Good Yeasts for Moderate ABV Meads?

[MeadyMcMeadFace]

First post on HomebrewTalk but been reading for a while, so hello!

Anyway, to my question. Up till now I've been using yeasts with an alchohol tolerance of around 18% such as Mangrove Jacks M05 and Gervin GV10. I'm wondering if anyone can recommend a good yeast with a lower tollerance? Specifically around 13%, no more than 14.5% but lower would be fine as long as its not something silly like 2%.

Yes I know I could stop the fermention with chemicals at the target ABV but I'd much rather find a way to do it without if possible. Unfortunately many sites dont bother to tell you the ABV tolerance of the yeast they sell so figured i would ask here in case anyone knows or can point me to a good resource.

At the moment i have a plain old Mead clarifying along with a Orange melomel and a Ginger Metheglin. Which I'd like to try repeating the three with the lower ABV yeast to see what the difference in taste is once the honey content of the must has been adjusted for the lower ABV.

 

[Maylar]

D47 and 71B-1122 are 14%. Most ale yeasts are 12-14%. But the numbers are just approximations, any yeast can go past its published limit under the right conditions.

 

[SKBugs]

Have a read of Groennfell Meadery's recipes (https://www.groennfell.com/). They mostly use D47. I have tried a couple of their open source recipes and they are pretty good. All around 6-7%.

 

[bernardsmith]

Hiya MeadyMcMeadFace - and welcome. The published tolerances for alcohol is a little like the published limits of strain a rope or chain can take without snapping. In other words they are not going to guarantee that they will suddenly crash and burn at the rate (or tolerance) listed, although of course if you refuse to treat those figures as gospel Murphy's Law would step in and all but guarantee that they would be accurate to the tenth decimal place. Okay. A better approach (IMO) is not to focus on the yeast but on the quantity of honey you use. If you dissolve 1 pound of honey to make 1 US gallon of mead that honey will raise the gravity of the water by 35 points (1.035) and a gravity of 1.035 has a maximum potential ABV of about 4.5% not matter what kind of yeast you use. There just ain't any more sugar in solution to squeeze out another 100th of 1% ABV. And if you dissolve two lbs to make the same one gallon of mead then the gravity would be 1.070 and the potential ABV would be about 9.2%. You get the picture? The amount of alcohol in a mead or wine is determined not by your choice of yeast but by the amount of honey (or fruit) you are fermenting per unit of volume.You want a lower ABV , you use less honey. You want a greater ABV , you use more honey ... and the yeast you select CAN limit the maximum ABV you can sqeeze out - but mead ain't fuel for a formula one car. Mead is all about the balance of flavor with alcohol. Bottom line - To obtain the ABV you want plan to use the appropriate amount of honey and select the yeast that works best in the conditions in your meadery and for the flavors you want to enhance or minimize.

 

[Miraculix]

Hiya MeadyMcMeadFace - and welcome. The published tolerances for alcohol is a little like the published limits of strain a rope or chain can take without snapping. In other words they are not going to guarantee that they will suddenly crash and burn at the rate (or tolerance) listed, although of course if you refuse to treat those figures as gospel Murphy's Law would step in and all but guarantee that they would be accurate to the tenth decimal place. Okay. A better approach (IMO) is not to focus on the yeast but on the quantity of honey you use. If you dissolve 1 pound of honey to make 1 US gallon of mead that honey will raise the gravity of the water by 35 points (1.035) and a gravity of 1.035 has a maximum potential ABV of about 4.5% not matter what kind of yeast you use. There just ain't any more sugar in solution to squeeze out another 100th of 1% ABV. And if you dissolve two lbs to make the same one gallon of mead then the gravity would be 1.070 and the potential ABV would be about 9.2%. You get the picture? The amount of alcohol in a mead or wine is determined not by your choice of yeast but by the amount of honey (or fruit) you are fermenting per unit of volume.You want a lower ABV , you use less honey. You want a greater ABV , you use more honey ... and the yeast you select CAN limit the maximum ABV you can sqeeze out - but mead ain't fuel for a formula one car. Mead is all about the balance of flavor with alcohol. Bottom line - To obtain the ABV you want plan to use the appropriate amount of honey and select the yeast that works best in the conditions in your meadery and for the flavors you want to enhance or minimize.

He is asking for yeasts that stop fermentation at a lower abv so that he can have some residual sweetness left after it finished. Your way would always end up bone dry which is fine but not what he is asking for.

I was wondering today the exact same question and tried to find out if s04 might be a good candidate, but I could not find anything on the net unfortunately....

 

[Maylar]

I was wondering today the exact same question and tried to find out if s04 might be a good candidate, but I could not find anything on the net unfortunately....

A lot of ale and beer yeasts don't specify alcohol tolerance, other than those intended for high gravity beers. As for S-04 we had one guy who claims it stops reliably at 9.5% while one of our cider makers has pushed it to 14%. So... go figure.

 

[Miraculix]

A lot of ale and beer yeasts don't specify alcohol tolerance, other than those intended for high gravity beers. As for S-04 we had one guy who claims it stops reliably at 9.5% while one of our cider makers has pushed it to 14%. So... go figure.

Yes I know..... For example, I pushed cbc1 to more than 23%, and it was supposed to stop way before.

I think the key is to find the single addition sugar amount that the yeast is able to finish. Then one could just add a bit more honey to have something left after fermentation finished.
As soon as one has to add honey afterwards, one starts step feeding, which enables the yeast to ferment till higher abv than it would have when the sugar was given in one big addition at the start.

 

[bernardsmith]

So what is the problem with back sweetening? You determine the ABV you want , you let the yeast eat up all the sugars in that mead, you stabilize and you add whatever sugar/sweetener you want to make the mead as sweet as you want it. The idea is that you make your plan and then you execute it... You , and not the yeast are in the driving seat.

 

[Miraculix]

So what is the problem with back sweetening? You determine the ABV you want , you let the yeast eat up all the sugars in that mead, you stabilize and you add whatever sugar/sweetener you want to make the mead as sweet as you want it. The idea is that you make your plan and then you execute it... You , and not the yeast are in the driving seat.

He clearly wrote that he does not want to stabilize, therefore he asked for the specific yeast.

 

[MeadyMcMeadFace]

A lot of ale and beer yeasts don't specify alcohol tolerance, other than those intended for high gravity beers. As for S-04 we had one guy who claims it stops reliably at 9.5% while one of our cider makers has pushed it to 14%. So... go figure.

That's interesting, I've never had any batches that went over the advertised tollerance by a noticable degree but good to know they can by a significant percentage under certain circumstances.

 

[SKBugs]

Well Groennfell meadery only uses D47 I think. Their brews only go to the 7% or close

 

[MeadyMcMeadFace]

Hiya MeadyMcMeadFace - and welcome. The published tolerances for alcohol is a little like the published limits of strain a rope or chain can take without snapping. In other words they are not going to guarantee that they will suddenly crash and burn at the rate (or tolerance) listed, although of course if you refuse to treat those figures as gospel Murphy's Law would step in and all but guarantee that they would be accurate to the tenth decimal place. Okay. A better approach (IMO) is not to focus on the yeast but on the quantity of honey you use. If you dissolve 1 pound of honey to make 1 US gallon of mead that honey will raise the gravity of the water by 35 points (1.035) and a gravity of 1.035 has a maximum potential ABV of about 4.5% not matter what kind of yeast you use. There just ain't any more sugar in solution to squeeze out another 100th of 1% ABV. And if you dissolve two lbs to make the same one gallon of mead then the gravity would be 1.070 and the potential ABV would be about 9.2%. You get the picture? The amount of alcohol in a mead or wine is determined not by your choice of yeast but by the amount of honey (or fruit) you are fermenting per unit of volume.You want a lower ABV , you use less honey. You want a greater ABV , you use more honey ... and the yeast you select CAN limit the maximum ABV you can sqeeze out - but mead ain't fuel for a formula one car. Mead is all about the balance of flavor with alcohol. Bottom line - To obtain the ABV you want plan to use the appropriate amount of honey and select the yeast that works best in the conditions in your meadery and for the flavors you want to enhance or minimize.

This is more an experiment than anything else, otherwise i would just use chemical stablizing and back sweeten which is what i currently do if/when required. I want to see if i can reliably do it without the need for either.

 

[Beer666]

The crossmyloof mead yeast leaves a little residual sweetness. Can't remember the flavour profile.
Tried a lot of other yeast which all got down to 1000 unless I put too much honey in then they could stop anywhere.
I have a pack of Mangrove Jacks mead yeast I have not used yet. Has anyone else tried it?

 

[madscientist451]

Bread yeast supposedly quits at about 9-10% ABV. I haven't used bread yeast in mead yet, but I have used it in Korean rice beer, Makgeolli. I do notice a slight yeast flavor in the Makgeolli, but if you add flavors, its not as noticable. JAOM uses bread yeast and I'm guessing the orange covers up the yeast flavor.

 

[madetoday]

Well Groennfell meadery only uses D47 I think. Their brews only go to the 7% or close

I think all their recipes finish at .998 or so though. D47 has a tolerance 14% or so, but won’t necessarily stop there.

 

[Maylar]

Bread yeast supposedly quits at about 9-10% ABV. I haven't used bread yeast in mead yet, but I have used it in Korean rice beer, Makgeolli. I do notice a slight yeast flavor in the Makgeolli, but if you add flavors, its not as noticable. JAOM uses bread yeast and I'm guessing the orange covers up the yeast flavor.

My first JAOM went to 15% with bread yeast. I did nothing outside the recipe directions.

 

[laughing jack]

Just to add to the idea that the published tolerance of a yeast are more of a guideline than a rule, I step fed a mead using Wyeast 1388 (tolerance 13%) to a total of 21% abv before I got tired of feeding it. To be clear, the yeast was still consuming the honey at 21%. Tolerances are a guideline.

-J-

 

[greenmage]

He clearly wrote that he does not want to stabilize, therefore he asked for the specific yeast.

I used to think like this, but it's a fantasy. With proper hydration and nutrient additions you can "push" any of the yeast strains I've used well past their supposed alcohol tolerance... I've had montrachet and D47 both with a tolerance around 14% go well above 17-18%. Even with cold crashing and racking there's still a chance that the yeast will start back up when the temperature rises if there's still fermentable sugars. Stabilizing with sorbate sulfites will help, but pasteurization is the only way to really kill off the yeast for sure.

 

[Miraculix]

I used to think like this, but it's a fantasy. With proper hydration and nutrient additions you can "push" any of the yeast strains I've used well past their supposed alcohol tolerance... I've had montrachet and D47 both with a tolerance around 14% go well above 17-18%. Even with cold crashing and racking there's still a chance that the yeast will start back up when the temperature rises if there's still fermentable sugars. Stabilizing with sorbate sulfites will help, but pasteurization is the only way to really kill off the yeast for sure.

I know. Only thing is, I never read somebody trying this with one of those super low tolerance strains. Maybe those will stop at ten or twelve.

I'll try a lager strain next, let's see.