stuck fermentation with bubbling in air lock

[Kage]

I did a search but didn't find an answer so feel free to point me at another thread if this has been discussed. I started two traditional meads a few weeks ago using a small amount (about half the recommended amount) of yeast nutrient and a box of raisins as nutrient in each. I used red star montrachet yeast for one and red star bread yeast for the other just as a small experiment. Both had a starting gravity of 1.132. Both failed to show any signs of fermentation within 4 days and both were repitched. At this point both airlocks started bubbling within 24 hours and I left them to do their thing for two weeks. Yesterday I was going to take a reading/sample �� and rack to secondary. The montrachet yeast was at 1.01 and the bread yeast though still bubbling every few seconds is reading 1.130. I am going to repitch it again but wanted to know if anyone else had experienced this before and what might cause it to have airlock movement but still be stuck???
Thanks in advance.

 

[curgoth]

Bread yeast is really slow. Give it time. There's a reason it's used mostly for bread (where you want lots of CO2 and not much alcohol) instead of wine (where you want alcohol and the CO2 isn't important).

 

[bernardsmith]

Yeah... But I am not sure that bread yeast can deal with such high sugar concentrates.. Not a chemist but yeast need to transfer nutrients through their cell walls in order to survive and so produce CO2 and alcohol but if the sugar concentration is too high then they are unable to move the liquid through the surface of their cells.. and a starting gravity of 1.131 (a potential ABV of more than 17%) is very high. Bread yeast MAY be slow... but they may also be dying if not flat out dead...

 

[Kage]

I kinda thought that but I made a couple JAO's with similar gravity readings and the bread yeasts did fine. If it doesn't restart with this repitch I may add a little water to dilute the sugar content.

 

[Squatchy]

You could also take some of your bayc aside, water just it down to something reasonable. After it gets going in a lower "G" you could then reintroduce it to the rest of your must. You mentioned nothing in your original post about temps. You could have killed your yeast with temp shock if it was more than 10 degrees different. You also didn't mention your rehydration protocol. Both are super important.

 

[Kage]

Sorry. Yeah I rehydrate with a litter of warm water and a table spoon full of honey mixed in.
I heat 2 gallons of water to near boiling then add my honey to that fir ease of mixing after I get
All the honey mixed in I add the rest of my water at room temp. Of course I have to wait quite a while for it to cool. I wait till my must reads 100 degrees before I pitch. My yeast is room temp ny tho point I'm sure so its around 70. That could be the problem but its how I always do it and never had a problem before. Also when I repitched I did the same rehydration giving the yeast about 30 min to hydrate. the must had to be close to room temp too. I will try diluting part of the must. That sounds like a good idea. Thank you. I will get to work on it tomorrow I hope.

 

[Squatchy]

You really need to use plain tap water to rehydrate if you are not going to use Go-ferm . Anything else in your slurry will compromise your yeast. Lastly 104 degrees is the perfect temp to rehydrate. Your temps need to be with in 10 degrees of each other before you pitch.