When/How to stop the yeast culture

[twopounder]

Hey all, I just starting brewing mead a couple of weeks ago. My friend and I are maintaining a blog of our experiences. Due to an unfortunate accident involving honey, gravity, and a cement driveway, I ended up with a smaller than expected batch for my 6.5 gallon bucket.

Because I didn't want it saturated with oxygen (and subsequently vinegar) I racked the mead into re-purposed beer bottles and covered them with balloons. Now, the mead is going great and bubbling like crazy, but I don't see myself hanging onto this batch for the normal year long period. It was entirely a first batch for me to learn the process, and so it will most likely be consumed early.

Thus my conundrum. I've read that you can just cap the bottle and then refrigerate to kill the yeast, but this seems like a recipe for disaster. Should I refrigerate the bottles uncapped to make certain I don't have any bombs? It's partially wild fermentation, so I don't want to add any chemicals to it.

Do you have any suggestions?

 

[twopounder]

Well, I just stuck it in the fridge with a balloon on it to kill the yeast, tested half, bottled the rest, and stuck it back in the fridge. It tastes odd, so I may pour this batch out anyway.

 

[MarshmallowBlue]

Can we know a bit more about your recipe in particular? Also, wondering why you don't want to add stabilizing chemicals to stop the yeast because of it being partially wild?

Looks like you have 6 or so 22oz bottles which is more than enough to fill a 1 gallon carboy and finish fermenting in that, then rack, stabilize , age, all that fun stuff.

 

[twopounder]

The recipe was pretty basic. 3 lbs of honey + water in 6:1 ratio, then a box of blackberrys and 1/4 cup of blueberries. I did add cultured yeast to this (red star), but the honey and berries are unpasteurized. It sat for 7 days before racking into the 22oz bottles for another week. I wanted to stop the fermentation of one bottle so I could try the flavor of the green.

I don't want to add any unnecessary chemicals to it, including stabilizers. Mostly a personal choice.

 

[MarshmallowBlue]

I can at least tell you that you don't have any wild fermentation going on. The red-star was pitched in so much higher numbers than could be there on the berries, It (the red-star) also being more viable, it rocketed off kicking the wild yeast in the keister before it started to multiply.

I recommend putting the one you want to taste in the fridge (/ keep in the fridge), and move the rest of the 22s to a single 1 gallon carboy. Aging each separately will mean that each one of those bottles could taste slightly different because of human error factors (such as oxygen added, headspace, etc). Aging them all together is called "bulk aging" and is the preferred method to create 1 batch of unified mead.

As far as stopping the yeast. It will stop when it wants to unless you kill it. Even putting it in a fridge will only buy you until you take it out of the fridge, then it can (and probably will) start again, and blow up your bottle. Sometimes, a fridge isn't enough and it will just keep doing its thing. You guessed it. Bottle bombs, and a big mess in the fridge.

Getting it to be done without chemicals; You have a couple options in my eyes.
If you want it sweet (anything but dry): Step feed it and monitor gravity until it stops dropping. Add a bit at a time and monitor gravity and its done when its stopped for a month or two (you want to be careful here because of residual sugars, your goal is to have killed the yeast by going over their abv tolerance). I still recommend chemicals...

If it you want it dry: when the gravity gets to below 1.000 like .990 or .980, you're likely safe to bottle without chems (at least in beer bottles in case those few extra points drop, wine bottles cant hold carbonation like beer bottles).

 

[twopounder]

I have two 6.5 gallon buckets, but I didn't leave it racked in the second because of the vast amount of air in it. Though honestly, I'm not liking the taste of the mead so far and will probably dump it anyway.

I fully understand that it was not a complete wild fermentation, but again, it was entirely unpasteurized and I was trying to refrain from any chemical usage.

I'll be making a larger batch soon and getting several buckets for racking. It looks like I need to plan for a number of rackings to clarify it anyway.

Thanks for the help though

 

[fatbloke]

Berries, sweetness, whatever.....

It's unlikely to taste good this young. Its mead not beer.

Meads like to age and mellow. Give it 6 months minimum and it'll be a different drink......

 

[MarshmallowBlue]

Berries, sweetness, whatever.....

It's unlikely to taste good this young. Its mead not beer.

Meads like to age and mellow. Give it 6 months minimum and it'll be a different drink......

+1, which is why I recommend moving it to a single container.

 

[Yooper]

I have two 6.5 gallon buckets, but I didn't leave it racked in the second because of the vast amount of air in it. Though honestly, I'm not liking the taste of the mead so far and will probably dump it anyway.

I fully understand that it was not a complete wild fermentation, but again, it was entirely unpasteurized and I was trying to refrain from any chemical usage.

I'll be making a larger batch soon and getting several buckets for racking. It looks like I need to plan for a number of rackings to clarify it anyway.

Thanks for the help though

A bucket is fine for fermentation- but after that it needs to be in appropriately sized carboy and not a bucket. Mead is less susceptible to oxidation than wine- but not immune.