1 pound of honey for 1 gallon of mead?

[shamisan]

So I'm currently brewing my second batch of mead and I decided to experiment with it by only using a pound of honey to make a 1 gallon batch. It has been in primary fermentation for about a week now, and I'm using 1 full packet of D47 wine yeast.

My question is, combining all of that together, how long should both primary and secondary fermentation take?

I'm curious how fast the full packet of D47 will consume the honey. I'm only a beginner so I apologize for a possibly obvious question. But I'm having a lot of fun experimenting and I cant eait to learn more.

 

[Maylar]

Do you have a hydrometer?

That's only a little bit of honey, you'll get maybe 5% alcohol. D47 should chew through that in a week.

 

[shamisan]

Do you have a hydrometer?

That's only a little bit of honey, you'll get maybe 5% alcohol. D47 should chew through that in a week.

I do not have one yet. It's definitely the next tool to invest in though. 5% is about what I thought it would be.

How long do you think I should leave it during second fermentation?

 

[Maylar]

Rack it to secondary when specific gravity is below 1.005, which is just about finished fermenting. Then leave it in secondary until it's clear enough to bottle. That can take a month, sometimes more sometimes less.

 

[shamisan]

Rack it to secondary when specific gravity is below 1.005, which is just about finished fermenting. Then leave it in secondary until it's clear enough to bottle. That can take a month, sometimes more sometimes less.

Sounds good! Thanks for the response

 

[bernardsmith]

Hi Shamisan - and welcome.
What is your recipe and what is your protocol? Honey has no nutrients so unless you add some, the yeast will likely be stressed and stressed yeast stress the wine maker by creating off flavors.
If the temperature is relatively high for the yeast this will tend to create a faster ferment (all other things being equal) but again this will create stress and you may find that the yeast produce fusels (different alcohols than ethanol- the alcohol you want) and fusels can taste "hot" rather than "smooth"... even at 5% ABV..

 

[shamisan]

I actually didnt use any nutrients. Was kinda just winging it haha. I'm planning on doing another batch soon though and I would like to be a bit more prepared for it. Do you have any recommendations? I've heard people like to use raisins in their batch sometimes, but is it better to use something more specific?

As for the temperature, it's actually a bit on the cooler side if anything, not sure on the exact but roughly around 65ish. As you can tell I'm definitely a beginner lol.

I appreciate the info and any suggestions would be awesome

 

[Maylar]

65-ish is perfect. Raisins as nutrients is very old school, they don't have enough nitrogen to be effective. Yes, you'll see people on youtube doing that but times have changed and modern mead making has taken giant leaps in the last few years. People are getting awesome meads in much shorter time than in the past. Check out http://www.meadmaderight.com/ for the scoop on using nutrients.

 

[bernardsmith]

Not sure if the real issue is fermenting faster. It's all about fermenting cleaner.. and without an appropriate nutrient load you stress the yeast and stressed yeast produce all kinds of compounds most of which add off flavors and fusels (alcohols other than ethanol some of which taste like nail polish remover smells) ... And a handful of shriveled and oxidized grapes (AKA raisins) do not have the necessary minerals or (as Mylar noted) the necessary organic nitrogen. Yeast will still ferment the sugars in the honey but they won't necessarily make a mead that anyone will consider good. Of course, anyone can drink crap... but you want to make a good mead don't you? That's always better than a crappy one.

 

[shamisan]

65-ish is perfect. Raisins as nutrients is very old school, they don't have enough nitrogen to be effective. Yes, you'll see people on youtube doing that but times have changed and modern mead making has taken giant leaps in the last few years. People are getting awesome meads in much shorter time than in the past. Check out http://www.meadmaderight.com/ for the scoop on using nutrients.

I'll have to check that out. Thanks for the help!

 

[shamisan]

Not sure if the real issue is fermenting faster. It's all about fermenting cleaner.. and without an appropriate nutrient load you stress the yeast and stressed yeast produce all kinds of compounds most of which add off flavors and fusels (alcohols other than ethanol some of which taste like nail polish remover smells) ... And a handful of shriveled and oxidized grapes (AKA raisins) do not have the necessary minerals or (as Mylar noted) the necessary organic nitrogen. Yeast will still ferment the sugars in the honey but they won't necessarily make a mead that anyone will consider good. Of course, anyone can drink crap... but you want to make a good mead don't you? That's always better than a crappy one.

Sounds good to me. I'll have to look into that more.

 

[Maylar]

I'll have to check that out. Thanks for the help!

Also read the NewBee guide on gotmead.com - http://gotmead.com/blog/making-mead/mead-newbee-guide/the-newbee-guide-to-making-mead/

 

[ealu-scop]

So is the consensus here that using raisins as a nutrient is just a myth, basically useless? (noob here too!) Or is it just not as good as whatever commercial yeast nutrients are out there?

I wouldn't doubt the effectiveness of a scientifically engineered nutrient specifically geared for that purpose in meadmaking vs a handfull of raisins. I'm sure it's a rather fail-safe way to make mead. But, in light of (what I've seen) some pretty prevalent advice out there, that raisins work well as nutrients, is it the case that raisins don't work at all, or that they don't work as well?

I mean, mead is basically the oldest drink in the history of the world and they didn't have commercial yeast nutrients. They had to have something I'd assume, or was everyone just drinking stressed mead until our day and age?

 

[bernardsmith]

So is the consensus here that using raisins as a nutrient is just a myth, basically useless? (noob here too!) Or is it just not as good as whatever commercial yeast nutrients are out there?

I wouldn't doubt the effectiveness of a scientifically engineered nutrient specifically geared for that purpose in meadmaking vs a handfull of raisins. I'm sure it's a rather fail-safe way to make mead. But, in light of (what I've seen) some pretty prevalent advice out there, that raisins work well as nutrients, is it the case that raisins don't work at all, or that they don't work as well?

I mean, mead is basically the oldest drink in the history of the world and they didn't have commercial yeast nutrients. They had to have something I'd assume, or was everyone just drinking stressed mead until our day and age?

And for thousands of years we "knew" the sun orbited the earth and the earth was at the center of the universe..er... but we were wrong. Raisins provide as much nutrition for yeast as Twinkies provide for growing kids.. and if you look at older recipes you will see that they viewed mead as taking years to finish from pitch to cup . Not a problem if you are happy to wait two or three years before your mead becomes remotely pleasant to drink given all the off flavors that stressed yeast produce. Time transforms many of these off flavors, and adding spices and fruit disguises those problem flavors. So, no one drank "stressed mead", they drank drinkable mead in much the same way that commercial breweries make "beer" today that is so good (not!) that you need to drink it so cold that the cold temperature hides the poor quality of the flavors.

With good practice, nowadays, you can make a mead that you can bottle and drink in a few weeks if the ABV is low enough, and in a few months if the ABV is higher. BOMM meads (Dray Brenard's) are delicious a month after pitching, and Groennfell Meadery says that they package some of their meads about 10 days after pouring their honey. No one routinely did that in the middle ages.

 

[ealu-scop]

And for thousands of years we "knew" the sun orbited the earth and the earth was at the center of the universe..er... but we were wrong. Raisins provide as much nutrition for yeast as Twinkies provide for growing kids.. and if you look at older recipes you will see that they viewed mead as taking years to finish from pitch to cup . Not a problem if you are happy to wait two or three years before your mead becomes remotely pleasant to drink given all the off flavors that stressed yeast produce. Time transforms many of these off flavors, and adding spices and fruit disguises those problem flavors. So, no one drank "stressed mead", they drank drinkable mead in much the same way that commercial breweries make "beer" today that is so good (not!) that you need to drink it so cold that the cold temperature hides the poor quality of the flavors.

With good practice, nowadays, you can make a mead that you can bottle and drink in a few weeks if the ABV is low enough, and in a few months if the ABV is higher. BOMM meads (Dray Brenard's) are delicious a month after pitching, and Groennfell Meadery says that they package some of their meads about 10 days after pouring their honey. No one routinely did that in the middle ages.

So, if I'm reading you right, using a lab nutrient, in theory, can give you good tasting mead in weeks or months. Using raisins will give you good tasting mead only after years but must be drank extremely cold to hide how crappy it actually tastes.

I'm not saying the lab nutrient doesn't lend to a superior outcome, but I don't know if I fully buy all that.

 

[Maylar]

So is the consensus here that using raisins as a nutrient is just a myth, basically useless? (noob here too!) Or is it just not as good as whatever commercial yeast nutrients are out there?

Raisins do contain some nitrogen. Anything with amino acids does. But to use the amount that would be needed to make mead yeast happy would basically be making raisin wine.

There is a story about English cider makers discovering a few hundred years ago that if a rat fell in to the cider vat and drowned that the cider would finish drier because it fermented more completely. The acid in the apple juice would draw nitrogen from the rat's dead body and the yeast could use that as a nutrient. So they started hanging a side of beef or mutton in the cider to get the same effect. I think I'll stick to using Fermaid-O, thank you.

 

[bernardsmith]

I was only talking about how folk need to drink beer cold to kill their taste buds so that they can believe that American commercial breweries make drinkable beer. It was a side issue and was supposed to be amusing... But never mind.

With mead you may need to "age" the drink for a very long time if you stress the yeast and raisins stresses the yeast. But there is a very simple test: dissolve a quantity of honey in water (say 3 lbs in water to make 1 gallon ) and pitch some yeast. Once it has started to ferment divide the batch in three. To one add nothing, to the second add your raisins and to the third add either lab packaged nutrients or yeast cells that you allowed to hydrate and then killed by boiling in water. When the gravity drops to zero ask a friend to taste each one and see if they can taste the difference and if they can which of the three they prefer. This is best done double blind (so that neither you nor the person tasting knows which one is which until after the trial is over and they have given you their verdict).. but double blind tests are the gold standard of scientific inquiry.

 

[MaaZeus]

So is the consensus here that using raisins as a nutrient is just a myth, basically useless? (noob here too!) Or is it just not as good as whatever commercial yeast nutrients are out there?

I wouldn't doubt the effectiveness of a scientifically engineered nutrient specifically geared for that purpose in meadmaking vs a handfull of raisins. I'm sure it's a rather fail-safe way to make mead. But, in light of (what I've seen) some pretty prevalent advice out there, that raisins work well as nutrients, is it the case that raisins don't work at all, or that they don't work as well?

I mean, mead is basically the oldest drink in the history of the world and they didn't have commercial yeast nutrients. They had to have something I'd assume, or was everyone just drinking stressed mead until our day and age?

Back in the very old days people used raw honey, straight from the nest. That contains a lot of crap, from pollen to bee stingers and maybe even dead larvae mixed in. While not perfect it did provide some nutrients. Today the honey you buy from stores is purified and filtered, it is nearly empty of nutrients which is a problem if you intent on making trafitional mead with no fruits and spices that help a little bit with the nutrient deficiency. If you can't find dedicated nutrients boil some bread yeast (this is essentially what Fermaid O is, yeast hulls) and pitch that solution into your mead, your live yeast will happily cannibalize their cooked bread cousins.

 

[MaaZeus]

I was only talking about how folk need to drink beer cold to kill their taste buds so that they can believe that American commercial breweries make drinkable beer. It was a side issue and was supposed to be amusing... But never mind.

With mead you may need to "age" the drink for a very long time if you stress the yeast and raisins stresses the yeast. But there is a very simple test: dissolve a quantity of honey in water (say 3 lbs in water to make 1 gallon ) and pitch some yeast. Once it has started to ferment divide the batch in three. To one add nothing, to the second add your raisins and to the third add either lab packaged nutrients or yeast cells that you allowed to hydrate and then killed by boiling in water. When the gravity drops to zero ask a friend to taste each one and see if they can taste the difference and if they can which of the three they This is best done double blind (so that neither you nor the person tasting knows which one is which until after the trial is over and they have given you their verdict).. but double blind tests are the gold standard of scientific inquiry.

Actually there is a video on Youtube where a guy made two very small patches of mead (as in pickle jar sized) and one had Fermaid O added and one had few raisins for nutrients. Both fermented just as quickly but the Fermaid O cleared much faster than the raisin one. However much to everyones surprise every single one of the three tasters preferred the taste of raisin one in a double blind test. This wasnt really a conclusive evidence though as both meads were still very young and mead fermented dry and none of them really liked dry meads AND it is also very likely that raisins imparted flavors and tannins that all of them liked which the Fermaid O one sorely lacked. If they ever remake the video they better add raisins to both to remove that variable. But still, the result as it is took everyone by a surprise.

 

[Blacksmith1]

Sounds to me like a yeast and raisin soup is the answer...…

All kidding aside, if one were to boil the bread yeast and throw in some raisins and sugar in a small amount of water cool it then pitch whatever yeast is being used into it wouldn't that make for a pretty good starter to toss in the must?

 

[S-Met]

I was only talking about how folk need to drink beer cold to kill their taste buds so that they can believe that American commercial breweries make drinkable beer. It was a side issue and was supposed to be amusing... But never mind.

Not lost...
Great American Heroes: Mr Blue Aluminum Bottle Maker and Blue Rocky Mountains stand out in my mind.

However much to everyones surprise every single one of the three tasters preferred the taste of raisin one in a double blind test. This wasnt really a conclusive evidence though as both meads were still very young and mead fermented dry and none of them really liked dry meads

Double-blind studies are the gold standard; however, n=3 is not statistically significant. There are some significant limitations of double-blind studies. Not discounting their value; rather, pointing out that they are one of many tools in the testing toolbox.

Second, a you already mentioned, meads were young and the tasters were not fans of dry mead. This is similar to having a best Grilled Porterhouse comparison of gas vs charcoal vs induction judged by a panel of Raw Vegans. I'm not saying they would be wrong, but I am questioning the validity of the study being conducted due to the experience and potential bias of the panel.

 

[MaaZeus]

Sounds to me like a yeast and raisin soup is the answer...…

All kidding aside, if one were to boil the bread yeast and throw in some raisins and sugar in a small amount of water cool it then pitch whatever yeast is being used into it wouldn't that make for a pretty good starter to toss in the must?

To me yes, atleast thats what I do with my meads although I am not an experienced Maizer. I boil bread yeast and some chopped up raisins for both nutrients and tannins. I am way too fricking lazy for that SNA stuff but so far my meads seem to be ferment and taste just fine. But then again I am not interested in making award winning meads for contests, I just want to make something that tastes good to me and people near and dear to me. So take my opinions with a grain of salt.

 

[MaaZeus]

Not lost...
Great American Heroes: Mr Blue Aluminum Bottle Maker and Blue Rocky Mountains stand out in my mind.


Double-blind studies are the gold standard; however, n=3 is not statistically significant. There are some significant limitations of double-blind studies. Not discounting their value; rather, pointing out that they are one of many tools in the testing toolbox.

Second, a you already mentioned, meads were young and the tasters were not fans of dry mead. This is similar to having a best Grilled Porterhouse comparison of gas vs charcoal vs induction judged by a panel of Raw Vegans. I'm not saying they would be wrong, but I am questioning the validity of the study being conducted due to the experience and potential bias of the panel.

True. But still I found the unexpected results interesting.

 

[Blacksmith1]

Just tried the yeast and raisin starter. seems to have turbo charged my yeast production. not 100% sure as I'm using s04 for the first time. but a few minutes in I have obvious yeast production and a thick layer of foam/froth on top.

 

[4of7]

Hi Shamisan - and welcome.
What is your recipe and what is your protocol? Honey has no nutrients so unless you add some, the yeast will likely be stressed and stressed yeast stress the wine maker by creating off flavors.
If the temperature is relatively high for the yeast this will tend to create a faster ferment (all other things being equal) but again this will create stress and you may find that the yeast produce fusels (different alcohols than ethanol- the alcohol you want) and fusels can taste "hot" rather than "smooth"... even at 5% ABV..

So how much yeast nutrients do i add per gallon of water with 1 quart of honey not sure the weight..I will make four gallons with four quarts of honey..Local farmer not store bought or clean

 

[Maylar]

So how much yeast nutrients do i add per gallon of water with 1 quart of honey not sure the weight..I will make four gallons with four quarts of honey..Local farmer not store bought or clean

You really need a hydrometer. But a quart is typically 3 lbs and is the perfect starting point per gallon for mead. Normally you get SG of about 1.100 and make a 13% mead.

For nutrient info go here: https://www.meadmaderight.com/nutrient-additions.html