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Sac Mead: Yeast Question

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R

Red92

NewBee
Registered Member
Nov 16, 2017
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0
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I started a sac mead 2 days ago, first time I am trying a dessert styled mead. Aiming for18% and around 6 Brix.

I began by boiling 4 gallons of water. Cooled the water to around 110 F and mixed 18 lbs of honey. Allowed this to cool all day in the fermentation bucket till room temperature. Added water till up to around 5 or 5.5 gallons total, SG was 1.130. Started dry lalvin ec-1118 in 105 F water and let it sit for 5 minutes. After that I pitched the yeast and stirred vigorously. I also put 2 tsp of both yeast energizer and yeast nutrient.

Around 36 hours later no bubbles are coming out of the air lock. Is this because there is too much sugar in the must? I’ve popped the lid open and stored again. It smelt of yeast, a lot floating on top.

Do I need to repitch some yeast? Wait 2 more days? Take a half gallon out and replace with water to lower SG?

First post on the site, I’ve made mead for a year now but never had this issue before. Cheers
 
Take an Sg reading again now and see if it has gone down anything at all.
There are too many things which might be the culprit. Start by confirming the SG reading and aerate the must while you're at it.
You'd do well to read the newbee guide and listen to the gotmead podcasts. Squatchy might chime in and direct you towards where to start with those
 
48 hours now since the yeast was pitched. Slight bubbling on surface and it bubbles when I stir, so they yeast are active. What can I do to keep the yeast from being to strained? Periodically give yeast nutrient every day or two? It is fermenting at 60 degrees
 
Thanks for the advice. Haven’t used this website very much and I’m excited to find all this information I didn’t know was here.
 
The temps of your yeast slurry and must need to be close together. Otherwise, you can kill or at least shock. You didn't mention anything about the temps. Also, you need to rehydrate at 104 F. That gravity is just an everyday gravity and that won't be a problem. Go to the live podcast and start on 9/5/17
 
Red92 said:
48 hours now since the yeast was pitched. Slight bubbling on surface and it bubbles when I stir, so they yeast are active. What can I do to keep the yeast from being to strained? Periodically give yeast nutrient every day or two? It is fermenting at 60 degrees
Click to expand...

Only add nutrient if the yeast need the nutrient. We don't know how much nutrient you added at the start and you did not give us an Sg reading so we don't know how much work the yeast have done and whether or not they need another feeding. It has been years and years since we were blindly adding generic nutrient every few days. You need to read up on step feeding nutrients for mead i.e when and how much nutrient to feed your yeast. The most "tailored" protocol seems to be Tosna 2.0 and you can find that on meadmaderight.com but don't just copy what is mentioned there without understanding why that protocol is the way it is
 
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