First Mead

[Tennessee Brew]

I started my first mead, someone told me to use 3lb honey to a gallon, Jesus almighty my OG is 1.120
Should I just let it be and see what it does or cut and make 1.5gallons? I was shooting for a sweet mead but Imp afraid the yeast are going to die off way to early leaving some funky flavors... even if they start this rich. I used a bread yeast, I kind of like the flavors it imparts but I don't think it will get past 12-15 % ABV
Advice? Started on 07/05

 

[jtratcliff]

Compare what you did to JAOM... 3 1/2 lbs per gallon with bread yeast:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/threads/joes-ancient-orange-mead.49106/
This one is an easy-peasy winner for a beginner sweet mead...

If your recipe is similar, you're probably fine...

 

[Maylar]

1.120 would get you 15%. I've had bread yeast go that far in a JAOM. For your sake I hope it stops at 1.010-ish for a bit of sweetness.

 

[Tennessee Brew]

1.120 would get you 15%. I've had bread yeast go that far in a JAOM. For your sake I hope it stops at 1.010-ish for a bit of sweetness.

Yeh I don't think it will get quite that far, most of what I have done so far has seemed to fall into the 12 (ish) range.
I was at first concerned it would go dry and end up with rocket fuel lol. Looking back on most of my recent projects Ive gotten in the 12 to 13 range so we might be ok

 

[Tennessee Brew]

Compare what you did to JAOM... 3 1/2 lbs per gallon with bread yeast:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/threads/joes-ancient-orange-mead.49106/
This one is an easy-peasy winner for a beginner sweet mead...

If your recipe is similar, you're probably fine...

Well I don't have any of the extras he put in except raisins, I wanted to do just a basic mead with a traditional yeast and keep it as basic as possible. I'm thinking it will come out ok. I was a bit concerned it wouldn't start well. In the past I've had some wines do that and they were drinkable but just had a bit or weird flavors. The whole objective was a mead that falls into the traditional ancient meads category without additions. Next I may do one with some additions. Lady at the brew shop said as long as I have raisins in there to act as a nutrient it should do ok.

 

[bernardsmith]

The thing to do when making a trad mead is first determine the ABV you are aiming for.

Second, determine the total volume you want in your primary (assume that there will be some sediment and some mead that you will not easily be able to rack into a secondary that you want filled right to the top and

Third, determine THEN how much honey you need to create a must with the SG needed in that volume to produce THAT final ABV. One pound of honey, typically, raises the volume of water when added to make 1 US gallon by 35 points. So , three pounds will raise that SAME volume by 1.105. Either your honey had less moisture than most OR you used less volume of water than you think OR the honey was not properly dissolved.

Most mead makers will advise that you want to finish your mead brut dry and if you want/need to a sweeter mead you then want to stabilize and then back sweeten. Adding enough honey to kill the yeast through alcohol poisoning is like playing Russian roulette. You have no basis for knowing whether the yeast will die at 12% ABV or 17% ABV and given the fact that wine making is all about balance then not being able to know and control the amount of alcohol in your mead is not a very sensible approach. YOU, not the yeast is the wine maker. The yeast and not you are the fermenters. But fermenting and wine making are not the same thing. Yeast will ferment sugar but that does not make the fermented sugar pleasant to drink. You , not the one celled fungi are in control. You not the yeast SHOULD BE in control. Stay in control.

 

[Tennessee Brew]

The thing to do when making a trad mead is first determine the ABV you are aiming for.

Second, determine the total volume you want in your primary (assume that there will be some sediment and some mead that you will not easily be able to rack into a secondary that you want filled right to the top and

Third, determine THEN how much honey you need to create a must with the SG needed in that volume to produce THAT final ABV. One pound of honey, typically, raises the volume of water when added to make 1 US gallon by 35 points. So , three pounds will raise that SAME volume by 1.105. Either your honey had less moisture than most OR you used less volume of water than you think OR the honey was not properly dissolved.

Most mead makers will advise that you want to finish your mead brut dry and if you want/need to a sweeter mead you then want to stabilize and then back sweeten. Adding enough honey to kill the yeast through alcohol poisoning is like playing Russian roulette. You have no basis for knowing whether the yeast will die at 12% ABV or 17% ABV and given the fact that wine making is all about balance then not being able to know and control the amount of alcohol in your mead is not a very sensible approach. YOU, not the yeast is the wine maker. The yeast and not you are the fermenters. But fermenting and wine making are not the same thing. Yeast will ferment sugar but that does not make the fermented sugar pleasant to drink. You , not the one celled fungi are in control. You not the yeast SHOULD BE in control. Stay in control.

Well I was shooting for the 12-15% range my main concern was would this yeast be able to finish the task or even do well with the sugar volume, apparently its doing well .. its bubbling away, will see how far it gets. Was going to use a wine yeast but decided to go the other route. I guess we shall see. That's the fun part.

 

[Saunassa]

If you are not doing it look into de-gassing it during the beginning of fermentation. I use a plastic mash in paddle to do it.
I find it amazing that thousands of years later and humans are still turning honey into Mead.

 

[bernardsmith]

Well I was shooting for the 12-15% range my main concern was would this yeast be able to finish the task or even do well with the sugar volume, apparently its doing well .. its bubbling away, will see how far it gets. Was going to use a wine yeast but decided to go the other route. I guess we shall see. That's the fun part.

The thing about bread yeast is that while it has been cultivated for bread making and not wine it is the same strain of yeast as wine or beer yeast. The BIGGEST difference is not its tolerance for alcohol despite what some folk assume and claim. The biggest difference is that bread yeast has not been "engineered" to flocculate the way lab cultured wine (and beer) yeast has been. That means that the yeast cells do not tend to clump together and so do not fall out of suspension as the weight of the clumps pulls them down. In other words, bread yeast will tend to remain in suspension and so any mead or wine made with this yeast will tend to have a yeasty taste. Wine yeast falls out of suspension and so enables you to have a very bright and clear wine and a wine that , all other things included, tend not to taste yeasty (though if you pitch too little yeast you might find a yeasty taste).

 

[dvi]

Lady at the brew shop said as long as I have raisins in there to act as a nutrient it should do ok.

Lady at the brew shop had no idea what she was talking about then. Saying it politely, but raisins aren't nutrients and that's a myth that needs to go away. At the least, I'd suggest picking up diammonium phosphate (DAP) and adding 3-4 grams. If you have Fermaid O or K, 2g of either would be of benefit here too. Otherwise your mead is going to be seriously nutrient deficient and might produce several off-flavors or outright stall as a result.

 

[bernardsmith]

Lady at the brew shop had no idea what she was talking about then. Saying it politely, but raisins aren't nutrients and that's a myth that needs to go away. At the least, I'd suggest picking up diammonium phosphate (DAP) and adding 3-4 grams. If you have Fermaid O or K, 2g of either would be of benefit here too. Otherwise your mead is going to be seriously nutrient deficient and might produce several off-flavors or outright stall as a result.

Here's the thing: wine makers who make wine with grapes often don't need to add any nutrients but then they are fermenting - about 10- 16 lbs of grapes for every gallon of wine they make , not a handful of raisins. AKA oxidized table grapes. And even then, many (most? all?) seasoned wine makers likely use GoFerm while rehydrating their yeast and a yeast nutrient while fermenting their grapes. A handful of raisins provide sufficient nutrients for yeast is a great myth that might be perpetrated by seasoned competitors making sure that novices offer absolutely no competition at the Mazer Cup.

 

[Maylar]

Truthfully, any organic matter has amino acids and amino acids contain nitrogen. So, raisins are in fact a source of nutrients. Not anywhere near enough however for a healthy ferment in a nitrogen deficient environment such as mead.

 

[bernardsmith]

But nitrogen is only one of the compounds and elements that yeast need and the amount of N in a handful of grapes would be tiny. You want to provide yeast with a non lab sourced nutritional diet? Add to your must a tablespoon of bread yeast that you have proofed, boiled and allowed to cool. That is more or less what lab manufactured yeast nutrient is.

 

[Maylar]

But nitrogen is only one of the compounds and elements that yeast need and the amount of N in a handful of grapes would be tiny. You want to provide yeast with a non lab sourced nutritional diet? Add to your must a tablespoon of bread yeast that you have proofed, boiled and allowed to cool. That is more or less what lab manufactured yeast nutrient is.

This is true. However, one must ask why the JAOM doesn't use nutrients and they always finish without fusels, H2S, or other side effects of low nutrient. All that's in there is organic material - orange and raisins.

 

[Golddiggie]

There's an easy to use calculation tool on the GotMead web site that you can use to figure out how much honey to use in a batch size.

For the yeast, I'd NEVER use 'bread' yeast in a beer/wine/mead (mead is honey wine). I've had great success with the Lalvin Labs yeast strains in my mead batches. They are made for use in wine, which works equally well for mead.

I'd suggest checking out the GotMead forums for more useful information. Including degassing and oxygenating the must until the 1/3 break. Not to mention how to add (and how much) nutrients to add. Yes, actual nutrients, not farking raisins.

 

[bernardsmith]

This is true. However, one must ask why the JAOM doesn't use nutrients and they always finish without fusels, H2S, or other side effects of low nutrient. All that's in there is organic material - orange and raisins.

People have been making mead for thousands of years without added nutrients. They had no knowledge of the needs of yeast and mead made without nutrients will still ferment although it may take significantly longer to finish. Yeast cannibalize dead cells and the dead cells likely have much of the nutrients the living cells need (you can use dead yeast that you have boiled as a nutrient source) but a nutrient famine in the mead is not likely to produce a mead that you can enjoy in weeks which is why most (if not all) historical meads were aged for at least a year and sometimes two whereas today, feast -rich nutrient BOMM can be enjoyed in a month.