theflavorzone
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- Nov 27, 2019
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hello everyone! i’ve been brewing beer for a few months, and impulsively decided to put together a batch of mead. i had 10 pounds of raw wildflower honey, which i mixed into ~4.6 gallons of boiled+cooled water.
however, upon getting ready to deal with the pitching, i noticed that our last two packets of yeast had accidentally been moved/thrown away! my solution, which i personally thought was elegant but might be wildly stupid, was to take some fresh yeast (WLP002) harvested from a porter i’m brewing and to just pitch it all straight out of my conical collection ball. this happened on sunday.
i’m out of town, so i’ve been receiving updates over text from friends: it looks like the fermentation got off to a very vigorous start within hours of pitching, and maintained a nice “krausen” (no idea what the mead terminology equivalent is haha) for at least a couple days. however, it’s starting to slow down already, and i’m concerned about its progress. for context, the airlock has almost entirely stopped bubbling and there is now only a thin layer of foam sitting on the surface of the liquid (not even covering all of it, just a bit of foam on roughly half of it).
is everything gonna be okay? it feels like there should’ve been a longer primary, especially for something i’m hoping to hit >9% abv on. i have yeast nutrient (wyeast brand i think), which i originally added to the porter starter - should i try throwing some in and shaking the carboy? i’m afraid that it’s too late, and that trying to reinvigorate the yeast will only oxygenate/contaminate the mead.
any advice is appreciated! attached pic is of the mead a few hours after i pitched. it’s sitting at ~69 degrees F right now, i think.
however, upon getting ready to deal with the pitching, i noticed that our last two packets of yeast had accidentally been moved/thrown away! my solution, which i personally thought was elegant but might be wildly stupid, was to take some fresh yeast (WLP002) harvested from a porter i’m brewing and to just pitch it all straight out of my conical collection ball. this happened on sunday.
i’m out of town, so i’ve been receiving updates over text from friends: it looks like the fermentation got off to a very vigorous start within hours of pitching, and maintained a nice “krausen” (no idea what the mead terminology equivalent is haha) for at least a couple days. however, it’s starting to slow down already, and i’m concerned about its progress. for context, the airlock has almost entirely stopped bubbling and there is now only a thin layer of foam sitting on the surface of the liquid (not even covering all of it, just a bit of foam on roughly half of it).
is everything gonna be okay? it feels like there should’ve been a longer primary, especially for something i’m hoping to hit >9% abv on. i have yeast nutrient (wyeast brand i think), which i originally added to the porter starter - should i try throwing some in and shaking the carboy? i’m afraid that it’s too late, and that trying to reinvigorate the yeast will only oxygenate/contaminate the mead.
any advice is appreciated! attached pic is of the mead a few hours after i pitched. it’s sitting at ~69 degrees F right now, i think.