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Carbonation after first fermentation?

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H

hoosiersparky

NewBee
Registered Member
Apr 3, 2024
1
0
1
Virginia
Hi! I'm VERY new to this. I just moved my 2nd batch ever to secondary today and took a little taste. It was delicious but also lightly carbonated. Is that okay? It went from 1.100 to 1.019. I'm shooting for sweet without back-sweetening.
 
What yeast did you use?

How are you going to stop fermentation?

It’s very hard to stop a fermentation and is why you are seeing some “carbonation“, and is why the suggested method is to ferment dry, stabilize and then back sweeten. You can keep adding honey , until you've reached the alcohol tolerance of the yeast, but you will probably end up with a very high alcohol content (a novelty the first couple of times) and still not being assured that the yeast might not take off again at a later time (bottle bombs).
 
It's totally fine. Fermentation produces C02 which is what causes carbonation. If you seal the container during fermentation, it will become ever more carbonated and eventually explode. If you don't seal it, or seal with an airlock, it will be a bit carbonated while it's fermenting, and once that stops the gas will leave the mead over time.

If you're really opposed to any carbonation, you can wait for fermentation to end, then degas the mead. But usually this isn't necessary, if left in secondary it will degas itself just fine in short order.

I rather enjoy the lively feeling you get on the tongue when tasting something that's still fermenting. It's like licking the cake beaters - sure it's not finished yet, but the unfinished product is good in its own way.
 
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