Newbie yeast screw up; repitch?

[otherchuck]

Greetings all,

After years of making homebrew, I tried mead-making about 10 years ago...dropped full glass carboy of honey water, which shattered...sliced up foot, honey water exploded everywhere (couch, VCR, record collection, etc.). Traumatic to say the least. I bet I win the award for "Most Sorrowful Mead Tale."

Anyway, finally got the courage to try it again, and I screwed up again (though less spectacularly than the first time). I was making a basic mead...15 lbs honey, 4 gals water, Lalvin DV10 and Go-Ferm in the rehydration solution, Fermaid-K, and DAP in the must. The problem concerns rehydration: I started the rehydration process (Go-Ferm in 167 ml of 110 degree water, cool to 104, stir in 10g yeast) way too soon; I anticipated that my must would cool to 80 degrees by 30 minutes after yeast rehydration process started, and it did not do so (despite my putting the fermenter in a pretty good ice bath). I was worried about waiting too long and allowing the yeast to run out of food, so (based on one author's suggestion) I put 1/4 tsp of sugar into the rehydrating yeast, and waited another 30 minutes. Finally I felt I could wait no longer, so I pitched my rehydration solution into the must when both the rehydration solution and the must were about 88 degrees. Nice that the temps matched almost exactly, but am I correct in assuming that 88 degrees is too hot and that the fermentation is an epic fail?

It is now about 23-hours later, and I am only seeing meager signs of fermentation in the must. I am not sure what I SHOULD see, but I would generally expect some visible churning by now, right?

What now? I have maybe 5 grams of DV-10 left so I could rehydrate that and repitch. But 5 grams is a pretty feeble amount.

I have used liquid smackpacks for about 49 of the 50 beer batches I've made, and never once had a problem. But the one time I tried to rehydrate yeast for a batch of beer, and the one time I tried to rehydrate yeast for a batch of mead, there has been a failure, and I am perfectly willing to accept the blame. Something about my DNA prevents me from being able to adequately rehydrate yeast; I have come to terms with that. Having said that, can I get Lalvin DV10 in a liquid form? I live about one million miles away from the nearest brewing supply shoppe, so I have to order stuff; can I order liquid yeast? Going thru the mail in a chilly fashion seems to be kind of awkward aspect of that paradigm.

Thanks in advance for ANY advice as to how I should salvage my honey water.

Otherchuck
"Hands-down the least successful mead brewer in the world!"

[Chevette Girl]

Are you getting any signs at all of fermentation? If so, give it another day, it may well perk up... if not, you might need another packet of yeast.

Considering how warm you need to rehydrate you yeast, I don't think 88 degrees is gonna kill them, if anything it should have kicked them into overdrive.

For future reference, you can acclimatize your yeast in their rehydration water by doubling its volume by adding must every 15 minutes (or longer), not only does this help balance the temperature when there's a large difference between your yeast temp and your must temp (which I see there wasn't in your case if both were around that temperature), but this also feeds them and gets them acclimatized to the sugar content of your must as well.

It might just be that this fermentation's taking its time to build up its population. I've had some that took two days to get going, I think another user, Fatbloke, recently said something about having a significantly longer wait on one of his batches, but it did eventually start.

I've had exactly one dud yeast pack in the hundreds of batches I've done (mostly with Lalvin packets), so it is unlikely, however, it is possible.

Good luck with it! Keep is posted on your progress!

[fatbloke]

It's called "lag phase". Where you follow instructions/guidance, but get, apparently nothing.

5g isn't feeble at all. It will have more yeast cells than 2 or 3 smack packs put together.

Most times, especially with traditionals (yes, honey, water, nutrient and yeast is a traditional) you can expect some lag. You may be lucky and see visible ferment quickly, sometimes not.......for many reason.

Just leave it alone for a couple of days, if nothing has shown any start after a week, then maybe its time to think of what to do next.....

[Deacon Aegis]

Otherchuck, I thought I just might add that there is really no good reason to heat the honey and water (must) mixture. That method is kinda out-dated and you'll save yourself alot of time by skipping that step next time. Hang around a bit and you'll see plenty of chat on the subject and much of the current agreement is that honey, which is already sterile, gets the subtle aromatics and flavors blown off when heated. It also helps so that when your yeast is rehydrated, you can simply pitch and not worry about the must cooling. Hope that helps for future batches.

[mediaguru]

I'm a novice like you (actually, a total virgin -- first time fermenting anything), and pulled the same rookie move. Except even dumber, because I didn't ice bath my must, and had just been boiling it for an hour (well, the honey anyway) because I'm making a bochet as my first excursion. I guess I figured the cool water dumped into the hot honey would chill things plenty, bu I also didn't realize the must needs to be about room temperature before pitching (I figured it didn't matter if it was 100 degrees, since that's what my Lalvin D47 packets said to put it into for rehydration)

Anyway, I pitched the yeast on Saturday -- same exact scenario as you. I started rehydration too soon, and was worried about if I left it too long without pitching. What I did do, however, was try to revive another little batch of yeast from whatever leftovers were in the bowl I had pitched. I don't really know what I'm doing, but I put a dab of honey in there with warm water and a pinch of nutrient to see if I could keep some alive, in case I cooked the first batch I had pitched in there (I'm willing to bet my must was more like 100-110 degrees -- I didn't use a thermometer)

Fortunately, the house I recently moved into has a refrigerated/temperature-controlled wine cellar which I am using for this, so I set the temp at 65 degrees to chill things a bit, and about 12 hours later, I pitched my second little yeast starter I had tried to preserve.

In any case, even at that time, there was already a layer of foam on top of the must and it seems like the yeasties were doing their thing. I have no idea how vigorous the fermentation is supposed to be, but I was actually surprised even at that because I had seen many people say it could take 48 hours, and mine took less than 12 -- maybe they liked the hot temp? (and maybe it stressed them out and I will have crap fusel alcohol and ester flavors because of it. I'm hoping one hour of excessive temperature didn't do this, but I don't know enough to be sure. I'm not as worried about the esters -- I actually like estery flavors a lot of times, and I think they might taste nice in this medium-sweet bochet)


I did 15 lbs light-amber honey, boiled for one hour (not burnt, but deeply caramelized), 4 gallons water, 2 tsp nutrient, 2 packs (10g) Lalvin D47 yeast.

As of right now, it's under airlock in primary fermenter bucket (though I did vigorously aerate a couple times in the first 36 hours), and bubbling about once per second. To my novice eyes, things seem okay. Off flavors may be another matter altogether, but I won't know that for a while (although I am getting banana smell on the off-gassing, so I wonder if that indicates significant esters? Then again, I find banana-esters yummy, so again my biggest concern is fusel alcohol)

[Deacon Aegis]

Originally Posted by mediaguru

I'm a novice like you (actually, a total virgin -- first time fermenting anything), and pulled the same rookie move. Except even dumber, because I didn't ice bath my must, and had just been boiling it for an hour (well, the honey anyway) because I'm making a bochet as my first excursion. I guess I figured the cool water dumped into the hot honey would chill things plenty, bu I also didn't realize the must needs to be about room temperature before pitching (I figured it didn't matter if it was 100 degrees, since that's what my Lalvin D47 packets said to put it into for rehydration)

Anyway, I pitched the yeast on Saturday -- same exact scenario as you. I started rehydration too soon, and was worried about if I left it too long without pitching. What I did do, however, was try to revive another little batch of yeast from whatever leftovers were in the bowl I had pitched. I don't really know what I'm doing, but I put a dab of honey in there with warm water and a pinch of nutrient to see if I could keep some alive, in case I cooked the first batch I had pitched in there (I'm willing to bet my must was more like 100-110 degrees -- I didn't use a thermometer)

Fortunately, the house I recently moved into has a refrigerated/temperature-controlled wine cellar which I am using for this, so I set the temp at 65 degrees to chill things a bit, and about 12 hours later, I pitched my second little yeast starter I had tried to preserve.

In any case, even at that time, there was already a layer of foam on top of the must and it seems like the yeasties were doing their thing. I have no idea how vigorous the fermentation is supposed to be, but I was actually surprised even at that because I had seen many people say it could take 48 hours, and mine took less than 12 -- maybe they liked the hot temp? (and maybe it stressed them out and I will have crap fusel alcohol and ester flavors because of it. I'm hoping one hour of excessive temperature didn't do this, but I don't know enough to be sure. I'm not as worried about the esters -- I actually like estery flavors a lot of times, and I think they might taste nice in this medium-sweet bochet)


I did 15 lbs light-amber honey, boiled for one hour (not burnt, but deeply caramelized), 4 gallons water, 2 tsp nutrient, 2 packs (10g) Lalvin D47 yeast.

As of right now, it's under airlock in primary fermenter bucket (though I did vigorously aerate a couple times in the first 36 hours), and bubbling about once per second. To my novice eyes, things seem okay. Off flavors may be another matter altogether, but I won't know that for a while (although I am getting banana smell on the off-gassing, so I wonder if that indicates significant esters? Then again, I find banana-esters yummy, so again my biggest concern is fusel alcohol)

As a word of encouragement, as you noted I did pretty much the same thing with my first batch, I racked it a second time yesterday to take it off the spices and backsweetened it a little bit. All of the fusel flavors have already aged out of the batch (about four months aging time) and it is actually turning into a really decent mead. I figure when I am ready to pull this off bulk aging sometime around February of next year, it is going to be a pretty awesome mead. Good luck with this batch! Now you need to start a second batch using a few different techniques and compare the two side by side when they are done aging. I figure the best way to learn how to do something is try a couple of different methods and then see which turns out the best for you and run with that for a while.

I'm about to start another 6.5 gallon batch which will put me up to about 30 gallons in the mix at the moment. Can't wait until next year to start reaping some of the rewards of this effort. Gotta have fun with it.

[Chevette Girl]

So, Otherchuck, did it take off or did you have to repitch?