15 pounds of honey, added spring water to get too 5 gallons. Champagne yeast, with nutrients. OG, 21 days ago was 1.065. A week ago it was at 1.02. I took a gravity reading last night. It was at .990. Now it may have been at exactly 1.00. It's kind of hard to tell sometimes. I thought the gravity was not supposed to go below 1.00. It also doesn't have much of a honey taste to it. It is very dry tasting. When it first started fermenting, it had a honey smell coming out of the airlock.
Not sure if something is wrong or not
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botigol
Well-Known Member
Other than your OG reading being very low, all seems normal. Your OG should have been close to 1.108; maybe the honey wasn't well incorporated into the water. The honey aroma and flavor should come back around in a year or two.
There is a big difference between .990 and 1.000- and it should be noticeable.
You can see that .990 is at the very top, and 1.000 is ten points down.
In any case, that is perfectly normal for a mead or wine. .990 is where most of mine stop.
You can see that .990 is at the very top, and 1.000 is ten points down.
In any case, that is perfectly normal for a mead or wine. .990 is where most of mine stop.
Ok. So I am reading it wrong then. It was just right above the 1.000 mark. Like at .998.
bernardsmith
Well-Known Member
Certainly not a problem. The density of pure water is 1.000 and alcohol is less dense than water so you would expect that when all the sugar has fermented then the gravity would in fact fall below 1.000. The lower the gravity (0.998 or lower) the less sugar is left in the mead - so the drier the mead will taste. The flavor you will get is the floral character of the mead you used. If you boiled the honey (or heated it) before you pitched the yeast the less flavor you will have... Often you need to back sweeten a wine to bring forward the flavors.. The thing is that champagne yeasts are very aggressive and they tend to blow off the flavor and aromatic molecules.. Gentler wine yeasts are available.. You might want to check up on how well those might handle your honey. Me? I tend to use 71B
fuelish
Well-Known Member
Sounds likely
sheepcat
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Yup, like others mentioned, champagne yeast can often reduce the aromatic/honey notes in the mead. Also, mead doesn't always taste like honey! Wine isn't grape juice, and beer isn't just grain soda! However, adding some honey to sweeten it up again can really bring it back noticeably.
A lot of the time smells change during fermentation... I'm in the middle of a cranberry orange batch right now; at first, you could only smell cranberries, then after a day the whole area smelled like oranges, then a weird sour smell... now we're back to cranberries and orange.
A lot of the time smells change during fermentation... I'm in the middle of a cranberry orange batch right now; at first, you could only smell cranberries, then after a day the whole area smelled like oranges, then a weird sour smell... now we're back to cranberries and orange.
Someone suggested that I stir it, or slosh it around some. I noticed when I do, the honey smell comes back somewhat. I have 6 pounds of honey. I will try adding some of that to sweeten it up. I was aiming for somewhere between dry and sweet. I guess it's drier than what I was expecting.
Next Friday will be exactly one month. I was thinking about racking it next weekend.
Next Friday will be exactly one month. I was thinking about racking it next weekend.
No, do NOT slosh or stir! That will oxidize/ruin the mead.
You may want to rack, and then when it clears, rack again and then rack onto sorbate and campden at that point (once you can read a newspaper through it, and it's not dropping any more lees at all), and sweeten after that. Before that, any honey you add will ferment out and make rocket fuel that will take years to age out.
Well it's too late not to stir it, I've already done that twice. Did I screw it up?
