Which yeast is your favorite dry yeast for making mead?

[Maylar]

Did you start your Fresco cyser yet? I started my Fresco cyser early this morning. I know I'm jumping the gun a bit, without knowing how the fresco traditional mead has turned out, but I figure it's meant for cider, and I have extra vials of Fresco, so....

Yes, I did. My local orchard market opened for the season on Saturday and I picked up 2 gallons of orchard cider (Ingredients: Apples), probably frozen from last year. SG 1.050, pH 3.5, TA 0.52%. I've used their juice before and know that I'll need to adjust tannin and acid.

Added 1 Campden tab per gallon then 12 hrs later added pectic enzyme. Sunday I racked (decanted) the 2 jugs into a 3 gallon Better Bottle. Added enough orange blossom to bring SG up to 1.096, just shy of 13% ABV. Specs on the Fresco say 15%, so that should be OK. Rehydrated 5 grams of yeast in GoFerm, attemporated to room temp and pitched it Sunday afternoon. Also used some FT Blanc Soft tannin.

Started this in my dining room, as the basement brew room is still 58°F, below the recommended range for Fresco. This morning (Monday) there's some bubbles on top but no obvious airlock activity. I always wait until the yeast are past the lag phase before adding the first feeding. I'm using TOSNA 2.0 with Fermaid-O at half the suggested dose because of the juice. Hopefully there will be lots of activity when I get home tonight, and I'll add the nutes.

p.s. I bought 4 vials.. good thing I did. The little buggers rolled around on my gram scale and I spilled some.

 

[NeverDie]

I decided to revisit my prior two failures at rehydrating K1V-1116, which is one of the yeasts in this experiment, for the very reason that I had had the most trouble with K1v-1116. TL;DR: a new experiment, this time using GoFerm, succeeded.

To recap the experience to date, my first two attempts, using the rehydration instructions on the back of the packet (which involved rehydrating only in water) rapidly went sulfurous on me in less than 24 hours, and so I dumped both of them. Both times I was rehydrating just a single packet (5g) of K1v-1116. On the third attempt, I pitched a single packet of K1V-1116, but without rehydration, and this worked: no sulfurous emissions, and it is now under airlock as part of the test suite.

There have been so many favorable testimonials to K1V-1116 that after the first failure I was reluctant to blame the yeast but instead suspected I had made some kind of procedural error, even though, AFAIK, I followed the mfg. rehydration and pitching instructions. After the second failure, though, I suspected that somehow those instructions just weren't good enough for mead.

So, on March 15 I decided to severely test that hypothesis by rehydrating 10g of K1V-1116 (i.e. two packets), but this time using GoFerm and my new handy digital coffee cup heater (https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/threads/a-handy-tool-to-help-with-yeast-rehydration.663691/) to keep the rehydration temperature constant during the hydration. Also, this time I pitched it into a higher OG must (1.105 instead of 1.080).

Some forum members here have questioned whether holding the temperature at the prescribed 104F during the 20 minute rehydration is correct (as opposed to letting it free fall during the rehydration), but that is still how I read the makemeadright.com GoFerm rehydration instructions (https://www.meadmaderight.com/yeast-handling.html), and that is how I chose to follow the the instructions on this fourth experiment.

Bottom line: it worked! No sulfurous aromas this time, and the resulting must has just this morning reached its first sugar break. If anything, the higher yeast count and the higher OG might have theoretically been even more stressful to the yeast than in the first two failures, so I attribute the success this time around to following the meadmaderight GoFerm dry yeast rehydration instructions instead of merely the mfg's water-only rehydration instructions printed on the packet.

And yes, all the K1V-1116 yeast packets were from the same 10 packet batch.

 

[NeverDie]

Yes, I did. My local orchard market opened for the season on Saturday and I picked up 2 gallons of orchard cider (Ingredients: Apples), probably frozen from last year. SG 1.050, pH 3.5, TA 0.52%. I've used their juice before and know that I'll need to adjust tannin and acid.

Added 1 Campden tab per gallon then 12 hrs later added pectic enzyme. Sunday I racked (decanted) the 2 jugs into a 3 gallon Better Bottle. Added enough orange blossom to bring SG up to 1.096, just shy of 13% ABV. Specs on the Fresco say 15%, so that should be OK. Rehydrated 5 grams of yeast in GoFerm, attemporated to room temp and pitched it Sunday afternoon. Also used some FT Blanc Soft tannin.

Started this in my dining room, as the basement brew room is still 58°F, below the recommended range for Fresco. This morning (Monday) there's some bubbles on top but no obvious airlock activity. I always wait until the yeast are past the lag phase before adding the first feeding. I'm using TOSNA 2.0 with Fermaid-O at half the suggested dose because of the juice. Hopefully there will be lots of activity when I get home tonight, and I'll add the nutes.

p.s. I bought 4 vials.. good thing I did. The little buggers rolled around on my gram scale and I spilled some.

I pitched a full 10g vial of Fresco onto my 1.105 OG cyser, if only because (for some reason) Bray has recommended 10g of yeast for a 1 gallon batch (and, paradoxically, 20g for a 5 gallon batch, go figure).

Anyhow, the fermentation is quite vigorous and by this evening it should reach its first sugar break, which by Bray's 6b protocol from BOMM (on his website) is when I add the next Fermaid-O nutrient. I have no idea how the end result will taste and smell, which ultimately is what matters most, but I do like the vigor being demonstrated by this Fresco yeast. It makes me curious to try some of the other non-H2S yeasts from the same mfg. Too bad the minimum order size for them is 500g.

 

[Maylar]

Well, my Fresco wasn't showing any signs of activity after 36 hrs, so this morning I rehydrated a full 10 gram vial and pitched it. Started getting airlock bloops after only 1/2 hr. Dunno why the 5 grams with GoFerm didn't take off, that should be plenty for a 2 gallon batch. Maybe this cider yeast doesn't like starting in a high gravity must.

 

[NeverDie]

Well, my Fresco wasn't showing any signs of activity after 36 hrs, so this morning I rehydrated a full 10 gram vial and pitched it. Started getting airlock bloops after only 1/2 hr. Dunno why the 5 grams with GoFerm didn't take off, that should be plenty for a 2 gallon batch. Maybe this cider yeast doesn't like starting in a high gravity must.

Gosh, mine is just the opposite. It passed its second sugar break this morning, so I'll be putting it under airlock.

Differences: I didn't rehydrate. One gallon insead of two. 70F temperature. Different nutrition protocol. I used raw honey from Costco and Sam's club. I used Sam's club apple juice instead of the fresh orchard cider that you had purchased. I have a theoretical SG of 1.105, but I didn't measure it, so I can't be sure.

 

[Maylar]

Maybe the sulfite (campden) kept the yeast from growing. But I've never had that happen before as long as I wait 24 hrs before pitching.

 

[NeverDie]

Maybe the sulfite (campden) kept the yeast from growing. But I've never had that happen before as long as I wait 24 hrs before pitching.

I suppose you could test that hypothesis if you were to make an identical batch and pitch a different yeast that you're already familiar with. Fortunately, cysers are quick to throw together
.

 

[Maylar]

I suppose you could test that hypothesis if you were to make an identical batch and pitch a different yeast that you're already familiar with. Fortunately, cysers are quick to throw together
.

Not if you do them with $9 per gallon orchard cider and 2.75 lbs of California orange blossom honey. To me, it's a waste of time using grocery store ingredients.
If this batch isn't humming along when I get home from work tonight, it's Cote Des Blancs time.

 

[NeverDie]

Not if you do them with $9 per gallon orchard cider and 2.75 lbs of California orange blossom honey. To me, it's a waste of time using grocery store ingredients.
If this batch isn't humming along when I get home from work tonight, it's Cote Des Blancs time.

Yup, I guess that's another way to do it. I suppose if you wanted to be vindictive you could even use a killer yeast.

For comparison purposes I just today started a traditional mead using Fresco yeast. This time I outfitted it with a TILT hydrometer. OG is 1.103. My supplies of time wasting ingredients are exhausted, so I used what I had on hand, which is Walker Farms wildflower honey and Ozark spring water.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

My understanding is that esters are the aromas contributed by the yeast that give the yeast strain its distinctive character. So, for instance, it's already clear that the Belle Saison has peppery and maybe even olive esters, which is very different from the other yeasts, some of which contribute citrus aromas.

I couldn't let this pass. Esters are a specific class of chemical compounds, formed by the reaction of an alcohol and an organic acid. So for instance ethanol and acetic acid react to form ethyl acetate, which tastes of pear drops - you often find it in "rushed" fermentations like beaujolais nouveau. Esters generally taste fruity or floral (the banana of isoamyl acetate is the classic one) and are made by all yeast during fermentation to some extent, particularly when the yeast is stressed in some way and when it is actively multiplying in the early stages of fermentation.

The spicy "Belgian" flavours like pepper are a completely different class of chemicals, the phenolics. All malt contains phenolic precursors like ferulic acid which don't taste of much. However some yeast strains like the saisons and hefes contain a set of genes called POF, which can convert eg ferulic acid into 4-VG, the clove flavour you get in some wheat beers. But that's not an ester.

Almost all wine yeast are also POF+, in fact they're all quite closely related to the saison family but tend to lack the genes for chewing up complex sugars that the saisons have. But the POF thing is less of an issue for mead as there's fewer phenolic precursors in honey than in eg wheat, although it can exert a subtle flavour effect.

 

[Maylar]

Yup, I guess that's another way to do it. I suppose if you wanted to be vindictive you could even use a killer yeast.

The Fresco strain is neutral (immune) to the kill factor... they're tough little guys.

I saw some activity when I got home yesterday, so I stirred/degassed/aerated with a lees wand and added the first dose of Fermaid-O. Within an hr the airlock was bubbling like mad. I guess they were hungry

My basement brew room is hovering around 59°, the low end of Fresco's range. Gonna move the carboy down there tonight and continue with my normal protocol.

 

[Maylar]

I couldn't let this pass.....

Thank you VERY much for posting that. I gotta somehow figure out how to save that for future reference.
One question - what is "eg wheat"? (not a brewer here)

 

[NeverDie]

Looks as though QA23 yeast is worth a try. Ferments 15c-32c (59-90F) but, unlike a lot of the dry yeasts which can tolerate higher temps, it's not just neutral aroma. Apparently it may work well on both ciders and meads, and so it's a cysor candidate. I just now ordered it.
https://www.lallemandbrewing.com/en/united-states/product-details/lalvin-qa23/
It says it ferments fast and has low nitrogen and low oxygen requirements.

https://scottlaboratories.sharepoint.com/sites/SLIComplianceDocs/Shared Documents/Forms/AllItems.aspx?id=/sites/SLIComplianceDocs/Shared Documents/QA23 TDS.pdf&parent=/sites/SLIComplianceDocs/Shared Documents&p=true&CID=0349e10c-da2a-442b-a9e8-d2f7f1ca03c8

Also, WVMJ compared D47 to QA23 in cider and thought they compared pretty equally, except that QA23 has a wider temperature range. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/threads/canned-pureed-fruit-for-mead.494636/#post-6425171

 

[ThirstyPawsHB]

Thank you VERY much for posting that. I gotta somehow figure out how to save that for future reference.
One question - what is "eg wheat"? (not a brewer here)

Screen Shot...do it all the time

 

[Blacksmith1]

Or quote it and copy paste to a .txt

 

[NeverDie]

One question - what is "eg wheat"? (not a brewer here)

I'm pretty sure he means the natural chemicals that transfer from wheat into the wort when beer brewers boil their wheat in water for an hour to make wort, and that those natural chemicals contain more phenolic precursors than honey does. As a result, a POF+ yeast that ferments wort will produce stronger phenolic aromas than the same yeast that ferments in a honey must. So, a saison yeast won't produce the same intensity of phenolic aromas fermenting a mead that you might expect based on the strong phenolic aromas they may produce from fermenting a beer.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

the POF thing is less of an issue for mead as there's fewer phenolic precursors in honey than in eg wheat, although it can exert a subtle flavour effect.

One question - what is "eg wheat"? (not a brewer here)

It's not a thing. Read it as "for example, wheat".

Honey (I assume) has very little phenolic precursors, barley has a moderate amount, wheat and maize have a lot. So if you want the clovey thing, you want lots of wheat in your beer.

 

[Miraculix]

It's not a thing. Read it as "for example, wheat".

Honey (I assume) has very little phenolic precursors, barley has a moderate amount, wheat and maize have a lot. So if you want the clovey thing, you want lots of wheat in your beer.

Oh, wasn't aware that maize had a lot of it. Totally going to try to brew a Hefemais (German wheat beer with corn instead of wheat).

 

[Northern_Brewer]

It does, but I'm not sure how available it is in the wort. Be interested to see how you get on. But I have a theory that it's why maize tends to be found in southern English recipes but not northern English recipes, the northern yeasts tend to be more POFy.

 

[NeverDie]

Status update:
Aside from QA23, all trials are now under airlock, except for M31, which seems to be a slower fermenter. M31 passed its first sugar break but then seemed to slow down. Based on its slow fermenting behavior, I now have further doubts that it is the same yeast as 1388.

I have have recently started 71B and Fresco trials, with starting OG's either at or near 1.105, and each monitored with a TILT. For 71B, you can view the real-time progress here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1WGbJzJ4C78lqVa2D678XE5Rov4gVgeAeJFAfthuz-Pw/edit?usp=sharing

and for Fresco here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1UameIZ6ks_67gMgiSO9XC1P1eYEtDXUQTnHbteS1s2o/edit?usp=sharing

Both the 71B and Fresco passed their second sugar break and are under airlock. I expect that by the time they have reached a terminal FG, then nearly all the yeast trial meads will be finished and ready to sample at that time.

Package tracking reports that I won't be receiving the QA23 dry yeast until the middle of next week. I anticipate that it will be the last yeast to be included in the trial.

 

[RPh_Guy]

I'll be interested in your results.

I want to point out that H2S (hydrogen sulFIDE) doesn't mean that a wine is ruined. It means there wasn't enough nutrient for the yeast in whatever fermentation conditions you have.
It can be fixed! No need to dump it!

1. Add more nutrient ASAP to avoid further sulfide generation. Non-DAP nutrient is preferred because unutilized DAP leaves an off-flavor.
2. Aerate if before 1/3 sugar break (H2S is volatile and will off-gas). This also reduces yeast stress by removing carbonic acid, among other beneficial effects.
3. Copper causes sulfide and resulting mercaptans to precipitate. You can try adding coins or copper pipe/wire. Copper sulfate liquid is available pretty much anywhere that sells winemaking supplies. Reduless is preferred but more expensive.
4. After fermentation, when you add sulFITE, the sulfite reacts and eliminates sulfide.
5. Remove from the lees ASAP for fermentations that have issues with sulfide because the yeast can continue to add it.

Time alone may even be enough to allow the sulfide to off-gas, but there is more risk of the sulfide forming mercaptans, which are more difficult to remove.
Some winemakers utilize aeration (e.g. splash racking) after fermentation to help it off-gas. You'll need to adjust sulfite accordingly.

Hope this helps.

 

[Maylar]

So, is your Fresco cyser growing slime, or what?

 

[NeverDie]

So, is your Fresco cyser growing slime, or what?

Thanks for asking. Hard to say for sure, as I can't really see clearly anymore through the glass on that jug because of the white film on the glass. After looking at it more closely though, I think maybe the islands I referred to earlier were just air bubbles caught under a pellicle of sorts.

The Fresco that's in the traditional mead though appears to be doing super well and is on a complete tear. Already at SG 1.001, and falling.

 

[Maylar]

It's OK to open the jug and have a peek. Take an SG sample, stir the lees...

 

[NeverDie]

It's OK to open the jug and have a peek. Take an SG sample, stir the lees...

Maybe so, but what good would it do? The die is cast it seems to me. I was planning to just let ride and maybe get one of those wild "masterpieces" everybody in the other thread seems so keen about.

 

[Maylar]

An infection is different than a wild ferment. I doubt any masterpieces have resulted from bacteria.

... unless you enjoy the smell of road apples

 

[NeverDie]

An infection is different than a wild ferment. I doubt any masterpieces have resulted from bacteria.

... unless you enjoy the smell of road apples

But I thought rph_guy likes to drink exotic pellicles, or did I (probably) misunderstand him?

 

[NeverDie]

An infection is different than a wild ferment. I doubt any masterpieces have resulted from bacteria.

... unless you enjoy the smell of road apples

OK, you got me curious, so I went and tasted it. Actually, it tastes like dry cider. No perceptible honey flavor. And I guess the pellicle thing was just a false alarm, because now I don't see it anymore. Not sure what it was.

How did your Fresco cyser turn out?

 

[Miraculix]

OK, you got me curious, so I went and tasted it. Actually, it tastes like dry cider. No perceptible honey flavor. And I guess the pellicle thing was just a false alarm, because now I don't see it anymore. Not sure what it was.

How did your Fresco cyser turn out?

The honey flavour might come back with backsweetening.

 

[NeverDie]

The honey flavour might come back with backsweetening.

Do you mean backweeting with honey specifically, or do you mean backsweetening with anything sweet is enough to bring back the honey flavor?