my meads stinking up the room

I just started my first batch of mead and there is a really strong yeasty/sulfer smell filling the room that I've never smelled with my beers. Any advice is this normal?

 

No that's a sign of stressed yeast thats lacking nutrition.

Post a full recipe for a better diagnosis but give it a damn good stirring to get some O2/air into the batch and at least 1 tsp per gallon of nutrient like Fermaidk (fermax, superfood, tronozymol, or even wyeast beer nutrient) per gallon.......

It should settle down and its also not beer so it generally doesnt help to use beer making techniques. Honey isn't like a malt......

 

Im doing a version of the waialeale chablis mead but with gewurztraminer instead of chablis. 5#honey, 26oz gewurztraminer concentrate, and white labs sweet mead yeast

 

I just started the batch yesterday and woke up to the smell when fermentation started

 

Hence the concentrate isn't providing enough nutrition for the yeast. Combined with the honey, thats a lot of sugars.......

Aerate like hell and nutrition........

 

Got some white labs yeast nutrient and added half a teaspoon and stirred the whole thing up with a big plastic spoon. It started fizzing and bubbling over the top does that usually happen when you add nutrients?

 

Yep. The nutrients will make the CO2 rush out if solution. Good thing you weren't using a carboy - I hear that's crazy (and hilarious if it's not your beer). Think mentos added to coca cola.

If you put some mead into the nutrient, mix it real well, then add it back, the foaming is significantly reduced.

 

Yes, its degassing. You should add nutrients again at 48 and 72 hours, stir to degass.

 

Thanks for the advice, it was like mentos and soda. Definitely don't want that to happen again

 

It's one of the reasons that a bucket can be a better primary container, as you have a larger surface area to handle any foaming.

With a carboy, it's often better to make the target volume and then remove enough to bring the level down just below the shoulders, the removed must being kept in a bottle in the fridge until all the nutrients are added and the ferment has passed the 1/3rd break.

With the foaming thing, it's best to stir gently to start with, so if the foam looks like it's heading north rather rapidly, you can stop and let it settle, then start gently again, etc etc, then once the foaming has subsided, keep stirring until the only foaming is from the movement of the stirrer/paddle/spoon.

Only then add the nutrients. Even then, if you're concerned that you might not have encouraged the dissolved CO2 to come out of solution, you can dissolve the nutrients in some must before pouring in.

With a batch that goes stinky, you do need to stir like hell, to encourage the dissolved CO2 to come out as it also seems to take any H2S with it too. Once the foaming is gone, you can even use an air stone and either pumped air or even compressed O2 if you have access to it, along with the nutrients. Stink is usually gone in about 24 hours, but if it comes back (and it can) then the same treatment is usually needed.

I can't say for certain, I've only had one batch go stinky, but I understand that it's a problem of earlier stages of fermentation, and doesn't seem to happen later on in the process so much (it might do, but I don't recall reading of batches going stinky later on).....

 

Thanks for the advice fatbloke I'll definitly use it

 

If you've still to sort it out, I'd say sooner rather than later, because after a while, you start to get problems with mercaptans and I believe I'm correct in saying that those really are an issue as some of them can't be got rid off.

Most people will sort a stinky batch quickly because hydrogen sulphide smell is so offensive. The progression further, I can't explain as I've never had that problem myself - I sorted my one stinky batch within about 6 hours of noticing it...

 

The rotten eggs smell goes away after a week or 2. I would go by and shake the hell out of my carboy several times a day to offgas CO2 and the sulfur compounds. After a couple weeks it will start to smell like honey again. Mine is 6 months in and getting very clear now, and no trace of sulfur compounds.

 

Smell is one issue, flavour another. I think the "mercaptans" link above explains it.........

 

Oh yeah i took care of it with your first reply the smell went away shortly after i added the nutrients

 

If you listen to podcasts, there's a good one from beersmith where they talk about staggered nutrient additions with the head brewer at moonlight meadery.

 

I wanted to get these blue swing top bottles for my champagne mead, would these tops handle the pressure? http://www.heartshomebrew.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=14_76_293&products_id=1113

 

Would throwing raisins in to it help out for nutrient instead of step feeding?

 

Usually mead is still, so it should be fine. If you're carbonating, I'd call them. I put my Berliner Weiss (carbed to ~ 4 vols) in grolsh bottles because they were much sturdier, but mine are the ones with the ceramic tops. I doubt you'll be carbing that high.

It would help, but wouldn't be nearly the same thing. I'd expect adding raisins to be like adding fruit, and the fruit doesn't have the necessary nitrogen and other nutrients to get a 3 month fermentation vs a 2 year aging process.

 

If you're just carbonating to beer levels then they should be fine, if you're carbing to sparkling wine/champagne sort of levels then you'd be safer with the correct bottles stoppers and wire cages. Champagne is a fair bit higher pressure than beer.......

Well as brewguyver points out, they can help but aren't a complete replacement. As long as you didn't add too much it should be fine.

One thing they can help with is mouth feel/viscosity. You'd likely see better "legs" when the runs down the side of a glass.......

 

How would you carb up to champagne levels? I was just gonna corn sugar it at bottling like I've done my beers, but the recipe is called a champagne mead

 

Dry to 14% ABV then either chilling and force carb or methode champenoise

 

What's method champenoise?

 

Mr Google is your friend......he can explain it better than me.....

 

An he provides some results with pretty backgrounds, like this one:
http://www.domaine-ste-michelle.com/101/methodechampenoise.html

Anyone else think "look it up" should be standard, now that Oi don't have to lug 40# books around or go to the library?

 

I looked it up as soon as i asked him what it meant, fatblokes just been adding a lot to this thread and I wanted to see what else i could get out of him, you can't find everything on the internet

 

lol, yep, had the same blow off with apple/cherry in a gallon jug... added nutrient after 10 days in primary...good thing it was in the sink!

 

Am i right to believe method champonise is pretty much making your drink sparking with in bottle fermentation?

 

Yes.

 

Not really, thats just bottle conditioning. Method Champenoise is bottle conditioning, aging for a decent amount of time on the lees (yeast) and then a tedious process called riddling where the bottles are kept at a 45 degree angle neck down and are turned slightly each day. Also the angle is slowly increased. This lets all the yeast sediment get trapped in the neck. Then the bottles are dipped in liquid nitrogen so that the sediment is frozen into a solid plug. The bottle is then uncapped the pressure forces out the frozen sediment and the bottle is corked with a champagne cork.

This process is what gives Champagne and Cava and other fine sparkling wines their tiny bubbles and their clarity, as opposed to simple bottle conditioning

 

Ahh i see

 

Since this may be the next question - pellicle, residual fermentation in secondary, or some weird combo of CO2 release and honey?

I'm about 1 month into aging and this went to secondary after dropping from 1.112 -> 1.000

 

Looks normal. Mine looked like that for about 6 months while it finished up fermentation. Once that goes away it will start to clear pretty quickly.