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Day twenty and the mead is dead in the water.

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scott.foster

scott.foster

NewBee
Registered Member
Oct 25, 2017
3
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My first five-gallon-batch of show mead turned out well. It is bottled and stewing in the basement.

I got cocky and freewheeled the second mead batch. The first mead was really high alcohol, really too much alcohol for anything other than a special occasion so on my second batch I did 5lbs of honey to 4 gallons of water.

This mead was supposed to be a Methelgen

Initial Recipe: Started October 13

5lbs of clover honey
4 gallons of water
1 pack of Lalvin D47
1/2 tsp yeast energizer
Fist full of Lemon Balm and a Fist Full of Mint (from the garden and I didn't wash it)
Hydrometer Reading: 1.40

The Fermentation started out pretty good and slowed way down ten days in.

Additions at this point: banana, 2 apples, 8 strawberries, another packet of D47 Yeast and 1/2 a tsp of yeast energizer.

At this point the fermentation went gangbuster again for about 4 or 5 days

October 25th
I moved the mead into a carboy for secondary
Hydrometer Reading 1.0

On my first batch of Mead, I used a white wine yeast and it went gangbuster.


This mead seems to be really slow and lazy. I tasted the mead when moving it and it tastes like windex but without the alcohol

Honestly, I'm not sure what's going on. Should I back sweeten with Honey and hit it with a third pack of yeast? I know it's not an indication but the bubbler is dead...I mean no bubbles.
 
T

tacomabees

NewBee
Registered Member
Jun 11, 2017
7
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0
Did you mean your SG was 1.040? At only 5lbs in 4 gallons that would be closer. With your current SG at 1.0, and your D-47 alcohol tolerance of 14% it would seem that your yeast has run out of food. The addition of fruit gave it another feed, but that is likely consumed too. If your SG was 1.040 and now is 1.0 then your ABV is only around 5.25% and are starving the yeast (evidenced by the addition of fruit, and it taking off again). To test, you could pull some of the must volume and mix in another pound of honey and see if it re-starts....the real question is what do you want this to be? Why did you start out with so little honey in such a large volume of water?
 
Stasis

Stasis

Honey Master
Registered Member
Jan 10, 2014
1,123
13
38
Malta
You posted this in another thread. There were replies about how much alcohol to expect and why it stopped fermenting. Why did you start a new thread?

The first batch being high in alcohol is likely due to fusels. This is a defect which occurs when you take poor care of the yeast. For a mead to be high alcohol the way you describe it has to be at least above 16% abv. Even then, at 16% I have a mead that I enjoy drinking regularly like something between a wine and martini rosso. The alcohol isn't hot at all because any fusels were aged out.
Like Squatchy said in the other thread: read up.
 
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