Fementation Odor Observation

[5Hives]

Hi Everyone, this is my first batch of mead. 14lbs of orangeblossom honey topped to around 4.5 gallons to get to 1.115 SG. Going on day 3 and there is a pronounced citus smell coming from the air lock. Not at all what I expected. I guess I was looking for more of a honey or yeast smell. Anyone else experience this before? My head tells me that with the nectar being mainly from orange blossoms that this would be where the citrus smell is coming from, but the honey has no noticable citrus smell. Just an observation,... really glad I found this group and looking forward to learning from you all.

Eric

 

[Squatchy]

You should be fine. Just keep your temps around 70 and feed your yeast

 

[4give]

Welcome 5Hives! I haven't used OB honey before, but I'm assuming you have no other ingredients, and this is just a traditional mead. I haven't made a ton of meads, but I'm not aware of a citrus type of smell being a bad thing. I have a traditional going right now with D21 and wildflower honey that at times had a sweet apple smell, and I can't detect any flaws in it right now. I'd drink it right now (6 weeks after starting).
It might be the yeast you're using too. Not saying it's bad, but some just give off different smells during fermentation. Give it a few more days and take a small taste. That will tell you a lot, and you'll learn too.

 

[EricHartman]

Esters are very detectable by our noses. Tiny quantities can be overpoweringly strong. Odds are your yeast are currently breaking down the honey into a smell you recognise as a component of oranges or they have broken down other components that were overwhelming your ability to detect the citrus component. Eitherway keep on rolling!

 

[5Hives]

Thanks EricHartman, for the explanation. That makes total sense to me. The fermentation is going along great at the moment. It's day 7 and at 1.094 which is down from the SG of 1.115. Slow and steady running at 68 degrees.

 

[Squatchy]

Thanks EricHartman, for the explanation. That makes total sense to me. The fermentation is going along great at the moment. It's day 7 and at 1.094 which is down from the SG of 1.115. Slow and steady running at 68 degrees.

That's really slow. You really need to feed it or it will get stinky and taste bad too

 

[5Hives]

I've fed it on day 3, 5 and 7. Two grams of a Fermax and Diammonium Phosphate mixture, along with an hour on the air stone. Have kept the temp at 68 in a SS Brewtech set-up with heater and chiller. Should I be doing something else? At the moment it taste fine.

 

[EricHartman]

That is on the slow side... I generally see 0.010-0.015 drop per day early on.

Presumably the feedings are good; I don't have experience with those particular products but at least there's nitrogen

available​

.

Air isn't as ideal as pure oxygen but in the grand scheme of things 1 hour of air is going to be similar to 5 min of pure oxygen in total oxygen delivered.

What yeast did you use, how did you rehydrate/pitch it, and how much did you pitch?
The rehydration is a rather important step as you will increase the amount of yeast that survive the transition back to metabolic activity. Scott labs has a rehydration protocol that is easy to follow and uses goferm to increase yield. Tossing dry yeast directly into your must is going to substantially lower initial biomass and could result in a slow/sluggish start.

The yeast generally handle pH just fine on their own if well supported; however, you may want to check it and make sure you're must is above 3.5. That is an arbitrary number I came up with based on the pH of the dozen meads I've made thus far. Squatchy may have a more concrete number for us.

 

[Squatchy]

I have never found yeast to stall from too low a pH, I have had a few go under 3.0 and still make it. I never adjust my pH although I do have some K2CO3 if I need it but haven't ever.

I feel that because we superman the hell out of our yeast with modern protocol (Goferm, pure 02 additions, Staggered nuts, and temp control) I don't think it's an issue any longer.
Not really sure how much of an issue it was to begin with. You know how things get adhered to even if it's only old wives tails. I got into this right at the very beginning of this last "era" of mead making. So wasn't around before that

 

[5Hives]

Here's my whole process up to this point:
12-14-19....14 lbs of raw OB Honey mixed into 4.5 gallons of water (treated with a Campden tablet) to get to a SG of 1.115. To re-hydrate I added 5 grams of Go-Ferm to a cup of water at 102 deg then mixed in 5 grams of 71B. I let that sit covered for 15 minutes. I then added that to the must that I had brought up to 75 degrees to get closer to the re-hydrated yeast in temp. I know that the two were at least 15- 20 degrees off from each other when I pitched the yeast, maybe a bit more as I didn't get a yeast temp before pitching. I also stirred in 2 grams of a mixture of (4 grams of Fermax and 8 grams of Diammonium Phosphate). I was worried about oxygen as my set-up doesn't facilitate a vigorous stirring so I used an airstone for one hour both one hour after and 6 hours after my initial pitch. Visible fermentation started around 6 hours after pitching.
12-15-19....air stone 1 hour
12-16-19....fed yeast 2 Grams of mixture, air stone 1 hour SG=1.111
12-18-19....fed yeast 2 grams of mixture, air stone 1 hour SG=1.104
12-20-19....fed yeast 2 grams of mixture, air stone 1 hour SG= 1.094
12-21-19....12 hours after the above SG=1.090

*** My initial observation is that I possibly shocked the re-hydrated yeast in pitching at too large of a temp differential between it and the honey mixture, causing a slow start as they had to build up larger numbers. It seems as if it is starting to at least get on track to be able to meet a .010 a day standard. I couldn't find any info on what to expect for numbers so I thought mead was just a slower fermentation. I also was going to stop the air and feeding and let it do its thing but now I'm questioning those instructions. The smell when I open it up is still pleasant but more like cider today.

If you have any suggestions, I'm all for learning. Either way, I'll keep ya posted.

 

[EricHartman]

Your rehydration wasn't perfect but it wasn't bad. it was certainly way better than dumping dry yeast into the must!

https://scottlab.com/content/files/Documents/Handbooks/FermentationHandbook2019.pdf

That link is the scott labs handbook which is one of the best resources available. It is mostly aimed at wine makers but is getting more mead specific additions every year. On page 8 you will find their rehydration protocol using goferm. In their example they use insanely large units, more for professionals, but the steps in the protocol are golden.

basically the math runs down to 1.25g goferm for each gram of yeast, and then the weight of goferm x 20 in mL of water. So at your pitch rate it would have been 6.25g goferm in around 125 ml water.

Your pitch rate is another place you likely cut yourself short. You want to use at least 2g yeast/gal of must and march it on up if your SG is getting on up there. I would have pitched 10 or 15 g of yeast for your must. Yeast is way cheaper than honey so I tend to be heavy handed if I have a doubt.

So you're really not far off from the ideal plan... certainly WAY, WAY, WAY ahead of me when I arrived here for my first mead! SG is dropping so your yeasts are doing their job.

Here is another link to my user notes area: https://www.gotmead.com/forum/usernote.php?u=38558 I've consolidated everything I've found over the last year and others have found it useful! It can be a little intimidating if I just blast it into a post so I'm trying the link instead..

Cheers

 

[5Hives]

Thanks for all the information. It will really help out on the next batch.