ferment restarted, what to do?

[gfxprotege]

Hi all,

I kicked off a batch of Ken Schramm's multiberry melomel last May. It was racked after primary, I added more fruit, and eventually cold crashed and racked one more time. It had finished up at around 1.03 gravity and I put it in the closet to bulk age.

I noticed that bubbles are starting to form on the surface again and the air lock will bubble once every few minutes or so.

It tastes great, the sweetness is right where it needs to be, the tannins still have a while to mellow out, but otherwise, I'm happy with it. I was hoping to bottle it within the next month or so.

Should I just let nature take its course, wait until ferment stops again, should I try adding in an SNA to help speed things along, or should I just stop the ferment with meta and sorbate?

 

[madscientist451]

I wouldn't worry about it, the gravity is so low at this point I don't think it will cause any problems if you use crown caps.

 

[gfxprotege]

no risk of bottle bombs at this point?

 

[bernardsmith]

Hi gfxprotoge - and welcome.
A high risk, I would say. Is the gravity really at 1.030 (about 12 oz of sugar left unfermented in every gallon) or 1.003 (about 1.5 oz of sugar in every gallon)? In both cases I would think that you might want to ensure that there is no more activity by removing all the yeast before bottling but I would wear body armor and a face mask if I bottled the mead at 1.030.

Why not allow the yeast to finish the job, repeatedly cold crash and rack the mead off the yeast and then stabilize by adding K-meta and K-sorbate and then back sweeten to the level of sweetness you prefer...

 

[gfxprotege]

I had a typo, looks like its at 1.003 not 1.030

its slow going, anything I can do to help speed the ferment along, or is it best to just let it do its thing for a couple months

 

[bernardsmith]

What is the temperature of the mead? What was the starting gravity and what yeast are you using? All other things being equal you can increase the activity of the yeast by raising the temperature a few degrees, but if the starting gravity was high and the amount of nutrition was low and if the pH is very low then simply raising the temperature won't do very much. Patience is the secret ingredient

 

[gfxprotege]

Temperature is about 70 degrees. I believe I used EC-1118 for this batch. Starting gravity was 1.12.

 

[Maylar]

Let it ride. It'll likely be under 1.000 in a week or 2.

 

[gfxprotege]

Allrighty, I suppose i could toss a little fermaid o into the carboy just to keep my little alcohol soldiers happy

 

[Maylar]

No nutrients, at 1.003 it won't get used and will probably make the mead taste yucky.