Aliens in my Mead - Weird Yeast formation after 24 hours

[LudovicoManin]

Hey there. Making a Lemon Melomel hoping to be able to open it this coming Summer.

Anyways, 24 hours in and no bubbles. However, there are brown fluffy things in my mead now suspended about halfway up the must. Is this a problem? Not knowing what to do, I just re-pitched the yeast and I got bubbles... but my aliens remain.

Im sure the fermentation over time will cause them to drift towards the slag, but for now... is this something I need to be worried about?

 

[DBhomebrew]

Without pics, hard to say. Sounds like yeast colonies building their numbers before shifting into fermentation.

 

[MightyMosin]

Add some pictures

 

[lumpher]

I'm thinking it's spawning The Blob. Better be wary of any self-propelled thick bubbles. If we have pics we might be able to tell what planet it's from.

 

[DollarStoreChili]

I pitched yeast dry once and they clumped together in one big chunk and floated around for awhile.
Could be what happened to yours. No bubbles after 24 hours isn't a huge concern. Depending on
nutrient levels I've had brews that didn't start off gassing for a few days.

 

[Broken Crow]

Sounds like an ordinary ferment. I'm skeptical of 'Alien' claims without pics. Most are just earth-bound phenomena. Perhaps the yeast was bought from a comic-book ad:

 

[LudovicoManin]

Actual pictures of aliens. Also, all my honey has settled? What did I do wrong? Used the same procedure for every other batch I have made and this one seemingly went AWOL

 

[DBhomebrew]

Is this someone's proven recipe, or did your just add lemon juice to a traditional mead? I wonder about pH.

 

[LudovicoManin]

Proven... well, I found it in another forum. If PH is a concern, and I am thinking it might be, is there anyway to salvage this? The airlock is bubbling, so SOMETHING is working.

 

[DBhomebrew]

As you say, something is working. Just letting it go might be all you need. Perhaps it's out of the yeast's preferred range. Getting it in range might help the yeast perform better and cleaner.

 

[DBhomebrew]

BTW, lemon mead sounds delicious.

 

[MightyMosin]

Do you have a pH meter?
You can use calcium carbonate or calcium bi-carbonate to bring up the pH.

Lemon has given me issues and for me the yeast start giving off a bunch of S02 (sulpher fart smell) that requires you catching it early to whip in enough O2 to get rid of it before it is stuck in there.

 

[AmarikinBrew]

Skull crawlers. If you drink it will lodge in your hippocampus... at first.

 

[LudovicoManin]

Update on aliens. Thick foam at the top. Still bubbling and gave it a good shake to get some oxygen into it. No odorous smell to it… but the honey separating… not sure what to do about that as I can’t really use a hydrometer to monitor things.

 

[DollarStoreChili]

In my uneducated opinion those look almost like dairy curdles that happened one time when I drank
an Irish car bomb too slow. Mind posting your ingredients list?

 

[MightyMosin]

Please post your basic recipe/process.

The brown floating on the top just looks like normal yeast Krausen.
Along the edges is hard to tell what is going on there.

What do you mean by the honey separating? Was your honey not fully mixed into the water and juice? If you just dumped it in and didn't mix it, the yeast will still get to it and use it, though it may take a bit longer.

 

[LudovicoManin]

Recipe taken from a blog:

To make the lemon mead we made in the pic, collect the zest and juice of 6-8 lemons. Fill a gallon carboy halfway up with spring water. Add 2.5-3 lbs of your favorite honey, a handful of organic raisins (15 or so), black tea that’s been made from 3 teabags steeped and cooled (optional for tannin balance), and your activated yeast. Add your lemon zest and juice, and if you used organic lemons, toss some of the peels in as well (I put some lemon slices on top so my mead would look pretty for my pics – you can do that too).

After 10-14 days, whenever fermentation slows, rack off into secondary. Taste it, and if the lemon flavor isn’t prominent enough for your liking, add more zest and juice. Same goes for every racking you do.

Age for six months in secondary, racking every two months. Bottle or drink.

Used D47 as the yeast under the. advice of a home brewer in my hood. Obviously scaled this up for a 5 gallon batch.

 

[MightyMosin]

So that is lemon zest we are seeing at the edges. Knowing that, I'd say it looks OK.
The lemon juice will drop the pH and *could* cause fermentation issues, but your picture looks like it is going.

I've used lemon zest in secondary and gotten a real nice aroma with a light flavor. For me this was nice as the aroma seems to help enhance the flavor while not running over the honey too bad.

 

[LudovicoManin]

I didn’t use a lot of zest, mostly lemon juice. I did add the desired amount of raisins which are also floating leading to some of the chunkiness.

 

[DBhomebrew]

Next time, sub out the raisins for a proper nutrient protocol. Unless you're using a pound or more per gallon, there's not nearly enough nitrogen to do any good.

 

[LudovicoManin]

Next time, sub out the raisins for a proper nutrient protocol. Unless you're using a pound or more per gallon, there's not nearly enough nitrogen to do any good.

Good to know. Still kind of new at this so I thought the raisins were more of a subtle flavor added to the finish product rather than a nutrient.

 

[DBhomebrew]

We all started there, many aren't all that further on the path. Myself included.

Maybe they're there for the flavor, but a lot of online recipes use it as a nutrition source. 15 or so in 5G doesn't sound like a flavor impact. Who knows, I sure don't. Maybe the blog author does.

 

[LudovicoManin]

I scaled up for a 5 gallon batch. There are a lot more than 15 in there.

 

[DBhomebrew]

Ah, right. 2.5-3# is per 1 gallon. I'm sure this will turn out fine. Just something to think about for next time.