubletime and are bubbling away.

I'm still going to pitch in the second packet of yeast, since I already started the activation, but hopefully everything continues to go smoothly.

Thanks for the responses everyone.