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Degas/aerate after 1/3 sugar brake?

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pedroblom

NewBee
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Apr 15, 2014
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Hi meadmakers.

I'm making my first "serious" batch of mead, with staggered nutrition addition, temperature control, aeration, and degassing.

I have followed the TOSNA protocol, and all looks good so far.

I have now come to the magic 1/3 sugar brake point with the last nutrition addition , and my question is :

Chould I leave the bach alone from now on and stop degassing/aerating, or should I keep on degassing trying not to aerate the must? Or what should I do?

Skickat från min GT-I9506 via Tapatalk
 
For most average batches I would continue to degas, and at this point stop aerating. Don't really know anything about your batch. Degassing never hurts and will actually help your mead clear faster when it's done.

But unless you have additional honey feedings planned, and you are expecting a LOT more work out of your yeast, now is a good time to stop oxygenating. There may be some who will say oxygen still wouldn't do any harm at this point, but diminishing returns, you know? I wouldn't.
 
My plan is to make a dry traditional. I used "The MeadMakr BatchBuildr" from http://www.meadmakr.com/batch-buildr/ for the recipe. For degassing/aerating I use this thing called "the wip" that i put on the drill.

Recipe
22 Liters
ABV: 12%
Dry FG = 1

Batch Specs
Target OG: 0.9v
Starting Brix: 21.6
YAN Provided: 215

Ingredients
Honey Needed: 6.78kg
Dry Yeast Minimum Weight: 6g
# Dry Yeast Packet(s): 2 (10g yeast)
Go-ferm: 12.5g
Fermaid O: 25g

1/3 sugar break
1/3 sugar break is at 60 oeschle or gravity point 1.060


General Instructions

1. Clean and sanitize everything that will come into contact with your must.

2. Dissolve honey in small amount of water (leave room to add additional water to reach batch volume).

3. Add water to your batch volume minus volume for rehydration.

4. Aerate the must with a drill stirrer or shake/stir vigorously for 15 minutes.

5. Rehydrate, temper and pitch yeast per Go-Ferm rehydration instructions below.

6. Record specific gravity and temperature for future reference.

7. Apply airlock. Ferment per your yeast temperature specs. Low 60 deg F is sufficient for most wine yeasts.

8. Degas twice per day for first week of fermentation.

9. Dose nutrients per nutrient protocol instructions below.

10. Rack when yeast is done fermenting, as evidenced by no drop in SG for two full weeks. Also rack within 3 weeks of sediment layer forming on the bottom of an aging vessel to avoid sur lie or autolysis flavors.

11. When mead clears, bottle and enjoy. After 2-3 months, mead should be ready to drink.

Go-Ferm Rehydration Procedure
For 2 packet(s) yeast, dissolve 12.5g of Go-Ferm Protect in 250mL hot water (the hotter the better). The warmer the water, the easier it will be to dissolve the Go-Ferm.

When the water reaches 104 deg F (40 deg C), pour in your yeast. Give the slurry a quick swirl. After 15 minutes, begin tempering yeast by adding 125mL must to the yeast slurry every 5 minutes. When yeast slurry temperature is within 10 deg F of must temperature, pitch yeast into fermenter.

Fermaid O (TOSNA) Nutrient Protocol
The total amount of Fermaid O that will be added to your must is 25g. The nutrients will be divided into 4 staggered nutrient additions. To avoid mead eruption accidents, degas must and dissolve yeast nutrient doses in 1 cup must prior to adding to the fermenter.

At 24, 48, and 72 hours after you pitch your yeast, add 6.3g of Fermaid O to your must.

When the must reaches the 1/3 sugar break (1/3 of all available sugars are consumed, i.e. 1.120 starting gravity reaches 1.080 or 21 Brix reaches 14 Brix), but no later than 7 days after yeast pitch, add the last dose of 6.1g of Fermaid O.


2016-01-26
Started the bach at 90 oeshle ((Gravity 1.09)
Fermenting temp 16C (60.8F)

2016-01-29
82 oeshle (Gravity 1.082)

2016-01-31
70 oeshle (Gravity 1.070)

2016-02-01
64 oeshle (Gravity 1.064)

2016-02-02
62 0eshle (Gravity 1.062)
Last nutrition addition
 
Last edited:
It seems Fermaid O may provide a huge amount of yan. Much higher than Fermaid K according to some folks. Dap is 21% yan, Fermaid K is 10% yan, and Fermaid O I think I calculated to be around 19% yan.
My reaction was the same as yours Medsen, and there is a long discussion in this thread:
http://www.gotmead.com/forum/showth...mmon-practice-is-over-feeding-our-little-ones!
Basically, many are following the steps provided here:
http://www.meadmaderight.com/info.html where it is stated "1g/gal of Fermaid-O = 50ppm (or mg) of N/L effectiveness"
22l = 5.8 gallons
so you need 5.8g to raise the must by 50 ppm. 23.2g to raise it to 200ppm (4x). Some members and the guy who created the TOSNA think you could even go lower than that. I myself am still wrapping my mind around it. I think there is a mixture of Fermaid O being more effective than we give it credit for, and musts needing much less yan than we thought it does. We possibly overfed our musts for ages to counteract the "unhealthiness" of dap?
 
Medsen Fey said:
Hmmm...
Something is off in your calculations for YAN. 25g of Fermaid O in a 22L batch won't provide anywhere near 200 ppm. Is there some DAP that isn't listed?
Click to expand...
No this is it.



Skickat från min GT-I9506 via Tapatalk
 
Last edited:
Stasis said:
It seems Fermaid O may provide a huge amount of yan. Much higher than Fermaid K according to some folks. Dap is 21% yan, Fermaid K is 10% yan, and Fermaid O I think I calculated to be around 19% yan.
My reaction was the same as yours Medsen, and there is a long discussion in this thread:
http://www.gotmead.com/forum/showth...mmon-practice-is-over-feeding-our-little-ones!
Basically, many are following the steps provided here:
http://www.meadmaderight.com/info.html where it is stated "1g/gal of Fermaid-O = 50ppm (or mg) of N/L effectiveness"
22l = 5.8 gallons
so you need 5.8g to raise the must by 50 ppm. 23.2g to raise it to 200ppm (4x). Some members and the guy who created the TOSNA think you could even go lower than that. I myself am still wrapping my mind around it. I think there is a mixture of Fermaid O being more effective than we give it credit for, and musts needing much less yan than we thought it does. We possibly overfed our musts for ages to counteract the "unhealthiness" of dap?
Click to expand...


I see.
That "effectiveness" term will be echoing confusion through these forums for years to come.

YAN is a defined term - yeast assimilable nitrogen. It is measurable. Manufacturers may provide the information. In the case of Fermaid O, 1g contains 50mg of YAN. If 1g of Fermaid O is added to 1 liter of must, it will add 50 ppm YAN - end of story.

Your Fermaid O addition is adding slightly less than 15 ppm YAN. That is fact. Altogether with your goferm you have added less than 25 ppm YAN. Send a sample to a lab if you doubt this.

I think it is good if we keep our facts and measurements straight.

If a person believes that the effectiveness of amino/organic nitrogen is greater, such that you only need 25 ppm to have optimal fermentation, they are entitled to their opinion, but I haven't seen much scholarly data to support that assertion.
 
thank you Mazer828 for your answer!

I will continue to degas, but try not to splash to much. maybe I should change "the wip" for some other stirring equipment..
 
Medsen Fey said:
...
........
I think it is good if we keep our facts and measurements straight.

If a person believes that the effectiveness of amino/organic nitrogen is greater, such that you only need 25 ppm to have optimal fermentation, they are entitled to their opinion, but I haven't seen much scholarly data to support that assertion.
Click to expand...

But even Lallemand can't get their facts and measurements straight...
Lallemand have listed Fermaid O to at least provide as much assimilable nitrogen as Fermaid K. This was already stated in the previous thread I linked. The technical document could be found here http://www.icv.fr/en/download-form/dl-file/5101a4796c5127131b2112e2bc6fe02b
"30g/hl apportent l'equivalent de 30mg/l d'azotee assimilable" (30g/hl provides the equivalent of 30mg/l of assimilable nitrogen.)
30g/hl provides 30ppm
10g/100l = 10ppm
1g/10l provides 10ppm
1g/l provides 100ppm

Now even according to Lallemand, the equivalent of 113ppm was provided in this batch. It seems that even lallemand are trying to figure out Fermaid O's yan ppm in equivalents. I find it peculiar that Lallemand have given the exact same values for yan for both Fermaid K and Fermaid O. I also find it peculiar that it's as if they are just throwing around numbers. In this link you can find the recommended dosage for Fermaid O as 30g/hl in the technical information section, while in the description section of the same page they write 40g/hl http://www.lallemandwine.com/products/catalogue/product-detail/?range=6&id=1 What the hell Lallemand?
I could go on but this thread is about degassing not Fermaid O. Anyway, my point is that I think simply stating that we are using the tosna protocol and we calculated that 25g = 200ppm yan is enough. I'd hate to go into "effectiveness" to explain why my 100ppm yan works while it wouldn't work if I were to provide only 100ppm yan through dap or Fermaid K
 
How does one degas without aerating? And, why shouldn't we aerate after the 1/3 sugar break?
 
In simple terms, don't stir so hard. I use a wine must degassing rod in a speed drill. My process is that I start out spinning it very slowly which makes the suspended CO2 come out just fine - you will see foam rise and then break down quickly. I then can pick up the speed to slosh it around a bit, then I'm aerating - or attempting to do that anyway. I've just purchased a new O2 wand with a .5 micron stone that I'm going to use for aeration. My plan will be to do a gentle stir to degas and use the stone for about 60 seconds with pure O2 for aeration.

No need to give yeast any more O2 when the fermentation is starting to go down hill (no additional growth/budding is needed). This seems to be less critical for mead but I don't dare try this in my cider past the initial O2 aeration at pitch. YMMV
 
I've seen good points on both sides to degassing. It's true, it's not really anything to "worry" about, per se. Nothing ever killed a batch of mead faster than worrying. But I have also seen the need occasionally to keep your pH under control by degassing to remove the carbonic acid. Also, degassing does (in my experience) help with faster clearing. For a guy (like me) who doesn't care to invest the time, space, or carboys to store a mead for a year or three before I can bottle and start enjoying it, that's important.
 
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