Mead yeast question

[Colin MacKay]

Hello everyone. This is my first post here. I've viewed these forums quite a lot and I just now signed up so thank you to this place for existing lol.
Anyway I've always used Lalvin 71B yeast and I made a traditional mead a month and a half ago and i used M05 yeast for the first time. So it's been almost 2 months and it's still bubbling away quite aggressively and it tastes quite harsh as well as not very sweet. My last few brews tasted way better and had slowed down by this time so I'm a bit confused and I cant really find much information online that would help me.
Any help here would be highly appreciated. Thanks a lot!

 

[Seamonkey84]

Bubbleing doesn’t mean much once fermentation starts. We all like watching them, but doesn’t mean anything as far as progress. Only way to know how it’s progressing is by taking gravity readings. Did you use any nutrients? Honey has little to no nutrients so most yeasts will become stressed and make some off flavors, same with too high of a temperature. Mead takes time without the use of modern techniques and nutrients, often taking a year or more to age before it’s drinkable.

 

[Colin MacKay]

Bubbleing doesn’t mean much once fermentation starts. We all like watching them, but doesn’t mean anything as far as progress. Only way to know how it’s progressing is by taking gravity readings. Did you use any nutrients? Honey has little to no nutrients so most yeasts will become stressed and make some off flavors, same with too high of a temperature. Mead takes time without the use of modern techniques and nutrients, often taking a year or more to age before it’s drinkable.

Hey! Thank you for the reply! I made a black tea nutrient tea with... well... black tea as well as orange peels and raisins and let it steep for about 25 minutes (I cut up the raisins as well) I strained it though so the raisins didn't go in the mead just the tea. So besides the honey and water (and yeast of course) that's all that went in. Is there something I should add? I'm a bit of an impatient brewer lol. Thank you!
Edit: also I'm not really sure what I'm looking for with the gravity. It started at 1.105 and after a month and a half it's at 1.044. Not sure what I'm looking for. This is my first time making this type of brew.

 

[Seamonkey84]

you’re most likely stuck due to lack of nutrients. The gravity reading tells you how much sugar has been used or is left, sugars used translates to how much alcohol is produced. Your at about 8% abv, while your yeast should easily do 14-16% and up to 18%. If it stopped before it reached alcohol tolerance, then its stuck. Since your still below 10% abv, you can add some nutrients still. If you don’t have any available, boiling some bread yeast and adding it to the batch can do the trick. Take a pack of yeast, add it to a small amount of boiling water and let it simmer or strap for a 3-5 mins then let it cool down. Make sure to give the batch a good stir to degas it first, get all the yeast off the bottom. Then add in the boiled yeast.