Should my mead look like this during primary fermentation?

[david kim]

1. I've noticed that my primary fermentation mead has so much debris floating around in it.

Is this just the yeast or is it perhaps just suspended fruit pieces or something sinister? Im wondering if this a problem?

2. My mead has also been covered under a towel and whenever I check up on it, the liquid also seems to be moving a lot. Is this also an issue or just a regular part of fermentation?

I cant seem to find any videos of the primary fermentation phase in order to see if what is happening is normal or not :S

3. Do i need to punch my fruit cap down at this stage to prevent mold? Im thinking of just racking to a secondary so that i dont have to think of the fruit molding anymore.

Help is much appreciated.
Videos attached (day 8)!

My mead is currently 8 days in and the ingredients are:
4lb/2kg honey
orange
Strawberry
Blueberry
Cinnamon
Cloves

 

[fluketamer]

hi welcome to the forum
all the junk floating is normal.
rising co2 bubbles bring liquid with them casuing an upward flow in the fermenter. gravity brings stuff back down again.
dont check on it. its tempting but will only cause worry as evidenced by this post - thats the down side of clear FV.
enjoy the lava lamp when you do take a peek.
with that narrow neck i wouldnt punch anything down. that fruit is bathed in co2, yeast, and an ever increasing amount of alcohol, all of which should hold wild molds at bay untilt he alcohol gets high enough to kill anything. YMMV.
that looks similar to a jaom. you importantly left out what yeast you are using.
when you say cloves was it more than 1 clove. that $hit is strong. it may take a LONG time to mellow that out . cinnamon stick or powdered. piece of stick works better at infusing the cinnamon which like clove is also very strong stuff.
orange pith from the orange peel in jaom is intensly bitter and "pithy" . i have had better luck with jaom with orange using the juice and orange zest (grated orange rind) . leaving out the pith.

MEAD:
mead is an interesting beverage. have you had commercial mead. do you like it. for some its an acquired taste. meads used to take YEARS to be palatable. even store bought meads just 15 years ago were very hard to come by unless you lived near a meadery and still tasted pretty bad and needed aging. . local orchards sometimes made crappy meads. or aged meads that were VERY expensive.

after BOMM experiments and tosna 1 and 2, meads become very quafable after only a month or 2 improving thereafter. you no longer have to age your mead for 5 years to get the cat pi$$ flavor out of it. i have some meads that i made 5 to 10 years ago. some are good some never came around only a very few were great that are long gone by now . lol
i can make pretty decent mead now with tosna. i just dont like mead enough to make it regularly. i prefer beer and cider . now there are craft meads and session meads and melomels available that are all very good. a not so local mead maker that i spoke to said that they used glycol jacketed ss fermenters and stepped nutrients to make there craft , session, aged and dessert meads. i suspect other craft meaderies are doing the same.

that looks great btw - good luck with your brew.

 

[david kim]

hi welcome to the forum
all the junk floating is normal.
rising co2 bubbles bring liquid with them casuing an upward flow in the fermenter. gravity brings stuff back down again.
dont check on it. its tempting but will only cause worry as evidenced by this post - thats the down side of clear FV.
enjoy the lava lamp when you do take a peek.
with that narrow neck i wouldnt punch anything down. that fruit is bathed in co2, yeast, and an ever increasing amount of alcohol, all of which should hold wild molds at bay untilt he alcohol gets high enough to kill anything. YMMV.
that looks similar to a jaom. you importantly left out what yeast you are using.
when you say cloves was it more than 1 clove. that $hit is strong. it may take a LONG time to mellow that out . cinnamon stick or powdered. piece of stick works better at infusing the cinnamon which like clove is also very strong stuff.
orange pith from the orange peel in jaom is intensly bitter and "pithy" . i have had better luck with jaom with orange using the juice and orange zest (grated orange rind) . leaving out the pith.

MEAD:
mead is an interesting beverage. have you had commercial mead. do you like it. for some its an acquired taste. meads used to take YEARS to be palatable. even store bought meads just 15 years ago were very hard to come by unless you lived near a meadery and still tasted pretty bad and needed aging. . local orchards sometimes made crappy meads. or aged meads that were VERY expensive.

after BOMM experiments and tosna 1 and 2, meads become very quafable after only a month or 2 improving thereafter. you no longer have to age your mead for 5 years to get the cat pi$$ flavor out of it. i have some meads that i made 5 to 10 years ago. some are good some never came around only a very few were great that are long gone by now . lol
i can make pretty decent mead now with tosna. i just dont like mead enough to make it regularly. i prefer beer and cider . now there are craft meads and session meads and melomels available that are all very good. a not so local mead maker that i spoke to said that they used glycol jacketed ss fermenters and stepped nutrients to make there craft , session, aged and dessert meads. i suspect other craft meaderies are doing the same.

that looks great btw - good luck with your brew.

Ahh good to know its all going normal so far! Yeah its super tempting to keep checking on the mead but i guess i should just let it be; the only thing that gets me worried is that if i keep the floating fruit unchecked, it'll mold. But i guess the alcohol level and co2 should keep it down. Ill take your professional advice

It does seem like a JOAM! I dont even know how i came to making it, i just threw in the fruits i had in my fridge and the spices in my pantry HAHAHA. I used a single clove because google told me its strong stuff, and used lalvin ec-1118 for the yeast (was hoping for a stronger drink).

Ive never actually tried mead, ive only come across it because im a beekeeper and i have my own honey. I decided to look into different things i can make with it and just happened to stumble across meads :S hopefully i like the stuff, but nontheless, seems like a fun and interesting experience and a darn good hobby to get in to.

I hope to just do more long term mead recipes and depending on how committed i get, ill probably start making BOMMs to enjoy it more often!

Hopefully it tastes good :S

Thanka for your wisdom