Stonks
Member
- Joined
- Apr 23, 2021
- Messages
- 9
- Reaction score
- 7
Hello everyone. First time mead brewer here may have a bit of a situation. Currently have 5 gallons of mead in my fermenting bucket. Its been 5 days since I followed the below recipe (sunday). 6kg of unpasteurized honey Distilled water to fill the bucket to 5 gallons 5 cinnamon sticks Approx. 8g of champagne lavlin ec1118 yeast. Approx. 4-5 teaspoons of yeast nutrient Approx. 3 teaspoons of yeast energizer. I used oxiclean versatile cleaner (perfume, dye, chlorine bleach free) to clean my equipment And 1step, no rinse cleaner to sanitize my equipment. I threw in all of the yeast nutrient and energizer on the first day and did not spread it out over the days. The airlock was bubbling really well for the first three days and yesterday it slowed down. I opened it up on the second and third day to degass a bit, and yesterday also. When I opened it yesterday it smelled of rubber and I tasted a bit and tasted like rubber too. I will say its only been 5 days since I started out so could this just be an aging thing and I need to be patient. I really hope its that because I cant really afford to do this all again. I took a gravity sample when I started it was 1.118 now its 1.078 so thats about what? 5% alcohol so far. Anyway just wondering about the rubber smell and if I should be worried my yeast might've died or are slowing down because the airlock has stopped bubbling.
UPDATE:
Racked it into a secondary about 2 weeks after I started this batch in the primary.
I am going to keep it in the secondary for 3 weeks or so and put it into bottles. I hope the taste continues to mellow out, the taste was better and the rubber/vinyl taste is almost no longer with us (when I tasted it while putting it into the secondary). I honestly think it had something to do with adding the cinnamon in the primary.
I will say I'm currently brewing another batch (1 gallon) of mead. I found a local honey source and it's been 4 days since it's been fermenting. I purchased star san and was adamant about cleaning this time (almost too much). I also have been stretching out the yeast nutrient/energizer regiment and degassing more than my first batch. I'm at the same point in this batch as I was in the first batch when I started to smell the vinyl smell. I am proud to say this batch smells and tastes waaaay better at this point. I hope it even gets better! haah
UPDATE:
Racked it into a secondary about 2 weeks after I started this batch in the primary.
I am going to keep it in the secondary for 3 weeks or so and put it into bottles. I hope the taste continues to mellow out, the taste was better and the rubber/vinyl taste is almost no longer with us (when I tasted it while putting it into the secondary). I honestly think it had something to do with adding the cinnamon in the primary.
I will say I'm currently brewing another batch (1 gallon) of mead. I found a local honey source and it's been 4 days since it's been fermenting. I purchased star san and was adamant about cleaning this time (almost too much). I also have been stretching out the yeast nutrient/energizer regiment and degassing more than my first batch. I'm at the same point in this batch as I was in the first batch when I started to smell the vinyl smell. I am proud to say this batch smells and tastes waaaay better at this point. I hope it even gets better! haah
Last edited: