Mead stop fermenting after 5days

[Black Crow]

Hi everyone, so i am new year and busy with my fist mead, and i believe i ahould start with my recipe, so i have used 1kg of honey and mixx it witg 7kg if water, (3kg biuked and the rest toped up) after the water has cioled to 27degrees celcius(thats within the rang of the yeast according to the packet) i added my ywast(it is a homebrewers local champagne yeast) and yes i added it dry, i know better now, i added 100ml of freshly squeezed lemin juice, and 10g of frsh rosemary and 4grams of dreid thyme. I dont have a og reading and can only get one next month, if no other immidaite finace stuff pops uo before then.

Ik now heres the thing i started brweing this batch in monday 8/03, and by friday 12/03 it seemed asif the fermentaition stoped, a kot aorted than i expecter, in facted today i checked again and the mead is starting to gain charity, why donyou guys think this will be, i need you guyses help here please,


Further u tasted it yesterdays, and it tasted bland with a bitter after taste, , should i just age it orrr?

If you need pictures let me know

 

[Crispy]

Hi @Black Crow and welcome to the Forums.
I doubt very much anybody here will be able to give you a definite answer. The very important key information is missing in your post - Starting Gravity and Final (present) gravity of your mead. At this point we can only guess what is going on but our guess will be no more useful than your own. You provided a lot of information, and that is very good, but the important part, the SG reading is missing.
From the amount of honey and water you used I can sort of extrapolate Your Starting Gravity, which should be around 10 Brix or 1.042 Specific Gravity. That should put your mead in "session mead" range and about 5% alcohol content on the condition that all the sugars were actually converted to alcohol. This we do not know as you did not provide the Final Gravity reading.
There is also another issue, you just sprinkled dry yeast on the top of your must without proper yeast rehydration. Sometimes this works just fine in terms of the fermentation actually taking place but results of the ferment are usually not great due to yeast stress. Yeast should be properly rehydrated at proper temperature and pitched to your must with very low temp difference between rehydrated yeast and the must. Additionally, you need to provide some nutrients for the yeast during fermentation to keep them healthy and not to produce unwanted flavors.
Use of any acids, lemon juice in your case, is also not advisable unless you measured pH of your must and are sure that the addition will not cause any problems.
I suggest you do a lot of reading on fermentations before you start your next mead. This Forum provides such information, just use the search function to find it.

Here is the link to NewBee Guide in PDF format

 

[Maylar]

If your starting gravity was indeed around 1.042, then it's entirely possible that a champagne yeast could have fermented all of that in 5 days.

 

[Black Crow]

Thanks guys, and i did not know the lemon juice will be a problem, and next batch i make will defently by with an hydrometer, thanks, and @Crispy i will in the future rehidrate the yeast befoee the time, i have found out about the rehydration only after i started the mead and found this forum, and i forgot to mention i did add some nutriant, it was 5g of nourish i believe, that according to the instructions should be more than enough to feed the yeast, but ill rack the batch and let it age a bit before i try again with a new batch, when i can buy an hydro meter afaig

 

[EricHartman]

Welcome to the forum! The first few meads allow a ton of growth! Stay away from YouTube until you can spot the troubles the author/fermentor are accepting with their style. There are a lot of different methods for making mead (from ancient methods with natural environmental yeast in the air to the modern mead making style we tend to use here) and each method has their benefits and limitations. The problem with YouTube is someone can sound very knowledgeable, thus convincing. When in reality they do not really know anything beyond their very narrow experience base and the limitations that they've accepted as fact.

 

[Black Crow]

Welcome to the forum! The first few meads allow a ton of growth! Stay away from YouTube until you can spot the troubles the author/fermentor are accepting with their style. There are a lot of different methods for making mead (from ancient methods with natural environmental yeast in the air to the modern mead making style we tend to use here) and each method has their benefits and limitations. The problem with YouTube is someone can sound very knowledgeable, thus convincing. When in reality they do not really know anything beyond their very narrow experience base and the limitations that they've accepted as fact.

Thabks, and aommehow i stayed away from youtube, but i will see to it not to look thier anytime soon, theses forums so far seemed the most helpfull, and qish i discovered this place before i attmepted my first mead

 

[TresK3]

The other responders are much more experienced mead makers than I, however here are my suggestions on what to do with your mead right now.

You don't say what you're using as your primary fermenter (the first bucket or carboy the mead is in); a plastic bucket or a glass carboy. I'm guessing a plastic bucket because that's how many of us start brewing. If you can get it out of that and into a secondary fermenter, that might help keep track of what's going on. If you have, or can borrow, a glass carboy that's about 8 to 10 liters, that would be perfect. Rack your mead into this carboy, put an airlock on it and put it into a dark place for a few weeksd... or more. As soon as you can get ahold of a hydrometer, take a reading. You won't be able to estimate your final alcohol percentage, but you may be able to track was happening now. If the reading is down around 1.000 then you're probably fully fermented. If the taste is drinkable, then do that and start your second batch. If the taste isn't so good, you have two choices: If it's funky or sour and has an off smell you may just need to throw it out. If the taste is just bitter or harsh, it may improve with aging. Possibly a lot of aging.

Either way, if you can free up your primary and you have access to a hydrometer, then you can start your second batch! That's where the fun begins - taking what you've learned and going at it again.

 

[Black Crow]

Th

The other responders are much more experienced mead makers than I, however here are my suggestions on what to do with your mead right now.

You don't say what you're using as your primary fermenter (the first bucket or carboy the mead is in); a plastic bucket or a glass carboy. I'm guessing a plastic bucket because that's how many of us start brewing. If you can get it out of that and into a secondary fermenter, that might help keep track of what's going on. If you have, or can borrow, a glass carboy that's about 8 to 10 liters, that would be perfect. Rack your mead into this carboy, put an airlock on it and put it into a dark place for a few weeksd... or more. As soon as you can get ahold of a hydrometer, take a reading. You won't be able to estimate your final alcohol percentage, but you may be able to track was happening now. If the reading is down around 1.000 then you're probably fully fermented. If the taste is drinkable, then do that and start your second batch. If the taste isn't so good, you have two choices: If it's funky or sour and has an off smell you may just need to throw it out. If the taste is just bitter or harsh, it may improve with aging. Possibly a lot of aging.

Either way, if you can free up your primary and you have access to a hydrometer, then you can start your second batch! That's where the fun begins - taking what you've learned and going at it again.

abks a lot. Ill be buyimg a hydrometer and some honey soon anough. Ive been drinking half of the mead while the other half have been aging for mote.than a month now. End of this month i am.getting.more honey and aiming for a semisweet. And to assist i am also buyimg a hydrometer to meusure the alcohol i reach. And thanks a lot