Intentionally using a lower tolerance yeast

What is the size of this batch? I'm assuming a 5 gal for an OG of about 1.125. This is pretty high for only providing the yeast with raisins as nutrient. You may want to consider giving the little guys some Fermaid or similar product to avoid an unnecessarily large amount of off-flavors.

The off-flavors you're gonna get from pushing the yeast far are fusels. With beer, there's an expectation of a quick turnaround, which is not the case with mead. You're gonna want to let this age no matter what, so this will take care of the fusels. Also, with aging, a perception of sweetness returns to a mead, so my advice is always to wait until something is aged before backsweetening. If you want a fast turnaround, backsweetening can help cover up a lack of aging (ie fusels), but aging is a much better option if available.

Msarro said:

Hey everyone! This is my first post, but I come from a significant amount of experience in home brewing beer...Honestly I like the process which keeps my hands out of the fermenter.

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Welcome!

Mead is truly a odd change from beer...Because of the use of a more ABV tolerant yeast and the lack of nutrients provided by honey (recommend searching for SNA or step nutrient additions) "Getting your hands in" the fermenter, at least at the beginning, is pretty much a necessity between aeration, degassing, and nutrient additions. Also prevention of stressed yeast (by nutrient addition as well as careful temperature control) is the easiest way to prevent off flavors and/or aromas.

P.S. the search feature is your best friend here

Between the bee pollen and the raisins you probably have enough nitrogen for the yeast, but remember that D47 does not perform its best when hungry. It may help to add something like Fermaid O which is organic to insure they are well fed.

In a traditional mead D47 will rarely go beyond 14%, so you should end up with a nice sweet mead.

You don't need so much KMeta up front. That is a large dose. With a traditional mead you don't really need any. You can mix the must and pitch the rehydrated yeast without delay. Mead is much less prone to spoilage than beer.

If you chop up the raisins they may help keep the pH stable which is a common challenge with traditional meads that you don't see with beer.

I hope you get a great result.

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Hi Msarro. Couple of things… First Welcome to Got Mead. It’s always nice to have another brewer here. I only brewed beer until about two years ago, and probably didn’t get serious making mead until last year. Being a brewer first, you will find quite a few things different when making mead than brewing beer. The thing that I found pretty surprising is the amount of nutrients that you need to supply to your yeasties. When brewing beer, all or the nutrients are in the wort. When making mead, there are very few nutrients in the must. Low nutrient musts can cause the yeast to make off flavors and smells. Take the time to research the proper nutrients and the correct dosages before you begin and you will have a better product that you can drink sooner. Keep in mind that with only about 3 months until your wedding, if you produce any fusel alcohols or off flavors, your mead may not be “drinkable” in time.
Also, it is my understanding (keep in mind that I’m no expert) that yeast make most of their off flavors closer to the end of their run- i.e. when they hit, or get close to hitting their alcohol tolerance. I have had good luck using a high tolerance yeast (mainly KV1-1116 and EC-1118.) and only giving them enough fermentables to hit my desired ABV, then stabilizing through a combination of cold crashing and adding campden tablets, and then back sweetening to the desired SG or to taste. I have used this method to make very good mead in only about 2-3 months. Your brew shop probably gave you EC-1118 because it is a very “clean” yeast that if you treat right will finish quickly with no off flavors and will do it under a wide temperature range. D-47 may not be as easy going. THe following web page helped me a lot when I was starting out:

http://www.lalvinyeast.com/strains.asp

Msarro said:

Thank you! Out of curiousity - is there any problem with using the lower tolerance yeast in a high OG must?
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There are some yeast that really don't like high-gravity starts such as Montrachet, but 71B and D47 will both handle an OG of 1.125 without problem.

And D47 is generally a poor choice at 78°. 71B has always been favored for traditional meads because of low nutrient requirements.



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