First time brewer

[Garrett312]

Hi guy's i'm brewing my very first mead, i have 3 4L jugs going, i pitched the yeast october 19. i haven't done anything fancy with nutrients and such, i did add 2 squeezed lemon juice split between the 3 on the second day and stirred. other than that thats it.

Fermentation is going slow, seeing very little gas bubbles. i'm definitely trying a different yeast next time, i used the only yeast the store had i bought my supplies from, Lavin EC-1118.

My question was, week 2 is almost finished. Would it be a bad idea to rack my mead off of the built up leese. and maybe add some more yeast?

tested the gravity in one of them, probably the least active, 1.1. never did take an initial gravity though.



ps: 1 is clover honey, another is wild flower (Added cinnamon sticks), and the final one is orange blossom i'm thinking of adding oranges to. and i have the hankering to add pineapple to the clover to see, maybe i should keep a base plain honey mead. thanks.

 

[bernardsmith]

Hi Garrett312 - and welcome. Not sure what a gravity of 1.1. means If your reading is 1.100 then you still have about 3 lbs of honey in every gallon to ferment (or about 1.5 kg per 4 L) so, no... there is no good reason to rack at this time... because the downside is that you are likely to leave behind much of the yeast and you really need every last cell of the yeast you have (given the apparent lack of viability, given the snail's pace of fermentation*) to continue fermentation.

* You say you never measured the gravity at the start. OK but how many kg or lbs of honey you used in every 4 L of must. One pound of honey (a scant 1/2 kg) dissolved in water to make 1 gallon (about 4 L) raises the gravity of the solution to from 1.000 to 1.035. So, by calculation we can determine the starting gravity...

Adding lemon juice to a honey must is not necessarily a good idea. You don't want unnecessarily to increase the acidity because honey has no chemical buffers to stabilize pH and the yeast can send the pH right into the floor and that can cause the fermentation to stall (which may be what is going on - unless , of course you used so much honey that the yeast cannot easily transport sugars through cell walls because of the concentration of the must.

 

[Garrett312]

My notes are at home. If I remember I used 1.5 kgs for wild flower and clover and 1 kg of orange blossom which is doing the best. Still 1 bubble 30 sec.

Suggestions ?


The first video I watched on mead, which gave me the drive to try, suggested the lemon as nutrient which is what I tried on the 3rd day in hopes to kick start more fermentation, as i was worried of the lack of bubbles and the build up of leese. i should have done blue berries in retrospect, i read those are best if you don't buy actual nutrients. the shop i bought supplies from said the nutrient would change the flavor of my mead, and they are expensive.

i guess i did use a lot of honey.

3.3 pounds for the clover and Wild Flower
2.2 pounds for the orange blossom
in a 4L jug.

 

[bernardsmith]

Not sure that lemons have any usable nitrogen, zinc or other minerals that the yeast need but most people who post on youtube self publish and know as much about what they talk about as I know about life in the 23rd Century on Mars. Nutrient can be lab made (Fermaid O or Fermaid K or beer or wine nutrient - these two are labelled differently but are identical, according to White Labs) or you can make some yourself by adding a table spoon of bread yeast to a little water, (i would allow the yeast to rehydrate - in fact I would proof the yeast but others don't) boiling the solution, allowing the solution to cool and adding this to your must. The yeast in your must will cannibalize the boiled yeast and use the minerals and compounds in the dead cells to create the sterols they need to transport sugars through their cell walls and the materials they need to repair their own cellular structure.

 

[Garrett312]

I have another packet of Lavin EC-1118, will this work if i try what you're mentioning. or should i run to the store and pick up actual bread yeast.

I'm worried my mead will spoil due to the slow fermentation going on, or take on to much of the bready taste of the yeast.

Edit: re attempted checking the gravity now that i realized i messed up the initial readings.

Wild flower 1,070
Orange blossom 1,090
Clover 1,110

Update: tried giving them warm baths, now getting 1 bubble every 5-8 seconds. my storage place is slightly to cold i believe for a healthy fermentation process.
probably wont change storage place. may give warm baths daily or every other day for 5-10 minutes each.

 

[bernardsmith]

Wines and meads will taste yeasty when you have used too few yeast cells to ferment the must. It's ironic, I know, but the more yeast cells you pitch (up to a point) the less "yeasty" the mead will taste. Bread yeast is not cultured to flocculate well. It won't pack down into what brewers call a "yeast cake"... That means that the yeast cells tend to stay in suspension and so you may get a cloudier mead that is harder to clear. If that's not a problem OK. Also , bread yeast is not cultured to either enhance certain flavors in fruits and honey or to mask certain flavors or to increase mouthfeel... It is cultured to make enough CO2 for bread making. If that's OK then that ain't a problem.. But apart from the novelty mead known as JOAM bread yeast might be an option of last resort... Just sayin'...