poor attenuation in mead

[barn...@ureach.com]

I have a mead that I made last June, 1 gal honey to make 5 gal. The
mead is clear, but only dropped to 1.035 - what went wrong? I have
another batch made last December that is the same. I used yeast
nutrient. Both had a weak primary ferrment.

[mjbennett69]

What yeast strain did you use? What was the OG?

[Steve Peek]

"mjbennett69" <mjben...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:9af116a1-b99a-4ced...@w9g2000prg.googlegroups.com...

Both important questions, also what temperature was the fermentation
occurring?

[barn...@ureach.com]

I used Lalvin D-47 for both batches. As far as OG, between 1.080 and
1.090 for both. Fermented at room temp, racked after primary when
clear

Roger

[mjbennett69]

OK. here's my take on it. Opinions may vary. First off, your OG seems
low for the amount of honey used, leading me to think you had
incomplete mixing. If you had incomplete mixing, you most likely also
had insufficient aeration of the must.

My recommendation: make 2 1-liter starters of 1.050 OG with a full
packet of yeast EACH. When at full kraesen, FULLY aerate the mead
(easiest - pour back and forth several times from one bucket to
another until frothy) and repitch one starter to each batch. Don't
worry about oxidation, the new yeast will take care of that.

BTW, D-47 is a Cote du Rhone strain and should finish somewhat sweet,
given your honey levels.

Mike

[barn...@ureach.com]

thanks for advice. What I'm plan to do is to follow your
recommendations on 1 gal of the mead - if aeration and repitching
causes the gravity to drop and doesn't cause oxidation in the sample,
I will do the same with remaining 9 gal.

I think that I had good mixing, in the batch that I boiled, perhaps
not in the no-boil batch. But perhaps not enough aeration and not
enough yeast - 1 reconstituted dry yeast pack apparently is inadequate

Also, I will not use D47, since I prefer a dryish mead.

Roger

[mjbennett69]

Because of the natural nature of honey, sugar content may vary. (I
also suspect some honey distributors of thinning their honey for
consistency of product and more profits, but that's another can of
worms). My local honey consistently gives me OGs around 1.1 for 12
pounds. For a dry mead, I recommend a champagne yeast.

Please let me know how it turns out.

Mike

[barn...@ureach.com]

I did an experiment - took a sample of 9 month old clear mead,
aerated, and poured it into a graduated cylinder for hydrometer. It
shows signs of slowly fermenting. After a week, the gravity dropped
from 1.035 to 1.025. I didn't add any yeast, but I'm allowing it to
ferment openly in the cylinder. So, either the original yeast was
reactivated or a wild yeast infected it.

I will see how this turns out, and then decide what to do with my 10
gal of mead. I have some champagne yeast, which I may employ.

Roger

[Dick Adams]

mjbennett69 <mjben...@gmail.com> wrote:
> barna...@ureach.com wrote:

>> I used Lalvin D-47 for both batches. As far as OG, between 1.080 and
>> 1.090 for both. Fermented at room temp, racked after primary when
>> clear

> OK. here's my take on it. Opinions may vary. First off, your OG seems

> low for the amount of honey used, leading me to think you had
> incomplete mixing. If you had incomplete mixing, you most likely also
> had insufficient aeration of the must.

Opinions will vary. My calculations as well as those by the
Mead Calculator at GotMead.com give an OG of 1.086 for 12 lbs
of honey in a 5 gallon batch.

> My recommendation: make 2 1-liter starters of 1.050 OG with a full
> packet of yeast EACH. When at full kraesen, FULLY aerate the mead
> (easiest - pour back and forth several times from one bucket to
> another until frothy) and repitch one starter to each batch. Don't
> worry about oxidation, the new yeast will take care of that.

Since we're discussing dry yeast, the issue is rehydration rather
than the starter you would use for a liquid yeast. Refer to John
Palmer's book at www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter6-5.html.

> BTW, D-47 is a Cote du Rhone strain and should finish somewhat
> sweet, given your honey levels.

D-47 has an alcohol toxicity of 14% and tolerates fermentation
temperatures from 50F to 86F (10C to 30C). A Mead with an OG of
1.086 will ferment dry at 11.5% ABV and that will be true for all
dry wine yeasts.

This sounds to me like a stuck fermentation. The usual suspects
for a stuck fermentation are sugar shock (very high OG), old yeast,
insufficient aeration, and insufficient nutrients.

A 5 gal batch with 12 lbs of honey is not going to provide sugar
shock. If you rehydrate and you don't see foaming, you have old
yeast. Aeration should be done about 12 hours after pitching the
yeast. I do two minutes with oxygen or four minutes with air.
Honey is VERY low in nutrients and Free Available Nitrogen (FAN).
For yeast to operate at their best, nutrients must be added.
When using FERMAX, I add 1/2 tsp per gallon with 50% of it after
pitching the yeast and add 25% of it on days 2 and 3. Without
nutrients, an incomplete fermentation is a given.

Dick