Mead Didn't Ferment

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CaptainCanaduh

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Hey all. I'm making mead, have before, and this one didn't ferment. It's been sitting for about 2 weeks. Opened the fermentation pail today, smells a little off, has no alcohol taste at all.

Can I add some more yeast and try again? Or did it go bad?

Ingredients are honey, water, black tea.

Room is above 70⁰F

Thanks!
 
How do you know it didn’t ferment? Did you take a hydrometer sample? That’s the only way to know for sure. Sometimes fermentation can be sneaky, fast, or both.
 
How do you know it didn’t ferment? Did you take a hydrometer sample? That’s the only way to know for sure. Sometimes fermentation can be sneaky, fast, or both.
That's true. I'm still fairly new to this and I do a light taste test. It tastes pretty much as it did when I put it in the pail.
 
Just looked at the numbers... That is a 1.200 OG with a 24% ABV if you could get the yeast to go that high. You should probably look up building a yeast starter and get a HUGE colony going for that work load. Osmotic shock is right!

Or you could easily split some of it out and add more water to drop it down to a more reasonable SG.

6L of that 1.200 and 6L of water at 1.000 would blend you down to 1.13 which is 13% ABV and very manageable for the yeast.
 
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This is what I used to calculate it
 
Honey and tea will create a very nutrient poor fermentation environment. You'll want to add some nitrogen to get and keep things moving. I am fond of using a combination of diammonium phosphate for nitrogen, and Fermaid K or Fermaid O for the micronutrients. They are critical, too.

Have a look at this. It will explain the situation. https://www.homebrewersassociation.org/attachments/0000/1256/NDzym05_MasterMead.pdf
 
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