Hello and greetings from Greece!
I am relatively new to brewing, still experimenting (a lot). I have successfully brewed and distilled a couple of batches of Rum, so i thought to give mead a shot, looks easy enough. Currently, I am successfully(?) brewing a JOAM right now (about 5 more days and then rack to secondary), but there is a problem with the second batch that was prepared just yesterday.
See, I made the Rum and the previous JOAM with baker's yeast which started bubbling very fast, but in this batch I acquired and used some wine yeast (exact strain unknown, purchased unpacked from wine lab). I activated 5g of yeast for 30 minutes in warm water and poured directly into the jug. Absolutely no activity for 24 hours. Had shaken the jug and aerated and all this stuff, but nothing! I did read that it may take up to 3 days for the fermentation to start, but I expected vigorous fermentation within a 12 hours (as with baker's yeast).
Thinking that I may have under-pitched, or the yeast died because I pitched it too soon after using K-meta, i decided to pitch some more yeast, this time making a proper starter. So, impatient as I am, I made a light starter (1 part must, 2 parts water) with another 5g yeast and decided to let it grow for at least a day this time.
Now that I am writing this, it has been almost 15 hours since the starter was prepared and is obviously fermenting happily (bubbling, really pleasant yeast smell, yeast sediment at the bottom increased twofold already). Meanwhile, the must has shown some very little increase in activity: airlock bubbling with like 2 bubbles per minute and some very thin krauzen.
So.... it is pretty clear that I initially under-pitched (especially for the heavy must), but, since fermentation IS slowly happening, should I pitch the new yeast starter? will it create any problem? Should I put it instead in the fridge and use it for the next batch (planning to start it in about a month)?
FYI, my recipe for about 4L was:
3L water
750g local wildflower honey
800ml mock honey syrup (recipe calculated to have about 1000g/L sugar content)
30g small raisins
2 tsp cornmeal
1 vitamin B tablet
Disinfected with potassium metabisulfite and left to fume out for 24 hours before adding the yeast.
I replaced part of the honey with mock honey in order to cut back the cost of wildflower honey which is pretty high around here unfortunately (I said I do like to experiment ). The OG was little less than 1.200 (overweight, I know, I just wanted to end up sweet not dry). I planned to add cut or mashed strawberries in about 2 weeks.
Thanks for the help!
excuse my english... if you can.
I am relatively new to brewing, still experimenting (a lot). I have successfully brewed and distilled a couple of batches of Rum, so i thought to give mead a shot, looks easy enough. Currently, I am successfully(?) brewing a JOAM right now (about 5 more days and then rack to secondary), but there is a problem with the second batch that was prepared just yesterday.
See, I made the Rum and the previous JOAM with baker's yeast which started bubbling very fast, but in this batch I acquired and used some wine yeast (exact strain unknown, purchased unpacked from wine lab). I activated 5g of yeast for 30 minutes in warm water and poured directly into the jug. Absolutely no activity for 24 hours. Had shaken the jug and aerated and all this stuff, but nothing! I did read that it may take up to 3 days for the fermentation to start, but I expected vigorous fermentation within a 12 hours (as with baker's yeast).
Thinking that I may have under-pitched, or the yeast died because I pitched it too soon after using K-meta, i decided to pitch some more yeast, this time making a proper starter. So, impatient as I am, I made a light starter (1 part must, 2 parts water) with another 5g yeast and decided to let it grow for at least a day this time.
Now that I am writing this, it has been almost 15 hours since the starter was prepared and is obviously fermenting happily (bubbling, really pleasant yeast smell, yeast sediment at the bottom increased twofold already). Meanwhile, the must has shown some very little increase in activity: airlock bubbling with like 2 bubbles per minute and some very thin krauzen.
So.... it is pretty clear that I initially under-pitched (especially for the heavy must), but, since fermentation IS slowly happening, should I pitch the new yeast starter? will it create any problem? Should I put it instead in the fridge and use it for the next batch (planning to start it in about a month)?
FYI, my recipe for about 4L was:
3L water
750g local wildflower honey
800ml mock honey syrup (recipe calculated to have about 1000g/L sugar content)
30g small raisins
2 tsp cornmeal
1 vitamin B tablet
Disinfected with potassium metabisulfite and left to fume out for 24 hours before adding the yeast.
I replaced part of the honey with mock honey in order to cut back the cost of wildflower honey which is pretty high around here unfortunately (I said I do like to experiment ). The OG was little less than 1.200 (overweight, I know, I just wanted to end up sweet not dry). I planned to add cut or mashed strawberries in about 2 weeks.
Thanks for the help!
excuse my english... if you can.
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