I'm pretty sure I'm being paranoid! But.

[VoxPopuli]

I'm absolutely new to home-brewing, and I decided to go for a home made Mead for my first time, I'm using a one gallon glass jug with a bung and a bubbler (it's bubbling about once a minute). My main concern is the amount of yeast growth on the surface, I'm pretty sure I sanitised everything, so I don't think it will be harmful bacteria. Just wanting to know if it's normal, and what I should do.Any help is much appreciated

It's been left alone in the jug for 4 hours, seems like a lot of growth in such little time?

 

[Remos112]

It's been left alone in the jug for 4 hours, seems like a lot of growth in such little time?

I see nothing out of the ordinary. I've had this with a starter once:

Depending on the yeast you could have anything between almost no foam, to inches of foam. I wouldn't be worried.

 

[VoxPopuli]

Ah okay, I'm glad it's expected, I'm really interested in Mead, I would hate to mess up my first try! Any tips you could give on what to do now?

 

[Remos112]

Any tips you could give on what to do now?

Make sure you have the fermenter at a temperature the yeast is happy with and all should go well, nothing to do but wait till it's finished!

 

[BrewInspector]

You haven't seen anything yet. That could just be the beginning. Don't panic if it grows large enough to enter the airlock. If it does just clean and replace or install a blow off tube in its place.

Looks like you have enough room to avoid a blowout

Welcome

 

[VoxPopuli]

I'm glad I haven't been met with urgent messages to discard it! Haha, I'm looking forward to all of the steps it will take, and I'm more excited to drink it! Do you think a month in that jug, then another month after I rack it is enough to get a good flavour?

And any advice or tips are greatly appreciated!

 

[Remos112]

A month in fermenting should be enough to ferment it and let the yeast do their clean up act. I have never brewed mead myself so no idea how long it typically needs to age after that.

 

[bernardsmith]

Hi VoxPopuli and welcome. Aging depends on the starting gravity, the temperature you have asked the yeast to ferment at, the amount of nutrient you fed the yeast among other things... You also need to buy an hydrometer. Counting bubbles may be something that brewers might do - wine and mead makers measure changes in the density of their fermentations. A far more reliable and accurate method of observing the progress of their meads or wines involves measuring specific gravity - after all your mead can be saturated with CO2 (carbon dioxide) and changes in the room temperature or the air pressure (among many other factors) can force the gas out of suspension and so you are counting bubbles but the yeast has long ceased to be producing a molecule of CO2 ... An hydrometer is really the only piece of equipment a mead or wine maker needs.

 

[ScupperPit]

Sounds normal to me. Most of mine start after about 8-12 hours and are quite vigorous. I typically do about 3lbs of honey per galon.

Occasionally it does bubble into the airlock which makes me think maybe I should do a primary/secondary fermentation (any thoughts out there?).

I find my fermentations will be quite active for up to 3-4 months but getting less and less vigorous as time goes on. Compare this with ciders or wine which finish often in less than 1 month.

As mentioned, specific gravity will tell you how far along your fermentation is. The simplest (although maybe not desirable... Depending on your taste) may be to let it ferment until completely or near completely dry.

Give it a taste before you finally bottle it just to give yourself an idea for how much it has changed when you try it again many months later. Or as you'll often read many people wait years before they finally consume their creation. You'll probably find, when you taste prior to bottling, that there are some features of your mead that you really enjoy along with some feature that seem less desirable such as a general harshness or bitterness that will mellow with aging.

 

[VoxPopuli]

Thank you both for the latest replies, I have bought a hydrometer after you said it was an important tool, I'm just waiting on shipping, is there much point me using it on this brew, as I won't know the starting gravity, as it may only get here in a few days?

I woke up this morning to it bubbling once every couple of seconds, and a lot of bubbles coming up through the Mead, I know you said it's not an accurate way to measure, but it still makes me giddy! Haha

 

[bernardsmith]

Those bubbles are the real sound of music.. As for using your hydrometer now, the answer is YES! You can use it to determine when your mead is ready to rack off the lees and into a clean and sanitized secondary. Do that too early and you can leave behind too many yeast cells and stall the fermentation. Do it too late and you may have exposed your mead to too much oxygen which can spoil the flavor profile. (Best time to rack is when the gravity is around 1.010- 1.005). And secondly, you can use your hydrometer to determine when to bottle - You want the gravity to be firm and fixed over three or four readings over one or two weeks and close to 1.000 or lower - (alcohol has a lower density (gravity) than water so wine /mead with alcohol in it CAN be below 1.000 . It will be brut dry (and you can back sweeten it) but a reading of say, .996 is perfectly possible)

As for being able to determine what the starting gravity was without an hydrometer, you can guess-timate this fairly easily: 1 lb of honey mixed in water to make 1 gallon of must will raise the gravity of water (1.000) by 35 points (approximately) - so that is 1.035. Two lbs making the same volume will raise the gravity of water by 70 points and so on and so forth. Most fruit (apart from wine grapes) will have enough sugar for their juice (not diluted) to have a gravity of about 1.045 - 1.050 (so that is a little over 1 lb of fermentable sugar in very gallon of juice... Now, it is better to measure than estimate by calculation but if you have not measured the specific gravity before pitching the yeast, guess-timating is pretty reliable