Hi, I'm New to Mead Making...

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Willzbryan

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Ive got a honey mead going, and the is still honey and suger at the bottom, been down 2weeks should I give a shake up
 
Just off hand, this doesn't sound right. Why can you see honey and sugar at the bottom? Was it ever well mixed? I've only made a few meads, but I never saw that. I racked to a secondary within a week when the gravity dropped and I had done a short boil.
It would help if you told more such as batch size and yeast used. There are some very knowledgeable brewers on HBT, but they'll need data to help.
Good luck. :)

EDIT: You're not getting much action here.You might do better to go another place in the list of Forums:
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New to mead making & forum
 
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Just off hand, this doesn't sound right. Why can you see honey and sugar at the bottom? Was it ever well mixed? I've only made a few meads, but I never saw that. I racked to a secondary within a week when the gravity dropped and I had done a short boil.
It would help if you told more such as batch size and yeast used. There are some very knowledgeable brewers on HBT, but they'll need data to help.
I'm a 1st time Mead making guy.

I'm From New Zealand and have never heard of mead; one of my customers gave me 4 kgs of honey for Free and said this is what u do.
I did it and I also have little to y white stuff at the top...????

I used honey, sugar, and Mead yeast. Could it be dead yeast at the bottom?

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Ive got a honey mead going, and the is still honey and suger at the bottom, been down 2weeks should I give a shake up

Just any FYI...mead is always "honey mead"...there is no mead that is not made with honey. Mead, just like beer will have yeast and other stuff drop to the bottle during fermentation, with mead it's called "lees". with beer it's "trub". Question though, have you been degassing your mead daily? If you are degassing, either by stirring with a spoon, or using a paint stirrer attached to a drill...if it were really honey/sugar, it would be mixed in during degassing. Degassing is the process of getting CO2 out of the mead. Not that I am a mead expert, since I just did my first one a few months ago and just bottled it last week, but why did you use sugar too, just to bump up the alcohol and dry it out some?
 
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Just any FYI...mead is always "honey mead"...there is no mead that is not made with honey. Mead, just like beer will have yeast and other stuff drop to the bottle during fermentation, with mead it's called "lees". with beer it's "trub". Question though, have you been degassing your mead daily? If you are degassing, either by stirring with a spoon, or using a paint stirrer attached to a drill...if it were really honey/sugar, it would be mixed in during degassing. Degassing is the process of getting CO2 out of the mead. Not that I am a mead expert, since I just did my first one a few months ago and just bottled it last week, but why did you use sugar too, just to bump up the alcohol and dry it out some?
Yes because someone told me that, you can add suger
 
Just any FYI...mead is always "honey mead"...there is no mead that is not made with honey. Mead, just like beer will have yeast and other stuff drop to the bottle during fermentation, with mead it's called "lees". with beer it's "trub". Question though, have you been degassing your mead daily? If you are degassing, either by stirring with a spoon, or using a paint stirrer attached to a drill...if it were really honey/sugar, it would be mixed in during degassing. Degassing is the process of getting CO2 out of the mead. Not that I am a mead expert, since I just did my first one a few months ago and just bottled it last week, but why did you use sugar too, just to bump up the alcohol and dry it out some?
 
Yea some one told me to add suger to it, I've added mead yeast to it aswel but there is tiny white particles, floating at the top so unsure what that is. I hope it's not a fail but 1st time. We'll see, it's starting to go a lighter colour, and not bubbling as much.
 
Yea some one told me to add suger to it, I've added mead yeast to it aswel but there is tiny white particles, floating at the top so unsure what that is. I hope it's not a fail but 1st time. We'll see, it's starting to go a lighter colour, and not bubbling as much.
How do I do that
 
Done it
 

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Hard to say, personally it could be to many things at this point. Let it go and check it once in a while as it finishes, a field at the top or an odor is usually the first signs I have seen that something went wrong.
 
Hard to say, personally it could be to many things at this point. Let it go and check it once in a while as it finishes, a field at the top or an odor is usually the first signs I have seen that something went wrong.
Yep when I gave it a mix up, it smelled so good and trued a little sample on a spoon, was delicious
 
It is almost certain to be yeast dropping. Perfectly normal and desired as well.
But now I have some tiny white particles floating to the top I don't know what this is, could it be from the honey or the suger, I sterilized my mixing stick could be I didn't rinse it off properly before I stired up my meat
 

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Ya never know, had a cyser from last year smelling like sulfur and tasting like crud all year. Samples before I was going to dump recently and odors/flavors are all gone, reasonably pleasant and spicing and backsweetening soon I think. Time does wonders with homebrew. Best wishes.
 
But now I have some tiny white particles floating to the top I don't know what this is, could it be from the honey or the suger, I sterilized my mixing stick could be I didn't rinse it off properly before I stired up my meat
#mead lol
 
Ya never know, had a cyser from last year smelling like sulfur and tasting like crud all year. Samples before I was going to dump recently and odors/flavors are all gone, reasonably pleasant and spicing and backsweetening soon I think. Time does wonders with homebrew. Best wishes.
Yea mine smells and taste good when I had a lil sample.
 
@Willzbryan Sounds like you have an active ferment - Hard to tell from the pic what is floating on top. A little white ring of "floaties" are probably yeast and could form a Krausen similar to brewing beer depending on the yeast and how active they are. If the Krausen or other floaties turn colors (Green, Orange etc) and get "harry" then your probably in trouble. Until then let it do its thing. You will likely have a cloudy mead with some sediment and things floating on top. All perfectly normal unless it gets infected and or mold grows. (Risk is small with good sanitation practices, but does happen on occasion)

Utilizing a hydrometer Smell, Taste and observation is your best idea of how your progressing.
 
Technically, if 50+% of fermentable sugars are from honey, then it is a "Mead" ... floaties are prolly undissolved nutrient typically found in dry yeast (dry yeast is usually about 25% active dormant yeast and 75% dead yeast and/or nutrient) ... they float since CO2 generated in fermentation attaches to the nutrient "nugget" ... you can eliminate floaties early in fermentation with extremely vigorous stirring (paint stirrer attached to hand drill) ... if later in ferment, leave it alone - they're harmless either way, but if undissolved, they're wasted and unavailable to yeast ... sulfur smells in cysers and other fruit based meads are DMS ... DMS is volatile and will osmotically dissipate with aging to the point where you can't taste or smell it at all (one reason why meads take longer to ferment in primary than beer) ... you can reduce but not eliminate DMS with proper procedure (temp control, degassing, etc...) ... If you can sense DMS do not cap or keg, even if you've reached specific gravity endpoint ... once bottled, kegged or otherwise capped, DMS will not go away ... cheers and enjoy - you'll be making one of the first alcoholic drinks known to man ;-)

P.S. also don't boil mead or you'll losing the complex flavor of the honey ... you can raise temp to at most ~105-110 to accelerate dissolving honey, but I typically only go to ~90 to do this ... once yeast get established, they create an environment extremely hostile to other micro-invaders (other strains of yeast, bacteria, etc... ) ... also, honey itself is anti-microbial (for example ancient Egyptians used it to pack wounds to let them heal thus minimizing infection risk) ... figure if ancient man (they've found mead jars at Gobekli Tepe - the first known human "city" - 8,000-9,000 years old) could make it, you prolly don't have to worry about super sanitation ;-)
 
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@Willzbryan Sounds like you have an active ferment - Hard to tell from the pic what is floating on top. A little white ring of "floaties" are probably yeast and could form a Krausen similar to brewing beer depending on the yeast and how active they are. If the Krausen or other floaties turn colors (Green, Orange etc) and get "harry" then your probably in trouble. Until then let it do its thing. You will likely have a cloudy mead with some sediment and things floating on top. All perfectly normal unless it gets infected and or mold grows. (Risk is small with good sanitation practices, but does happen on occasion)

Utilizing a hydrometer Smell, Taste and observation is your best idea of how your progressing.
Cool thanks
 
@Willzbryan Sounds like you have an active ferment - Hard to tell from the pic what is floating on top. A little white ring of "floaties" are probably yeast and could form a Krausen similar to brewing beer depending on the yeast and how active they are. If the Krausen or other floaties turn colors (Green, Orange etc) and get "harry" then your probably in trouble. Until then let it do its thing. You will likely have a cloudy mead with some sediment and things floating on top. All perfectly normal unless it gets infected and or mold grows. (Risk is small with good sanitation practices, but does happen on occasion)

Utilizing a hydrometer Smell, Taste and observation is your best idea of how your progressing.
Thanks
 
Thanks mate
Technically, if 50+% of fermentable sugars are from honey, then it is a "Mead" ... floaties are prolly undissolved nutrient typically found in dry yeast (dry yeast is usually about 25% active dormant yeast and 75% dead yeast and/or nutrient) ... they float since CO2 generated in fermentation attaches to the nutrient "nugget" ... you can eliminate floaties early in fermentation with extremely vigorous stirring (paint stirrer attached to hand drill) ... if later in ferment, leave it alone - they're harmless either way, but if undissolved, they're wasted and unavailable to yeast ... sulfur smells in cysers and other fruit based meads are DMS ... DMS is volatile and will osmotically dissipate with aging to the point where you can't taste or smell it at all (one reason why meads take longer to ferment in primary than beer) ... you can reduce but not eliminate DMS with proper procedure (temp control, degassing, etc...) ... If you can sense DMS do not cap or keg, even if you've reached specific gravity endpoint ... once bottled, kegged or otherwise capped, DMS will not go away ... cheers and enjoy - you'll be making one of the first alcoholic drinks known to man ;-)

P.S. also don't boil mead or you'll losing the complex flavor of the honey ... you can raise temp to at most ~105-110 to accelerate dissolving honey, but I typically only go to ~90 to do this ... once yeast get established, they create an environment extremely hostile to other micro-invaders (other strains of yeast, bacteria, etc... ) ... also, honey itself is anti-microbial (for example ancient Egyptians used it to pack wounds to let them heal thus minimizing infection risk) ... figure if ancient man (they've found mead jars at Gobekli Tepe - the first known human "city" - 8,000-9,000 years old) could make it, you prolly don't have to worry about super sanitation ;-)
Ok thanks
 
@Willzbryan Sounds like you have an active ferment - Hard to tell from the pic what is floating on top. A little white ring of "floaties" are probably yeast and could form a Krausen similar to brewing beer depending on the yeast and how active they are. If the Krausen or other floaties turn colors (Green, Orange etc) and get "harry" then your probably in trouble. Until then let it do its thing. You will likely have a cloudy mead with some sediment and things floating on top. All perfectly normal unless it gets infected and or mold grows. (Risk is small with good sanitation practices, but does happen on occasion)

Utilizing a hydrometer Smell, Taste and observation is your best idea of how your progressing.
 

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