Which yeast is your favorite dry yeast for making mead?

[NeverDie]

Mostly S-04 S-05 and K1-v1116 for me stepson also uses bread yeast which he winds up cold crashing to get it to clear sooner.

Useful to know. I haven't tried S-05, but in the yeast round-up I tried S-04, K1-v1116, and Fleishman's bread yeast, and (so far at least) they all seem to have annoying amounts of haze.

How long does it take from pitching for the batches you and your stepson do to go to crystal clear with those yeasts?

 

[Blacksmith1]

Not sure as I have almost perfected the art of "leaving it alone in the dark", a month at least.

These are not BOMMs nor do they use any type of step feeding. These are very basic protocol meads. Some using just honey some using fruits, or maple syrup or herbs and spices etc.
I honestly think it may just be the dead yeasts are heavier due to the calcium. I have no proof of this, or scientific reason to give you. Just my personal theory.

 

[Miraculix]

I will treat my mead water from now on with cacl2 to get about 100ppm of calcium. I have something going into secondary next week and I will add it there as well.

 

[Blacksmith1]

Let me know if it makes a difference. Btw, the water we use is only 50 ppm, not that I think calcium will affect the taste.

 

[NeverDie]

Two of the liquid yeast strains have had a bad haze issue, so, I'm going to clear up their haze now using bentonite.

 

[Maylar]

I'm not disagreeing, but what had been confusing to me is that I don't think I've seen even one mead recipe that called for adding clearing agents at any stage. Maybe the authors all just assume we're doing it? Many of them seem quite detailed about everything else, so it would be odd for them to omit it.

Clarity is not a recipe requirement. And there are too many ways to fine and filter to expect someone to use one particular method.

Flocculation has zero importance to me when I select a yeast. I accept the fact that fining and /or filtering will be required and I plan my batches around that.

Here's a photo essay of a mead that I have in process now, that illustrates what I'm saying:

A 5 gallon mesquite traditional with Lalvin D21 done fermenting and racked off the gross lees to 4-1/2 gallons. It had bentonite added in primary:

Cold crashed in my cold garage and racked again after 2 weeks. Yield was 4 gallons plus maybe a pint. Note the 1/2 gallon jug with the excess - that's how clear the mead was at racking.

At this point it's been stabilized and back sweetened with honey, to about 1.005 in the 1 gallon and 1.010 in the 3 gallon. Also added oak cubes. So here it is again, all hazy from honey. How will that clear? No more flocculatin'. Calcium schmalcium.

At 3 weeks the oak has added some color and the haze seems to be dissipating.

When the oak is done in 2 months I'll likely filter it through my Buon Vino. This is what that can do:

 

[bmd2k1]

Clarity is not a recipe requirement. And there are too many ways to fine and filter to expect someone to use one particular method.

Flocculation has zero importance to me when I select a yeast. I accept the fact that fining and /or filtering will be required and I plan my batches around that.

Here's a photo essay of a mead that I have in process now, that illustrates what I'm saying:

A 5 gallon mesquite traditional with Lalvin D21 done fermenting and racked off the gross lees to 4-1/2 gallons. It had bentonite added in primary:

Cold crashed in my cold garage and racked again after 2 weeks. Yield was 4 gallons plus maybe a pint. Note the 1/2 gallon jug with the excess - that's how clear the mead was at racking.

At this point it's been stabilized and back sweetened with honey, to about 1.005 in the 1 gallon and 1.010 in the 3 gallon. Also added oak cubes. So here it is again, all hazy from honey. How will that clear? No more flocculatin'. Calcium schmalcium.

At 3 weeks the oak has added some color and the haze seems to be dissipating.

When the oak is done in 2 months I'll likely filter it through my Buon Vino. This is what that can do:
View attachment 621838

How long does it take to filter a 5gal batch with ur buon vino?

 

[Maylar]

How long does it take to filter a 5gal batch with ur buon vino?

I dunno yet, I just got the filter a few weeks ago and have only done 1 gallon batches. It seems slower though than racking with an autosiphon.

 

[NeverDie]

Clarity is not a recipe requirement. And there are too many ways to fine and filter to expect someone to use one particular method.

Flocculation has zero importance to me when I select a yeast. I accept the fact that fining and /or filtering will be required and I plan my batches around that.

Here's a photo essay of a mead that I have in process now, that illustrates what I'm saying:

A 5 gallon mesquite traditional with Lalvin D21 done fermenting and racked off the gross lees to 4-1/2 gallons. It had bentonite added in primary:

Cold crashed in my cold garage and racked again after 2 weeks. Yield was 4 gallons plus maybe a pint. Note the 1/2 gallon jug with the excess - that's how clear the mead was at racking.

At this point it's been stabilized and back sweetened with honey, to about 1.005 in the 1 gallon and 1.010 in the 3 gallon. Also added oak cubes. So here it is again, all hazy from honey. How will that clear? No more flocculatin'. Calcium schmalcium.

At 3 weeks the oak has added some color and the haze seems to be dissipating.

When the oak is done in 2 months I'll likely filter it through my Buon Vino. This is what that can do:
View attachment 621838

Was it the oak cubes that reduced the haze in the last photo?

In a prior experiment where I added powdered wine tannins to a mead, it did have a noticeable clearing effect within a day or so. Kinda like bentonite, in that initially it looks cloudy as hell but when it settles out, it's clearer than before.

I'm following your example and adding bentonite to primary on all new meads that I start to see how that goes. I'm quite impressed with how well it works in secondary, but that means an additional racking and corresponding losses. Maybe if added to primary there will be less overall racking losses.

 

[NeverDie]

Clarity is not a recipe requirement. And there are too many ways to fine and filter to expect someone to use one particular method.

Flocculation has zero importance to me when I select a yeast. I accept the fact that fining and /or filtering will be required and I plan my batches around that.

Here's a photo essay of a mead that I have in process now, that illustrates what I'm saying:

A 5 gallon mesquite traditional with Lalvin D21 done fermenting and racked off the gross lees to 4-1/2 gallons. It had bentonite added in primary:

Cold crashed in my cold garage and racked again after 2 weeks. Yield was 4 gallons plus maybe a pint. Note the 1/2 gallon jug with the excess - that's how clear the mead was at racking.

At this point it's been stabilized and back sweetened with honey, to about 1.005 in the 1 gallon and 1.010 in the 3 gallon. Also added oak cubes. So here it is again, all hazy from honey. How will that clear? No more flocculatin'. Calcium schmalcium.

At 3 weeks the oak has added some color and the haze seems to be dissipating.

When the oak is done in 2 months I'll likely filter it through my Buon Vino. This is what that can do:
View attachment 621838

By the way, are you sure that your D21 was finished fermenting in the first photo? I realize photos can be hard to capture these subtle nuances, but I have a D21 as part of my yeast roundup, and it's very clear aside from just a faint amount of haze. Perhaps due to the different honey we each used?

 

[bob1852]

Maybe if added to primary there will be less overall racking losses.

Yes, that's exactly the main reason for bentonite in the primary. Far reduced racking losses later on.

 

[Maylar]

Was it the oak cubes that reduced the haze in the last photo?

In a prior experiment where I added powdered wine tannins to a mead, it did have a noticeable clearing effect within a day or so. Kinda like bentonite, in that initially it looks cloudy as hell but when it settles out, it's clearer than before.

This is the first time I've oaked outside of a keg, so I'm not sure. But the honey haze is definitely less than what it was after backsweetening. Maybe that's something to ask Bray. I totally like the color change though, this mead was like water when I last racked it.

By the way, are you sure that your D21 was finished fermenting in the first photo? I realize photos can be hard to capture these subtle nuances, but I have a D21 as part of my yeast roundup, and it's very clear aside from just a faint amount of haze. Perhaps due to the different honey we each used?

Another good point. FG was stable for a week at 1.002 when I cold crashed and it didn't change afterward. I expected it to go below 1.000 as usual but this year was a cold winter and I had a hard time keeping within D21's low temp range. It was a slow ferment, took a full 28 days.

Racking losses are always a concern. Lees plus bentonite at first racking lost a half gallon. Then after cold crash lost another quart. I dunno if there'd have been less losses if I waited till after the cold crash before the first racking or not.

 

[Miraculix]

From my understanding, Oak brings tannins and those are known to bind with proteins, if I remember correctly. So if the haze is based on proteins, maybe that's the reason.

 

[NeverDie]

I've sampled some (not all) of the yeast roundup test batches after I rackded them. This morning I racked Mangrove Jack M05 (Mead) yeast test batch and tasted it afterward. It really does stands out (head and shoulders) as the best tasting so far of the ones I've tasted immediately after racking. Unfortunately, it's also $4+ per packet, making it one of the most expensive dry yeasts. Argh.

With most dry yeasts there's a big price break if buying a 500g unit. However, I don't see that available for M05.

 

[Miraculix]

I've sampled some (not all) of the yeast roundup test batches after I rackded them. This morning I racked Mangrove Jack M05 (Mead) yeast test batch and tasted it afterward. It really does stands out (head and shoulders) as the best tasting so far of the ones I've tasted immediately after racking. Unfortunately, it's also $4+ per packet, making it one of the most expensive dry yeasts. Argh.

With most dry yeasts there's a big price break if buying a 500g unit. However, I don't see that available for M05.

great to know!

With honey being such a pricy ingredient by itself (espacially the better ones), I really do not look at yeast prices for mead.... but I can understand that for other people, this might be an issue. Mead is kind of a luxurious thing to me anyway, so I just accept it.

Edit: DAFUQ! I pay 1.5 pounds for it

 

[Redeemer]

I hadn't asked about judges, but yesterday at Austin Homebrew Supply store, I asked if they knew of any mead clubs. They didn't. Their suggestion was to contact either Sherwood Forrest (a stationary medieval re-enactment carnival) or possibly the Society for Creative Anachronisms. Hmm... so apparently that's where making mead fits into the modern landscape: an anachronism of interest to people who dress in chainmail and go jousting. LOL.

And here I thought it was the drink of the gods. Well, still do.

Howdy,

I will be at the Renaissance fair this Saturday with my family. This was the first place I ever tasted mead, about 3 years ago. There is a guy named Thorin who makes it somewhat commercially, and is somehow connected to the fair. It sells at Spec's and a few other liquor stores. I've tasted all of his meads actually and find them to be too sweet for me, but definitely interesting. I haven't talked with him about his process but he's fairly personable and likely would be happy to have a discussion. I had his number but lost it awhile back, but you could get his business card from one of the vendors I am sure. Here's his website:

http://www.thorinsmead.com/

 

[NeverDie]

Howdy,

I will be at the Renaissance fair this Saturday with my family. This was the first place I ever tasted mead, about 3 years ago. There is a guy named Thorin who makes it somewhat commercially, and is somehow connected to the fair. It sells at Spec's and a few other liquor stores. I've tasted all of his meads actually and find them to be too sweet for me, but definitely interesting. I haven't talked with him about his process but he's fairly personable and likely would be happy to have a discussion. I had his number but lost it awhile back, but you could get his business card from one of the vendors I am sure. Here's his website:

http://www.thorinsmead.com/

Thanks for sharing that. Yes, out of all the commercial meads I've tried so far, I like his Thorin's Viking Mead the best. In fact, it was Thorin's Viking mead that turned me on to mead in the first place. For those who haven't tried it: it's a very basic traditional mead with a solid honey taste.

One thing I've noticed though is that there seems to be quite a variance from once batch to the next. The first one I tried I liked a lot, but I had a sleight allergic reaction to whatever was in it. The second one, two months later, was good, with no allergic reaction. The third one, purchased just recently and two months after the second one, is just so-so though, and again no allergic reaction. So, the next time I try one of his that is pretty good, I'm going to buy more from the same batch. My local spec's says they get a new shipment from him about once a month.

 

[NeverDie]

What follows is m very first pass ranking of the yeasts in the yeast round-up, including some others as reference points for comparison. FG has yet to be measured. Also, M31 and QA23 aren't yet ready for tasting, so I'll add them when they're finished. QA23 in particular is nearly ready, but not quite. M31 has been slow ever since I started it, so it may take another week or two or three before it's ready for tasting.

I gave the different fermentations scores from 0-1000. I wouldn't read a lot into it, as it's mainly my attempt to create a ranked ordering, but it also does loosely reflect my relative enthusiasm for the different fermentations. One caveat is that this is a first pass, and some of the relative ordering may change a bit when I later do pair-wise comparisons on those that scored close together.

Except as noted, the OG's are all 1.085

The results were a complete surprise to me. In the first place, before arriving near the end of the test, I thought they would all be too dry and that probably none of them would be truly drinkable without backsweetening. However, about half of them turned out to be drinkabe without backsweetening, though I think it likely that at least some of those would be improved with at least some backsweetening. So, as further work ahead, I'll try optimizing each one's backsweetening and then later doing a ranked comparison that way--well, at least for the ones that aren't fails. The ones that scored quite poorly I'll try aging and see later whether anything improves with them or whether I'll have to toss them.

Here then is the ranking:

Drinkable as-is:
1. Voss Kveik. 970
2. M05 960. OG 1.105
3. Fresco. 950. O.G. 1.103
4. Wyeast Sweet Mead. 945.
5. Fresco. 940. O.G. 1.085
6. KV-1116. 850. OG 1.105
7. S-04. 830
8. D47 800
9. KV-1116. 790. O.G. 1.085
10. Fresco Cyser. 750.

Not good for drinking as-is. Maybe backsweetening or oaking or aging or something would help:
11. CdB 625
12. 71B 600
13. 1388. 400
14. 71B 350. O.G. 1.105

Marginal:
15. EC1118. 300
16. Fleishman's. 200

Bad:
17. D21 100
18. Belle Saison 80
19. Premier Cuvee 60
20. DV10. 50
21. Premier Blanc. 0. Down the drain.

I made notes, but I'll add that later.

 

[Maylar]

What is it about the D21 that you don't like?

It's interesting that some are drinkable straight from the fermentor. I Made a clover BOMM that was like that. The perceived sweetness was higher than the gravity would have you believe. And yet other traditionals are tart and acidic when dry. I guess the yeast has something to do with that.

 

[NeverDie]

What is it about the D21 that you don't like?

It's interesting that some are drinkable straight from the fermentor. I Made a clover BOMM that was like that. The perceived sweetness was higher than the gravity would have you believe. And yet other traditionals are tart and acidic when dry. I guess the yeast has something to do with that.

D21 seemed to have a borderline bandaid flavor and aroma. For comparison, the Premier Blanc was pure band-aid all the way, which is why I poured it down the drain.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

#9 is very close to a mead I have planned for the future. Did that one turn out completely dry?

 

[NeverDie]

#9 is very close to a mead I have planned for the future. Did that one turn out completely dry?

Do you mean FG dry or taste dry?

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

Do you mean FG dry or taste dry?

How did it turn out in both regards please.

 

[NeverDie]

How did it turn out in both regards please.

It tastes semi-sweet.

I haven't measured FG's yet, but I will be soon.

 

[Redeemer]

I just now came across WLP099 Super High Gravity Ale Yeast and I wonder if it would ferment a mead faster than other yeasts, which might slow down as a 14% ABV starts to approach their alcohol tolerance. In contrast, the alcohol tolerance of WLP099 is 25% (!). I have no real interest in going any higher than 14% ABV though.

Because 69F is the high end of its ideal temperature range, I won't be including it in the yeast roundup, but I'd be curious to know for the future, should I ever dabble in temperature control.

https://www.whitelabs.com/yeast-bank/wlp099-super-high-gravity-ale-yeast

I have a batch going with this right now. It has been in the primary for 33 (SG was 1.052 at day 30)days. It took off ok but I didn't do my research before using it. My sg was way too high (1.158), and I didn't make a starter. Lots of n00b errors.
This one will need age, and it hasn't cleared yet. If I use this expensive yeast again I will follow a much better protocol.
Also I can't get the temp lower than 75 degrees in my office where I ferment, usually climbing into the 80's in the summer. Not an ideal environment at all for this yeast.

 

[NeverDie]

Next step is to stabilize the different batches (other than the failed ones, which I'll just let age without stabilizing).

Does the following sound right?
Potassium Metabisulphite: 1/16 teaspoon per gallon (or maybe 1/4 teaspoon per 5 gallons?)
Potassium Sorbate: 1/2 teaspoon per gallon

 

[RPh_Guy]

Does the following sound right?
Potassium Metabisulphite: 1/16 teaspoon per gallon (or maybe 1/4 teaspoon per 5 gallons?)
Potassium Sorbate: 1/2 teaspoon per gallo

Digital scales are relatively inexpensive.
I got one with 0.01g resolution for like $20.

 

[NeverDie]

Digital scales are relatively inexpensive.
I got one with 0.01g resolution for like $20.

I have one of those too.

 

[RPh_Guy]

Potassium sorbate:
1.53 grams per US gallon (300ppm sorbic acid).

Depending on the alcohol level you may be able to reduce the amount.

Potassium metabisulfite:
Do you have any idea about the pH? With a pH of 4, adding 0.41 grams per US gallon gives 63ppm free SO2 and 0.4 ppm molecular SO2.

The amount depends on pH; you want molecular SO2 in the 0.4-0.8 ppm range. Although, if you're corking and planning to age it for a while you may want to aim higher.

 

[NeverDie]

I just now tasted QA23. I had hoped it would be better than D47, but QA23 tasted far worse despite having a wider temperature range. Below is the ranked list from earlier, but updated to include QA23:

Drinkable as-is:
1. Voss Kveik. 970
2. M05 960. OG 1.105
3. Fresco. 950. O.G. 1.103
4. Wyeast Sweet Mead. 945.
5. Fresco. 940. O.G. 1.085
6. KV-1116. 850. OG 1.105
7. S-04. 830
8. D47 800
9. KV-1116. 790. O.G. 1.085
10. Fresco Cyser. 750.

Not good for drinking as-is. Maybe backsweetening or oaking or aging or something would help:
11. CdB 625
12. 71B 600
13. 1388. 400
14. 71B 350. O.G. 1.105

Marginal:
15. EC1118. 300
16. Fleishman's. 200
17. QA23. 150. OG 1.105, FG 0.999

Bad:
18. D21 100
19. Belle Saison 80
20. Premier Cuvee 60
21. DV10. 50
22. Premier Blanc. 0. Down the drain.


This leaves M31 as the only yeast strain remaining to be ranked in the roundup. I'll drop a TILT hydrometer in it to monitor its SG so that I'll know when it's done fermenting.