Hi! I'm making mead for the first time following Ken Schramm's recipe for a medium sweet orange blossom mead in "The Compleat Meadmaker". Everything seems to be going fine. Fermentation seemed okay in the primary fermenter with a little loose cake in the bottom, but when I racked it into my secondary fermenter (a glass carboy) it really seemed to take off. Now I have a thick packed cake on the bottom. Is it okay to leave it on this cake or do I need to rack it again to get it off? I'm worried about too much oxidation if I keep racking it. Thanks!
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Yeast Cake in Secondary
- Thread starter Puddin
- Start date
Did this recipe call for racking during an active fermentation? I thought one usually waited until mead was finished fermenting to keep from stalling it. At any rate, if it were me, I would rack it off to avoid yeast autolysis, if a hydrometer shows it to be finished fermenting.
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How far along in the fermentation is it (i.e., in weeks) and what and when was your last gravity reading?
It's not a good thing to rack too much, and rack off the lees, since this can reduce the active yeast levels.
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It's not a good thing to rack too much, and rack off the lees, since this can reduce the active yeast levels.
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It's a total of two and a half weeks into fermentation. It was racked into the glass carboy out of my plastic fermenter about 4 days ago. My last gravity reading at that time was 1.083.
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The recipe called to rack out of the initial fermenter about 2 weeks after initial start up. It seems like most of the recipes I have read say to do this. In any event, it definitely didn't stall it. If anything, it really kicked it in!
