red star pasteur champagne yeast attenuation question

[beargrylls]

I brewed 3 gallons of a strawberry mead today. OG was 1.090 with 7 lbs of honey and 3 pounds of pureed strawberries. Also added 1.5 tsp yeastex yeast nutrient. I am curious as to what this yeast will ferment down to. I'm expecting close to 1.000, is this a reasonable estimate?

On another note, my friend also brewed 1 gallon of a pumpkin mead with 2.5 lbs honey to get an OG of 1.103. 1 tsp yeastex. Same question for his, what will it most likely ferment down to based on all your experiences?

 

[Yooper]

Probably .990, as that yeast strain can go to 18% or so.

 

[beargrylls]

wow that is pretty low. would you predict that FG for both meads, or will the 1.103 finish higher than the 1.090 because of the higher OG?

 

[Yooper]

wow that is pretty low. would you predict that FG for both meads, or will the 1.103 finish higher than the 1.090 because of the higher OG?

It should still make it to .990- most wines and meads do.

 

[fatbloke]

I brewed 3 gallons of a strawberry mead today. OG was 1.090 with 7 lbs of honey and 3 pounds of pureed strawberries. Also added 1.5 tsp yeastex yeast nutrient. I am curious as to what this yeast will ferment down to. I'm expecting close to 1.000, is this a reasonable estimate?

On another note, my friend also brewed 1 gallon of a pumpkin mead with 2.5 lbs honey to get an OG of 1.103. 1 tsp yeastex. Same question for his, what will it most likely ferment down to based on all your experiences?

Hum ? I know Yoopers given you the best answer......

but this Q suggests you're trying to parallel beer fermentation with mead.

"Attenuation" is a beer thing. Honey is basically 100% fermentable (there's a small amount of difference but thats negligible).

If you make your meads in a more wine-like way (after all, mead fermentation is closer to wine than it is beer-with a few small exceptions), you're likely to have less issues.

Beers rely on residual sugars from the ferment more, whereas unless you use so much honey as to surpass the yeasts tolerance (a known method and style but can be problematic), then there isn't likely to be much, if any, residual sugars - hence the low gravity you've experienced post-ferment......

More often than not, its easiest to aim for a strength below the tolerance or on the number (at most), then ferment dry. Only then if you want more sweetness or the style of batch you're making is sweeter, stabilise and back sweeten. It gives you vastly more control over your batch than trying to use beer methodology......

 

[beargrylls]

yeah i think i am thinking in terms of beer with the attenuation thing. the reason why i ask though is because the first batch of mead i made only fermented down to 1.010 and it started around 1.100 (3 lbs honey for 1 gallon); it was fairly sweet.
the second batch fermented to 1.000 starting from 1.085 (2 lbs of honey+1 lb pureed strawberries for 1 gallon; much drier), so i thought maybe the second batch finished lower because it started lower. I used the same yeast for both batches, i think it was the lalvin EC-1118 strain (could have been lalvin ICV K1V-1116 though, i'm not sure which one I decide to go with and i didnt write it down).

lalvin rates both of these yeasts to 18%, so it seems like both of my first 2 batches should have finished at the same gravity bc neither of them had enough sugar to surpass 18%. However, the higher OG one finished at a higher FG, and the lower OG finished at a lower FG. So there were more residual sugars left over for the higher OG batch. I'm just wondering why this might have happened, and my experience with this is why I'm asking about the FG of my current mead with the champagne yeast.

 

[fatbloke]

yeah i think i am thinking in terms of beer with the attenuation thing. the reason why i ask though is because the first batch of mead i made only fermented down to 1.010 and it started around 1.100 (3 lbs honey for 1 gallon); it was fairly sweet.

The problem with "sweet" is that it's relative to how we like "sweet". If you're more of a "savoury" person, 1.010 might seem sweet - personally, that's about where I like my meads.... I haven't got my head round "dry" with meads (though that's where I like my heavy, chewy, tannic Bordeaux and Burgundy reds) that are in the 0.990 and up area.

the second batch fermented to 1.000 starting from 1.085 (2 lbs of honey+1 lb pureed strawberries for 1 gallon; much drier), so i thought maybe the second batch finished lower because it started lower. I used the same yeast for both batches, i think it was the lalvin EC-1118 strain (could have been lalvin ICV K1V-1116 though, i'm not sure which one I decide to go with and i didnt write it down).

The published figures for yeasts aren't worked out with meads/honey, I don't know whether they work them out with grape musts or just appropriately nourished sugar/water mixes. There is a certain amount of vagary with meads, because of the way the musts are i.e. quite sweet but surprisingly acidic (well relatively low pH anyway - but it's not easily tested for actual acid content - mostly gluconic acid)

While grape musts can often, with the right conditions, get down to 0.980, a lot of meads only get to 1.000-0.995. Not sure why that might be, I'm just lazy and once it hits 1.000 take it as finished.

lalvin rates both of these yeasts to 18%, so it seems like both of my first 2 batches should have finished at the same gravity bc neither of them had enough sugar to surpass 18%. However, the higher OG one finished at a higher FG, and the lower OG finished at a lower FG. So there were more residual sugars left over for the higher OG batch. I'm just wondering why this might have happened, and my experience with this is why I'm asking about the FG of my current mead with the champagne yeast.

Getting a batch down to achieve the higher levels of alcohol isn't always as straight forward as it might seem. Just because the published figure is 18%, it doesn't follow that the yeast will just keep going until it can't ferment any further. There's many factors that might affect where it will slow/stall/stop. pH/nutrient/sugars/temperature/yeast colony health/etc etc, any combination might cause issue. After all, it's one hell of a chemical experiment that you've got going on in that ferment.

I'm just rather haphazard with my mead making i.e. I have only a vague idea of what I'm aiming for, and if it all goes smoothly/straight forward, it's a bonus, but I like to play so if it goes wrong and not according to how I think it should, then I start testing and measuring to try and understand what's going on.......

For what it's worth, you may indeed by using similar techniques to the professionals, but that doesn't mean it turns out the same way.......