Mead ferment temp

[GatoRailBrewery]

Well here's what happened my buddy and I had everything set for brew day..... Starter made and ready, 15lbs local honey, wives preoccupied with Netflix movie. So we started up and about half way through with the apple cinnamon mead we realized it was really hot in the house (100ish) the Ac had gone out..... So we finished the batch, got it cool.....(lots o ice) and pitched. The ferment started in about 4 hours (keep in mind still 100 deg in the house), it was rockin away and about 3 weeks later my gravity was under 1.0, so racked it over. What are the high ferment temps gonna do? Thinking this one will end up in the back of the closet for some time....

 

[Insomniac]

What yeast did you use?

 

[GatoRailBrewery]

White labs sweet mead.... Ya it went a lil further than I wanted.

 

[MedsenFey]

Age and pray!
I have some high temp batches I've been aging for 4 years waiting for the fusels to die down. I'm beginning to wonder if they ever will.

Good luck.

 

[GatoRailBrewery]

Ya that's what I thought. Would it be better to batch age or bottle?

 

[seabass07]

So what is an ideal temp for a mead? If using an ale yeast, should you expect similar yeast character in the mead as you would with an ale?

 

[Henrythe9th]

depends on the yeast strain but like beer lower is better for less fusels

 

[fatbloke]

depends on the yeast strain but like beer lower is better for less fusels

I suspect that you're spot on there. Though the only one I've read any mention of with meads, has been Medsen Fey when referring to D47 and that it really needs to be kept below 70F, otherwise it does produce a fair amount of fusels (apparently).

Lucky here, as generally the local temps don't get to that level, so it's easy to keep a ferment temp down.

I wonder if there is any data/research/table that explains about this. Because I know that as fermentation is an exothermic reaction, when alluding to "large" batches, various chiller devices are often employed to keep the numbers down.

After all, the numbers quoted by Lallemand/Lalvin for something like K1V are a very wide temperature tolerance (something like 10 to 35C), but whether it is better fermented on the warmer side or best kept cool would need some experimentation etc.

Has anyone done any or as above, is there any data/research etc ??

regards

fatbloke

 

[MedsenFey]

The experience of many of us is that lower end of the temperature range for the yeast is best in most cases, particularly with traditional meads. High temperature fermentation using many yeast produces burning alcohol character and Band-Aid aromas, and possibly sulfur odors due to yeast stress. The only yeast I've seen that make really good traditional meads at high temp have been K1V and D21.

Uvaferm 43 creates awful sulfur odors at room temp. Montrachet becomes terrible if you have to use it above 75F. EC-1118 (aka Premier Cuvee) makes harsh swill in above 75F. The list of yeast that don't do well in the heat goes on and on.