first mead

[wolfshado]

ok, since my Imperial IPA is now officially bottled i figured it was time for something special. I realized today my oldest son will be 21 in Sept, so why not make him a special gift of his very first MEAD!! i figure since his birthday is Late in the month, i have a good 9 1/2 months to let it ferment and mature.

Here's what i did

2 gal water (Boiled for 20 min)
12-13 lbs honey mixed in at flame out set for 20 minutes at low heat to mix honey
1 tsp cinnamon
6 cloves
8 raisins (to give the yeast something to eat)
one pack of EC 1118 yeast (re-hydrated with washed out honey from jugs)
Then into the carboy with the remaining 3 gallons of water

OG reads at 1.060 at temp of 78 degrees

Now,after reading a few recipes, most call for 2 packs of yeast. Will one be ok?

Will check in about 2 days to see if fermentation has begun, and if not, i guess i will just have to pitch another pack.

Any thoughts or suggestions? :rockin:

 

[RIC0]

I think I only used half a pack of EC1118 with one of my 1 gal meads so i would think a pack should be enough for 2 gal.

 

[wolfshado]

will it be enough for a 5 gallon batch? I am making 5 gallons

 

[wolfshado]

update: reading now sits at 1.040 but very slow fermentation. Added another prepped ec1118 packet and half an orange to give the yeast more to eat as well as some boiled yeast for the 1118 to feast on since i couldnt find yeast nutrient. If it doesnt go down to at least 1.020 by valentines i may have a probem on my hands. Any suggestions?

 

[RIC0]

Mead ferments at a snails pace. I've got a JAOM that is 2 months old still fartin thru the airlock.

I did bottle my blueberry this past weekend and it went from like 1.094 down to .996 I think it was. Either way it was around 13% abv and dry as hell.

Now with that being said I had another JAOM that sat for 2 months and it stalled out on fermenting and was llike 4.2% ABV. I bottled it and moved on, it's super sweet by the way.

They ain't kiddin when they say that EC-1118 is a dry yeast.

 

[rowsdower44]

Most yeast packets will tell you on the packaging how many gallons they can handle. 1 pack should be enough for 5 gallons.

I don't think you mentioned how much yeast you ended up using. How much did you use initially? Did you use any yeast nutrient to go with it?

 

[RIC0]

For the blueberry it was 2.5 gr of ec-1118 which ended dry, and it should.

For the JAOM I used 1 teaspoon of Fleishmann’s bread yeast.

For the few MEAD batches I've done I've made it, put it on a shelf and done nothing other than rack it to clear. Then off to a bottle.

When they say a MEAD batch takes 6 months or so I'm starting to believe it as I'm 4 months into making six 1 gallon batches.