Hi, first post here for me. I've read quite a lot here about cold crashing, pasteurizing, bottle bombs, etc., and I still have some unanswered questions. Now, please don't criticize the process I'm about to describe: it does contain all sorts of hazardous actions, but it was done so. Now I just want to learn out of it.
Last december (2011), I had two simple meads (only water, honey and yeast) to bottle, which I wanted sweet, not too dry. What I did at the time was bottle them prior to the end of fermentation, then cold-crashed them outside, in their bottles, at an average temp. of -7 °C (19 °F) for 8-10 hours, and then some hours more in the day, though then the temperature rose to near zero °C.
Basically, it worked and stopped the fermentation, even though I was using champagne and wine yeasts. I still have bottles of these meads now, one year later, and even though they were at room temperature all that time, none underwent more fermentation (Actual gravity of the first mead is 1.014). I doubt my mead ever completely froze because the bottles would have exploded, and none did.
Now, what I read up to now is that:
- cold crashing supposedly does not work well with champagne and wine yeasts
- cold crashing does not kill yeasts; it just takes most out of the solution (not the case in my bottles) of sets them "asleep", ready to wake up anytime.
- freezing the yeasts can kill them, but I understand that it is not a sure thing unless all the mead/wine/cider is a block of ice. (?)
So it seems that the meads did not (completely?) freeze but underwent sufficiently low temperatures to kill the yeasts. (?)
Has anyone done something alike before? Could it be considered a safe way to kill the yeasts?
I'm trying to make sense of all this because I'm about to bottle another mead, don't want it dry either, and I want it sparkling. I know I can pasteurize using Pappers'method, but a one night freeze is a lot more simple and effortless. Plus, if this method can be replicated it is just interesting in itself. However, I wanna be sure I just wasn't very lucky last time, for whatever reasons.
Last december (2011), I had two simple meads (only water, honey and yeast) to bottle, which I wanted sweet, not too dry. What I did at the time was bottle them prior to the end of fermentation, then cold-crashed them outside, in their bottles, at an average temp. of -7 °C (19 °F) for 8-10 hours, and then some hours more in the day, though then the temperature rose to near zero °C.
Basically, it worked and stopped the fermentation, even though I was using champagne and wine yeasts. I still have bottles of these meads now, one year later, and even though they were at room temperature all that time, none underwent more fermentation (Actual gravity of the first mead is 1.014). I doubt my mead ever completely froze because the bottles would have exploded, and none did.
Now, what I read up to now is that:
- cold crashing supposedly does not work well with champagne and wine yeasts
- cold crashing does not kill yeasts; it just takes most out of the solution (not the case in my bottles) of sets them "asleep", ready to wake up anytime.
- freezing the yeasts can kill them, but I understand that it is not a sure thing unless all the mead/wine/cider is a block of ice. (?)
So it seems that the meads did not (completely?) freeze but underwent sufficiently low temperatures to kill the yeasts. (?)
Has anyone done something alike before? Could it be considered a safe way to kill the yeasts?
I'm trying to make sense of all this because I'm about to bottle another mead, don't want it dry either, and I want it sparkling. I know I can pasteurize using Pappers'method, but a one night freeze is a lot more simple and effortless. Plus, if this method can be replicated it is just interesting in itself. However, I wanna be sure I just wasn't very lucky last time, for whatever reasons.
