Help, Am I in Trouble

[chop1620]

awesome, thanks for all the knowledge and input everyone. Thanks for not discouraging me and making feel like giving up. Here's to you all in your mead making endeavors. I can't wait to make tons and tons of meads.

[chop1620]

OK, so i racked my first batch, and threw in a campden tablet. tomorrow I'm going to add some more honey and water to top off the head space. here's the interesting part. I finally got a bigger tube and a reading off the hydrometer. it reads 1.000. What in the world happened to my first batch, I'm confounded.

Do I need to continue with the racking/aging process, or is this batch going to be a futile effort.

[TAKeyser]

OK, so i racked my first batch, and threw in a campden tablet. tomorrow I'm going to add some more honey and water to top off the head space. here's the interesting part. I finally got a bigger tube and a reading off the hydrometer. it reads 1.000. What in the world happened to my first batch, I'm confounded.

Do I need to continue with the racking/aging process, or is this batch going to be a futile effort.

I wouldn't worry about the Hydrometer reading. I think I would trust this latest reading in the larger tube though.

Be aware that when you top it off with your honey and water mixture that your fermentation may start up again since you didn't stabilize.

[chop1620]

'Be aware that when you top it off with your honey and water mixture that your fermentation may start up again since you didn't stabilize.'



Even if i use campden tablets before i top off??

I did rack the mead before adding to tablet.

[TAKeyser]

Campden tablets alone will not stabilize your mead, it will stun the yeast temporarily but after 24 hours it is out of the must.

To stabilize you add Potassium BiSulfite (Campden Tablet) followed by Potassium Sorbate. Even after the addition it will take a while for it to stabilize so you sometimes get a little drop in gravity or renewed fermentation.

[chop1620]

ok, that sucks the guy at my homebrew store said all i needed were the tablets. so i guess i will cross my fingers and hope that it doesnt start fermenting again. this first batch is like a Frankenstein mead. My next batch i will use both to stabilize it.

[TAKeyser]

You can always stabilize and back-sweeten later if need be so don't worry about it to much.

[Chevette Girl]

And really, even if it does take off again, big deal... we do it intentionally sometimes (look up "step feeding"). Oh, and don't give up on a batch till you're SURE it's horrid, after at least a year of ageing. To quote Medsen Fey from one of my own brewlogs, "Just remember Oskaar's rule - What tastes like ass today can be a delightfully quaffable mead in a few years."

[THawk]

so what would be a good yeast to use at my temps?

EC-1118 is my choice. I'm in the Philippines and my meads turn out wonderfully (either that or my friends are just too polite )...

K1v-1116 would work too and there's the old standby -- bread yeast...

[chop1620]

so i added honey and water to take up head space after my attempt at stabilization. Then I air locked it and put it in the fridge to hopefully help keep the mead from fermenting again. I hope it should clear up in a week or so. My questions is; Do i need to keep my batch covered from the light in the fridge, or does light even affect it at this point

[TAKeyser]

so i added honey and water to take up head space after my attempt at stabilization. Then I air locked it and put it in the fridge to hopefully help keep the mead from fermenting again. I hope it should clear up in a week or so. My questions is; Do i need to keep my batch covered from the light in the fridge, or does light even affect it at this point

Putting it in the fridge will deactivate the yeast and help the mead clear, but when you remove it from the fridge to rack again or bottle I would properly stabilize just in case any yeast has remained in suspension because normally if the mead warms back up the yeast will become alive again.

I never worry about the light from the fridge.

Just my 2 cents, but I'm sometimes overly cautious, but as a renter I don't want bottle bombs staining someones ceilings.

[chop1620]

cool, i plan on racking one more time before bottling, so i will stabilize it after i rack it. Thanks for the help

[Chevette Girl]

Sunlight is most damaging, followed by fluorescent, the total exposure of maybe 5 minutes a day of incandescent fridge light isn't going to hurt anything...

[chop1620]

ok, so today i am going to stabilize my mead and back sweeten it before the bulk age. Am i risking a bottle bomb by rubber stopping it after I bring it to taste? Or should i re rack it one more time with an airlock after stabilizing it to be safe?

[TAKeyser]

It does take a bit for the stabilizing to take effect so it is best to keep it under airlock for a while and make sure it worked. Some yeasts seem to fight through stabilization and may take another half dose of so.

[chop1620]

ok, so yesterday i re racked me first batch over a campden tablet, and let it sit for about 3.5 hours and added sorbate. I was planning on giving this a week to do what it does, then back sweetening and aging for a while.

Is one week to long? what is a proper amount of time it takes to stabilize?

[TAKeyser]

I usually wait somewhere between 2 days and a week, but I've seen people just put stabilizers and whatever they are using to back-sweeten all in at the same time (Joe's Quick Pyment comes to mind). If you haven't back-sweetened before just be aware that if the mead was clear it will get cloudy again and will take time to clear again.

[chop1620]

ok, well originally, i used a campden tablet on my first rack (guy at brew store said i didnt need anything else), then back sweetened and put in the fridge for a week. then I did as described in my previous post

[TAKeyser]

The Campden Tablet at each racking is sort of an older practice and I don't really know anyone who does it (especially if their Campden's are Sodium Meta BiSulfite). I sometimes use Campden 24 hours before I pitch yeast when I make a melomel, than I use a one when I stabilize and if it has been bulk aging for a while I may hit it again right before bottling because they have the effect of preventing oxidation. I know Akuek recently posted a schedule of something like 1 at stabilizing, 1 3 months later and another at every year of bulk aging, so as you can see there really is no set standard for their usage.