Problem here :/

[Cattleskull]

Alright, so I put the cork in the 3 gallon glass jug last month on the 24th, out of curiosity, is it bad that the 3 piece air lock isn't bubbling at all? but I do see some patches of yeast forming and some bubbling on the sides. NOT ALLOT. Very small.

Help?

 

[Halbrust]

Need LOTS moe info!
2-3 weeks to start fermentation seems like a long long time though. As in almost impossible, but airlock movement is not needed for fermentation to be occuring.

 

[Cattleskull]

We didn't add any energizer or anything special. It could be a slow process maybe without any of those possibly.


All we added was water, honey, yeast and honey bee pollen.

 

[Halbrust]

I've done mead with just water, honey, and yeast and it was going strong in less than 24 hours.

Did you take a starting gravity reading?

 

[tassadar]

Did you monitor the bubbler for the entire time? Was there any time when it was bubbling actively? Primary fermentation usually goes pretty quickly. The yeast might have done its job when you were not looking.

Sample the must, or the liquid, and see if you can detect alcohol.

If not, and you're sure no fermentation occurred:

What was the composition of the must? (water to honey ratio)
What kind of yeast did you use?
What is the room like where your container is? (dark? hot? humid?)

Hope you can find a resolution. Don't give up hope! Mead is very forgiving.

 

[ACbrewer]

Honey by itself is a terrible fermentor. There is no other material in it than the sugar, so without something (raisens, fruit skin, energizer, etc) it just will take forever to ferment. Heck I had one yeast that took a week for the hydrometer to change (well down, it went up after 2 days?? - miss read or temp flux I think), and this was with proper nutrients added.

While your ingredients will probably eventually ferment, they will take a long time. Also take some gravity readings with a hydrometer to see if you are getting any fermentation, airlock activity is often not seen when there is active fermentation.

 

[Cattleskull]

Did you monitor the bubbler for the entire time? Was there any time when it was bubbling actively? Primary fermentation usually goes pretty quickly. The yeast might have done its job when you were not looking.

Sample the must, or the liquid, and see if you can detect alcohol.

If not, and you're sure no fermentation occurred:

What was the composition of the must? (water to honey ratio)
What kind of yeast did you use?
What is the room like where your container is? (dark? hot? humid?)

Hope you can find a resolution. Don't give up hope! Mead is very forgiving.

We forgot to do a gravity measure before corking it. We just transferred it from the bucket to the 3 gallon jug.

A. It was pretty strong taste and smell, its smell lingered for a while, it was sweet and good. I wanted more lol...

B. Organic yeast

C. Basement, in a pitch black storage room, the basement is relatively cold and warm.

On a side note, we originally have 4 gallons, we put the other gallon in a plastic water carton and threw in some sliced up oranges. That one seem's to be doing the same thing. Except its not in the basement, its upstairs in a dark cabnit.

 

[ACbrewer]

Cattleskull - so you just picked up so yeast from the store? usually people use some form of wine yeast and then a specific strain. example Lavin K71b would be Lavin brand strain K71b style. What sort of 'hot/cold' temps?

 

[Cattleskull]

Cattleskull - so you just picked up so yeast from the store? usually people use some form of wine yeast and then a specific strain. example Lavin K71b would be Lavin brand strain K71b style. What sort of 'hot/cold' temps?

Its like 70 degrees in my houes.

 

[ACbrewer]

have you taken a gravity reading.. We can make an estimate of what it started at based on the volume and the amount of honey... at this point, you should have some movement on the readings.
So what did you put in (how much honey, how much water) and then get a gravity reading and post that.

 

[saramc]

For the three weeks it was in your bucket, aka primary, did you ever see fine bubbles on the surface, almost like how gnats land on water? Or listened to it and heard snap, crackle, fizz sound? If yes...that is a great indicator that you had activity.
But a hydrometer reading now, while in your carboy, under airlock ( not a cork, that is solid ) in secondary container will give us a great bit of info in determining what is going on.

 

[cgenebrewer]

So you placed the honey, water, and yeast all into a bucket. This is called primary fermentation. Seems like you did the first step just fine, aside from not using a wine yeast, but that is not a dealbreaker. Now, did you seal it with an airlock or did you leave it open to the air? If you used an airlock, you should have seen some bubbles if you watched it A LOT during the first 4 days. After 4 days it may have slowed down to the point of not bubbling more than once every f minutes or more, so you would not see any. I do not expect any bubbles when I rack mine to secondary, which is placing it in the jug with an airlock.

 

[Cattleskull]

Yes I use airlocks. I checked it and the airlock makes one bubble slowly. I also see some patches of small dark bubbles on the surface.

This is what I have.

 

[cgenebrewer]

everything looks fine. just keep waiting. if you tell us exactly how much honey and exactly how much water, we ciuld give you more info

 

[Cattleskull]

Sorry about that.

We put 4 and half gallons of distilled water in the wine bucket and at least a whole raw jug of honey. It was I think 1 gallon.

 

[ACbrewer]

So that is about 12lb of honey with about 5.5 total volume. I've made that ratio, your OG is probably about 1.080 to 1.085 (depending on honey sugar content) and your FG should finish about .990 to .995