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yes. my hydrometer hits the bottom of the tube. even with the tube full to the top. My mead isnt done. Its only been five days. My mead should be roaring, but it slowed to stagnant nothing. I used to much energizer and nutrients

Chop1620
 
The amount of time means nothing. I've seen one or two ferments that finished in just a day or two. And warmer temperatures do usually mean faster ferments. Also, the nutrients would have nothing to do with the sg. However, your hydrometer being completely submerged does sound odd to me. That shouldn't happen. I am concerned your hydrometer has an issue. However, if there is any hydrometer still sticking out of the sample but still hitting the bottom...you don't have a long enough tube.
 
chop1620 said:
so what would be a good yeast to use at my temps?
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From my experience K1V-1116 and EC-1118 both are fairly heat tolerant. Clos is really good for higher temps. D-21 isn't a bad yeast. 71B and RC212 should be OK but you have to watch both yeasts closely, 71B can not sit on the lees for too long and RC212 needs lots of nutrients.
 
Soyala_Amaya said:
The amount of time means nothing. I've seen one or two ferments that finished in just a day or two. And warmer temperatures do usually mean faster ferments.

I will take a pic of the mead and post it in a few hours. I think it looks weird, but i dont know left from right in terms of making mead yet.

Chop1620
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TAKeyser said:
D-47 is best when it can ferment below 70 degrees, above that it can produce some off flavours (I spelled it wrong for you Canadians and Englishmen) and aromas.
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Aww, you're so considerate :)

I think one of the better ones for higher temperature ferments is K1V-1116, check out posts by Medsen Fey to confirm.

chop1620 said:
My second batch i started yesterday, and using the right measurements..lol..its off to a good start. How soon should one start using the hydrometer to test the mead?
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Fill your test tube with room-temperature water and plunk the hydrometer in, see if it says 1.000 or therebouts, if it doesn't, then your hydrometer is broken or miscalibrated.

You should get an initial reading right before you pitch the yeast, then you can know for sure where your fermentation started and you'll also be able to calculate how much alcohol's in your finished mead.
 
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ok, so i didnt take a reading before i pitched my yeast yesterday :(. Will i hurt anything if i take a reading today. (i realize my base number might be a little off, but i am learning i need a base control number).

also i will run a calibration test on my hydrometer to see if its working properly

Chop1620
 
Well some fermentation will have occurred, so your reading will be lower than it would have been before yeast pitch by some indeterminate amount, but getting a number now is better than having no measurements at all.

The other thing you can do to estimate initial gravity is to calculate it based on measurements of the honey and water you used. If you were very careful to measure both quantities before mixing, you can figure out what your starting gravity must have been.
 
thanks for the help. I will post all that info you just mentioned when I get it in a few hours. and hopefully get some help back working the numbers
 
ok, first off. Im trying to back track my s.g. I used one gallon of water, and 3 lbs of honey. I put the stopper/airlock on 6/4/12 at 5:00 pm. I tested my mead with the hydrometer 6/5/12 at 11:40 am, and got a reading of 1.090.

My next question involves my first batch. I tested it with the hydrometer after trying the meter on water (1.000), and my second batch of mead (1.090). When I test my first batch, the meter rests on the bottom of the tube. Is my first batch done for??
 
Based on calculating your SG from amounts of ingredients:

If you used 3 lbs of honey and a full gallon of water, your starting SG would have been 1.085 or so.

If you used 3 lbs of honey and added water to make one US gallon total, then your starting gravity would be around 1.105. Given your current measurement, I'm guessing that either this is what you did, or your 3 lbs of honey had more than 3 lbs in the container.

Regarding your first batch, you need a bigger (taller) tube. There's nothing wrong with it, other than that it may be so dry that the hydrometer is bottoming out in the liquid column before it gets to its neutral bouyancy point (i.e. where it floats), which can happen if the SG is low enough and your liquid tube isn't tall enough.
 
chop1620 said:
ok, first off. Im trying to back track my s.g. I used one gallon of water, and 3 lbs of honey. I put the stopper/airlock on 6/4/12 at 5:00 pm. I tested my mead with the hydrometer 6/5/12 at 11:40 am, and got a reading of 1.090.

My next question involves my first batch. I tested it with the hydrometer after trying the meter on water (1.000), and my second batch of mead (1.090). When I test my first batch, the meter rests on the bottom of the tube. Is my first batch done for??
Click to expand...

Well, if your hydrometer is giving you sensible readings for your other must and for water, then your fermentation's probably all done. Have you tasted it yet? If you can still taste sugar then there's something weird going on, but if it tastes like dry mead, dry wine, rubbing alcohol, unsweetened paint thinner or some combination thereof, then you had a really quick fermentation, probably due to all the overdosing of nutrients... What's the topmost reading on your hydrometer, or at least the level that it drops to, or is it completely submerged in the test tube?
 
thanks wayneb. I used 3lbs of honey, and filtered water until there was about 1/2" of headspace. so almost a full gallon.

as for my first batch. does this mean that its still fermenting even though it looks super stagnant, and no bubble movement. Is it going to take like ten years to clear up? my hydrometer completely submerges. and topmost reading on it is .990, and going to give a taste test now

Chop1620
 
so, after the taste test on the first batch.....It tastes like a dry wine with a little hard alcohol bite at the end. What is the next step for this batch, i was expecting a couple weeks of research and reading before i had to do something next.
 
Bwahaahaa, expecting a mead to keep to YOUR schedule? :)

So yep, you've confirmed that it's done. See, this is exactly why we say you can't trust your airlock as a measure of how well your fermentation's going ;D This one went really quickly without making any fuss!

You can safely leave it for a few days or even a week, but the next step is to rack it off the yeast and sediment that are probably dropping out as we speak.

You'll want to siphon it into a sanitized carboy, and this time you want to make sure you don't have much headspace. Then airlock it and forget about it (except for checking the liquid level in the airlock) until it's nice and clear, then you can rack it again, then you can bottle it. Unless you decide you want it sweetened up a little, in which case, you'll want to stabilize it and add a little more honey, and the sooner you do that part, the sooner it should clear. In theory.
 
Your fermentation is done, you had a SUPER fast ferment due to the over dose of nutrient in the beginning. It happens sometimes, yeast are living things that we can't perfectly control.

As for what to do, it will be perfectly fine to wait a couple weeks and leave it alone. I usually wait at least a week after primary ferment is over before I rack it, just to give the gross lees (the bigger, chunkier stuff that settles the fastest) more time to settle.

So my advice at this point is put the airlock on it, and ignore it while you do more research. In a week or two you can rack it to a new container. And yes, unless you have some weird proteins (does happen, but is rare) it should clear just fine with time.
 
ok so i kinda put my yeast on steriods?, if i add honey when i rack it, do i need to shake it all together again, or just add it in. also, do i just use water to fill up the rest of the head space when racking?
 
chop1620 said:
ok so i kinda put my yeast on steriods?, if i add honey when i rack it, do i need to shake it all together again, or just add it in. also, do i just use water to fill up the rest of the head space when racking?
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Yeast on steriods is a pretty apt description.

If you add honey, your fermentation will probably kick back up again. Gently stirring it at this point would be preferable to shaking it (at this point you want to avoid oxygen), although if you just blop some in, it'll eventually dissolve and the yeast will eat it. I like to take out some must and mix it with the honey, makes it mix into the batch a lot easier if it's already been diluted. If you want it to stay sweet, you'll need to stabilize it with potassium metabisulphite and potassium sorbate or else the yeast will just keep on eating it until they've reached their capacity.

You can use water to top it up. The best way is to use boiled and cooled water from the kettle, that way it won't have much dissolved oxygen in it. I sometimes use apple juice or leftover wine.
 
ok last question for now, (i hope). do i need to stabilize my batch if im just going to top off with water, and it looks like i might need a couple cups of water. am i gonna dilute my mead to much, what will this affect?? should i make up some of the space with honey and stabilizer to cut down on water??
 
If you're not looking for something that finishes sweeter right now, you can top it up with honey and water and the honey will probably ferment out again. It'll just take a little longer, is all. Although the way your yeast tore through the original amount, it might not take long at all!
 
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