Hello everyone. I used to make wine and beer almost 20 years ago and always had decent success (All from kits though). Since the wife and I are beekeepers I thought maybe it would be cool to start a batch of mead. I didn't know about this group and probably all the vast knowledge I could obtain here. Especially the recipes! The recipe I started was the first one I came across and it was from the lifehack website. Now that I've looked at other recipes I see this one uses the least amount of honey as any one I've seen. The recipe is:
10 lbs Honey
4 gallons water
2 teaspoons yeast energizer
2 teaspoons yeast nutrient
2 packets of lalvin k1-v1116 yeast
Well the first day I didn't hydrate the yeast. I can't every remember doing that with wine kits but maybe I did. It's been a LONG time. It bubbled barely for 24 hours then shut down. So I pitched more yeast, this time hydrating it. The air lock is now bubbling and has been for a couple days once every 20 seconds. I know from reading on here this morning that airlock activity is no indication and I should take a hydrometer reading. I still have a few old hydrometers. So what should I be looking for? I know it's bubbling so there's some type of activity (not much). Is this recipe a failure or do you think it will turn out decent? It's been fermenting for a total of 10 days. Thank you in advance for any advice. I would like to get good at it because I think we will have a lot of honey this year.
10 lbs Honey
4 gallons water
2 teaspoons yeast energizer
2 teaspoons yeast nutrient
2 packets of lalvin k1-v1116 yeast
Well the first day I didn't hydrate the yeast. I can't every remember doing that with wine kits but maybe I did. It's been a LONG time. It bubbled barely for 24 hours then shut down. So I pitched more yeast, this time hydrating it. The air lock is now bubbling and has been for a couple days once every 20 seconds. I know from reading on here this morning that airlock activity is no indication and I should take a hydrometer reading. I still have a few old hydrometers. So what should I be looking for? I know it's bubbling so there's some type of activity (not much). Is this recipe a failure or do you think it will turn out decent? It's been fermenting for a total of 10 days. Thank you in advance for any advice. I would like to get good at it because I think we will have a lot of honey this year.