So it finally happened to me…6 years of homebrewing and not one stuck fermentation until this weekend. I made a slightly sweet mead with an OG of 1.105, foughly 3 gallons worth. All I did was slightly heat the water to about 150 and blend the water with honey, fermented with a dry white wine yeast with yeast nutrient, and then let it go. It took off right away and has fermented roughly 10 days but is now stuck at 1.080…is there anything you all can suggest to help out?
Thanks!
P.S. I’m at work right now and we don’t have the same functionality for the AHA forum website so I can’t do any searches for previous postings, I apologize if this has been talked about ad nauseam, but I need some help!
Sounds like you need to stir the mead to let the CO2 dissipate and provide oxygen. Mead does not buffer well so the pH can drop from carbonic acid below what yeast can tolerate. When you do the stir you should add some suitable nutrients. Fermentation of meads is significantly different than fermentation of beer. See Mead - American Homebrewers Association for more information.
Add more yeast nutrient, and if that doesn’t work, then also add more yeast with nutrient.
At the same time, I don’t know what your fermentation temperature is but you can probably raise it by 5 F. I wouldn’t go above about 75 F personally, so if you’re already at room temperature then nevermind.
Knocking out the CO2 seems like a good idea. I’m not a mead expert but I can see the point in doing that, as pH could fall quite a bit from that and the yeast might not be happy.