Is my mead ruined?

[Racket2013]

Sorry new to this site and to making mead. I mixed a 1 gallon batch of mead. I used 5 pounds clover honey, EC-1118, tsp yeast nutrient. I steeped honey malt in about 2 liters of water. My 1st SG was 1.175 about. My temp was good. After two day now i am only getting bubble in air lock approx. every ten seconds. Am I killing the yeast and is there anyway to save batch or should i just dump it. Thanks

 

[thadass]

Patience is the key to this hobby.

Airlock activity is not a good measure of anything. It is simply a pressure release system. The only way to know what is happening inside the fermenting liquid is a gravity sample using a hydrometer or refractometer, and doing it too early is very wasteful.

I highly suggest leaving it alone for a long while, leave it in the right temperature range, and come back to see how it is with a measurement after however may be long enough for a mead in primary (a month?).

In the mean time... start your second batch!

 

[Zaffo]

Seems like quite a lot of honey for a 1 gal batch. Perhaps the gravity is a bit too much for the yeast, even one as vigorous as EC 1118, to get going?

You could try pouring 1/2 in another 1 gallon carboy and topping both up with water.

You can always backsweeten later if you're aiming for a sweet mead. Or, you can leave some headspace in each carboy to leave room for step feeding if your aiming for high alcohol content.

In any case, I'd also consider using a yeast energizer and nutrient (see the stickies on this mead forum, and/or gotmead.com regarding staggered nutrient addition)

That's my $0.02.

 

[Racket2013]

Thanks very much for the help!! I will be posting alot because i am just learning this. Sorry for any of the inconvenience.

 

[fatbloke]

To point you in the "right" direction, the average honey/water ratio is about 3lb made up to the gallon and that gravity is WAY to high.

I'd get another pound of honey in there and then make it up to 2 gallons, sooner rather than later as the yeast is likely being inhibited by osmotic shock due to excessive sugar levels.

This will be stressing the yeast. When yeast is stressed you often get off flavours.

Then use some energiser (1 to 1.5 teaspoons per gallon), then aerate the hell out of it (a sanitised balloon whisk or stick blender......)

If you look over at gotmead forums, their forums front page has their "NewBee" guide linked in the left side yellow box. Its a bit of a read but stuffed with good advice and will answer many of the questions you might have........

Personally I usually start my meads at the 1.100 to 1.110 sort of area or think of it from another direction i.e. if dry/finished would have a gravity of 1.000 to get 18% ABV you'd need a start gravity of 1.133 - so hopefully that illustrates how muchtoo high, you have your sugars content........