I decided to try my hand at making a honey mead. On Wednesday April 20 , 2016 i mixed up my recipe. Specific gravity was 1.081 and now it ius .998 and it has only been 4 days fermenting. This was a recipe for 5 gallons. I used 10 lbs of honey wth 5 gallons of water and also added some Irish Moss, and did a staggered nutrient/enegizer addition. Am I ready to move this to a secondary dermenterfor aging? It just seems to have fermented alfully fast.
first mead help
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What sort of yeast did you use? Did you use a starter? At what temperature did you ferment?
That is very fast, but stranger things have been known to happen. Racking to a secondary is not always necessary after primary fermentation is complete. Knowing a little more about what you've made will help.
That is very fast, but stranger things have been known to happen. Racking to a secondary is not always necessary after primary fermentation is complete. Knowing a little more about what you've made will help.
That yeast will ferment that fast. No issue here. I will say however that yeast is really, really hard to flocculate out. It takes a long while and when you think you are done. Even more sediment drops out.
Leave this mead alone for at least another 26 days. Don't rack it yet. You want a good yeast bed started. Then rack off the bed of yeast and wait another 1-2 months. Rack and repeat the above until you notice no more sediment dropping. This can take anywhere from 3-6 months with fleischmanns. If you don't do this and drink this a little cloudy. The yeast has a tendency to give very bread like or meaty flavors with a sour punch at the end. Not usually what you want.
Use some potassium Sorbate and Camden tablets to stabilize and after a day of adding that back sweeten with your honey of choose to a gravity of 1.010 or better. Let that sit in bulk another 30 days or more before bottling.
Not sure where you got your recipe. But it sounds like an old one. There are better yeasts to use. It can work and make something tasty. It is just a hard yeast to work with at times and it may make something that is 10% abv taste like it is 20% abv. It throws fusel alchohols easily. Hence the need for back sweetening and a decent amount of age on the mead until it starts to come of age and taste really good.
Leave this mead alone for at least another 26 days. Don't rack it yet. You want a good yeast bed started. Then rack off the bed of yeast and wait another 1-2 months. Rack and repeat the above until you notice no more sediment dropping. This can take anywhere from 3-6 months with fleischmanns. If you don't do this and drink this a little cloudy. The yeast has a tendency to give very bread like or meaty flavors with a sour punch at the end. Not usually what you want.
Use some potassium Sorbate and Camden tablets to stabilize and after a day of adding that back sweeten with your honey of choose to a gravity of 1.010 or better. Let that sit in bulk another 30 days or more before bottling.
Not sure where you got your recipe. But it sounds like an old one. There are better yeasts to use. It can work and make something tasty. It is just a hard yeast to work with at times and it may make something that is 10% abv taste like it is 20% abv. It throws fusel alchohols easily. Hence the need for back sweetening and a decent amount of age on the mead until it starts to come of age and taste really good.
Thanks for the advice. I plan on letting this sit for a pretty long time. I decided on the fleischmanns yeast because there are no good brewing supply places locally to get better yeast. Next batch I will order online the supplies I will need. I have made a pumpkin saisson beer in the past which turned out pretty good. This mead is an experiment to see how it turns out. I am thinking on racking this out into some 1 gallon carboys and back sweetening and aging. I did take a little taste and did not think the current flavor was too bad but needed some sweenening and aging.
