I started my first mead a month ago. I was planning on transferring to my secondary but my last gravity reading was still high (1.065). Any advice would be appreciated. Also O.G. was 1.110.
Nutrients? PH? Temp? Yeast Strain?
I added Gypsum, acid blend, yeast extract, Irish moss and Champagne yeast. My PH is 3.2 and my temp is 76 degrees.
Acid blend should really be used post-ferment, to taste. Yeast gets grumpy under pH - 4. How much yeast did you use? Did you rehydrate it?
I only used one package of yeast that I didn’t hydrate per the instructions. I’ll take note to hold acid blend till after fermentation. I went ahead and moved it over to my secondary yesterday. Fermentation is still going. Just seems to be very slow.
The reason you’re supposed to rehydrate yeast is so it can take in water in an unstressful environment. Dry yeast act like a sponge when they’re rehydrating. They can’t control their cellular pumps while they’re dry, so anything in the rehydration liquid will rush into the cells. So the must rushed into the cells, and the yeast’s stored-up nutrients rushed out of the cells, and then the yeast struggled to pump out the excess sugar.
Any gravity over 1.040 or so has a harmful level of osmotic pressure for unhealthy yeast. Anything over 1.100 or so has a harmful level of osmotic pressure for healthy yeast. Osmotic pressure literally squeezes the guts out of yeast, if their cell membrane isn’t healthy enough to resist it.
Basically, you killed most of your yeast by dumping straight into the must. The yeast that was left was unhealthy, and has struggled to ferment your must. I’d expect it to continue to limp along for months. If that’s not something you want to deal with, get a few packs of yeast, rehydrate them properly, then add those to the seconday. Red Star yeast is like $0.50/pack and you can’t really use too much.
If you haven’t seen this, you need to:
http://www.ahaconference.org/wp-content/uploads/presentations/2008/KrisEngland_NHC.pdf
That .pdf changed my life. If your mead takes more than two weeks to finish, you’re doing it wrong.
Thanks for the advice. I will take all this into consideration in my next batch. Now I’m going to try and salvage this one.
I’d probably use 6-8 packs, and see how that goes. Honey is expensive and spending $3-4 on yeast is cheap, comparably.
Mead has cleared thoroughly and was bottled last night. It finished at 1.010 and tastes great! Thank you for the advice. I will be attempting a Prickly pear melomel next.