Mead is stuck

[omeadows]

Greetings. Any help would be appreciated.

First batch:
April 18 10.5kg raw clover honey, 6 gallons of must 2 x Lalvin D47 yeast, 1.5 tsp Yeast Nutrient, OG 1.13. I stirred daily to oxygenate with drill attachment for first 10 days and added 1.5 tsp of nutrient on day 2, 3, and 10. Note I later discovered the water i used is bottled by reverse osmosis.
It never really took off fermenting that fast but I didn't really know much about the process so just went with it. Two weeks later the SG was 1.11, a month after that it was 1.092. A month later 1.09. It never moved from there so I did some quick reading on stuck fermentation and figured it could be a low PH, too cold, Low on minerals from water i used or low on nutrient. I work away from home for a week at a time so when i got home i stirred with drill attachment, added 1/2 tsp of nutrient and put a heat blanket on it. I tested the PH with litmus paper and i couldn't get an exact PH but it did seem on low end (maybe 4ish). I ordered a cheap PH tester off amazon and still waiting for it. A month after doing this the SG was 1.075 and after another month 1.07. Its been another couple weeks and seems stuck again.
Ive since made another 6 gallon batch of rhubarb melomel using the same process but I used spring water this time. in 4 days the SG has dropped from 1.11-1.08. I had to come back to work but my wife is stirring daily but unsure of the SG right now.
The traditional (first batch) tastes very bubbly and seems like it has lots of carbon dioxide in it (perhaps) i have racked it twice with very little sediment on the bottom. The taste has changed quite a bit too in the last three weeks. It doesn't have much of a honey taste as it did before.
I'm sure I've done a million things wrong, any tips would be appreciated

 

[Squatchy]

I usually believe if you have problems like that it's because of rehydration issues. Go download "The Scott's Laboratory Handbook". Page seven will get you started. Use Goferm too

 

[omeadows]

Thanks for your input. I bought the yeast from a reputable brew shop. The gentleman had quite a bit of experience with mead and he thought i shouldn't rehydrate the yeast as I was a new to the process and lots could go wrong if I didn't do it properly. Anyways, do you think I should be adding another packet of rehydrated yeast? I don't want to throw out the batch

 

[m0n5t3r]

I would go for it, and give it a taste, too, to make sure your initially stressed out super-yeast that managed to overcome your initial conditions didn't produce nasty flavors

I guess skipping rehydration might work with low gravity musts (although it's not ideal), but combined with a high gravity like you had it ensured that most cells you put in there didn't become active, because it's a pretty unfriendly environment (they most likely became food for the ones that did become active, but the resulting population was too small to ferment at any significant rate).

The only way I see for messing up rehydration is using water that is too hot (get a thermometer, or test on the back of your hand and make sure it feels lukewarm - assuming you're at a room temperature above, say, 20C, otherwise your senses can trick you), the rest should be pretty safe if you read what it says on the package (I'm not sure you can poison it with goferm unless you really try)

 

[omeadows]

I did notice a bit of a different taste in the last three weeks. Im wondering if i should add some sort of fruit or concentrate to try to hide it? I think i will add yeast first, see what happens and worry about taste once its closer to being done fermenting.

 

[bernardsmith]

Hi omeadows and welcome. Here's what I might do. Put aside the problem mead and take a pound (half kilo) of honey and add enough water to bring the gravity to about 1.035 - 1.40 . You might mix the honey with the water in a blender - that helps to aerate the must I would expect that you have about 1 US gallon of liquid To this pitch some yeast (I would also rehydrate the yeast) and after pitching add some nutrient and perhaps some tannin. Stir twice daily to help remove the CO2 and after about 7- 14 days this mead should be brut dry (about 1.000 or less). Taste it. It is still very green but this is a successful if very low ABV mead and a mead without a great deal of wonderful flavor, but it is a mead and you have cut your teeth.
But in addition to cutting your teeth on this first mead now you have a great starter for the problem mead. I would add about .25 of a gallon (2 liters/ 2 qts) of the problem mead to this starter and whip the bejesus out of this mixture. It SHOULD begin to ferment. If it DOESN"T then there is a systemic problem with the problem mead. But if it does begin to actively ferment and you monitor the change in gravity wait for the gravity to again get close to 1.000 and then add .5 gallon (about 4 liters) from the problem batch and repeat this doubling the volume you are adding each time the gravity falls back close to 1.000. Good luck.

 

[Squatchy]

Hi omeadows and welcome. Here's what I might do. Put aside the problem mead and take a pound (half kilo) of honey and add enough water to bring the gravity to about 1.035 - 1.40 . You might mix the honey with the water in a blender - that helps to aerate the must I would expect that you have about 1 US gallon of liquid To this pitch some yeast (I would also rehydrate the yeast) and after pitching add some nutrient and perhaps some tannin. Stir twice daily to help remove the CO2 and after about 7- 14 days this mead should be brut dry (about 1.000 or less). Taste it. It is still very green but this is a successful if very low ABV mead and a mead without a great deal of wonderful flavor, but it is a mead and you have cut your teeth.
But in addition to cutting your teeth on this first mead now you have a great starter for the problem mead. I would add about .25 of a gallon (2 liters/ 2 qts) of the problem mead to this starter and whip the bejesus out of this mixture. It SHOULD begin to ferment. If it DOESN"T then there is a systemic problem with the problem mead. But if it does begin to actively ferment and you monitor the change in gravity wait for the gravity to again get close to 1.000 and then add .5 gallon (about 4 liters) from the problem batch and repeat this doubling the volume you are adding each time the gravity falls back close to 1.000. Good luck.

Bernard. Do you think that the new batch, (especially without any food could plow through 6 gallons of mead). I would be surprised. I also feel the old batch has been nothing but a breeding ground for all kinds of critters not overly conducive to a drinkable flavor profile.
Not trying to be disrespectful here friend. But personally. I would toss it at this point.

 

[bernardsmith]

Bernard. Do you think that the new batch, (especially without any food could plow through 6 gallons of mead). I would be surprised. I also feel the old batch has been nothing but a breeding ground for all kinds of critters not overly conducive to a drinkable flavor profile.
Not trying to be disrespectful here friend. But personally. I would toss it at this point.

You make an excellent point, Squatchy. I had forgotten that there was insufficient nutrient added to the problem batch but a simple solution may be to add 1/8 of a teaspoon of nutrient each time some of the problem batch is added to the starter. I am pathologically averse to tossing out any wine or mead I make so I will do somersaults to try to find a way to keep a batch. And sure the problem batch may not taste like divine ambrosia even years from now and there may be uninvited yeast and bacteria in the mead but such organisms can still result in surprisingly delightful flavors. (brewers today now work hard to introduce brett and lactic bacteria and ped into their beers that 15 years ago would have been thought as disastrous flaws.

The underlying thought behind my remark is to help omeadows see how simple it really is to make a batch of mead - the starter (albeit one with about 4-5% alcohol (so comparable to an alcohol rich ale) and perhaps use that batch to try to salvage the larger batch much like throwing out a life belt to save a drowning swimmer. Will the problem batch be salvageable? I don't know but omeadows will have been introduced to problems and questions and solutions that his first exposure to mead making may not have...I don't see making this small "session" batch as pouring good mead after bad. Rather I see this as an attempt to salvage something out of a problem - and that something is more about skills development and the acquisition of practical knowledge...

 

[omeadows]

Thanks guys, very much appreciate it. I have lots of carboys and I think I will play with it a bit. Why do you say there is insufficient nutrient? I added staggered nutrient on day 1,2,3, and 10. I also aerated for the first 10 days and few other days after two to help. it did get going again after I added 1/2tsp of nutrient and aerated it just slowed right down again after dropping from 1.09-1.07. 4 days ago I added more nutrient and aerated again. I will test SG in 4 more days when I can (Work away from home) I think I will try pitching some hydrated yeast.

 

[Squatchy]

You make an excellent point, Squatchy. I had forgotten that there was insufficient nutrient added to the problem batch but a simple solution may be to add 1/8 of a teaspoon of nutrient each time some of the problem batch is added to the starter. I am pathologically averse to tossing out any wine or mead I make so I will do somersaults to try to find a way to keep a batch. And sure the problem batch may not taste like divine ambrosia even years from now and there may be uninvited yeast and bacteria in the mead but such organisms can still result in surprisingly delightful flavors. (brewers today now work hard to introduce brett and lactic bacteria and ped into their beers that 15 years ago would have been thought as disastrous flaws.

The underlying thought behind my remark is to help omeadows see how simple it really is to make a batch of mead - the starter (albeit one with about 4-5% alcohol (so comparable to an alcohol rich ale) and perhaps use that batch to try to salvage the larger batch much like throwing out a life belt to save a drowning swimmer. Will the problem batch be salvageable? I don't know but omeadows will have been introduced to problems and questions and solutions that his first exposure to mead making may not have...I don't see making this small "session" batch as pouring good mead after bad. Rather I see this as an attempt to salvage something out of a problem - and that something is more about skills development and the acquisition of practical knowledge...

I hear ya. It will teach him some things a succesfil batch would not have walked him through otherwise. I guess I feel pretty certain that you can't make a good mead out of a junk one. And I just figure his batch has had so much stress it would be full of fusels. I am not one who believes you can age out fusels to a point where the mead is "as if" if was never wounded. Indeed it can lose some of the heat. But a good palatte will always be able to taste the footprint left behind. ( In my opinion)

 

[Squatchy]

Thanks guys, very much appreciate it. I have lots of carboys and I think I will play with it a bit. Why do you say there is insufficient nutrient? I added staggered nutrient on day 1,2,3, and 10. I also aerated for the first 10 days and few other days after two to help. it did get going again after I added 1/2tsp of nutrient and aerated it just slowed right down again after dropping from 1.09-1.07. 4 days ago I added more nutrient and aerated again. I will test SG in 4 more days when I can (Work away from home) I think I will try pitching some hydrated yeast.

So please spend some time in this handbook. It will teach you two very critical procedures you will need to employ if this ever stands a chance. You need to understand how to rehydrate dry yeast. How to fortify it with a rehydration protocol/adjunct. ( this you will want to do the rest of your life. And you will need to understand how to restart a stalled batch. You never want to let a batch struggle more than a few days. a GOOD PROCEDURE ( REHYDRATATION WITH GO FERM AND ATTEMPERATTION TO TEMP AND INNOCULATE) is priceless. Proper cell count at pitch with proper science should move out of lag phase within 8 hours max. Much of mine are half that. If I go to bed and wake up and don't see proof I already start to get suspicious. If it's still not gotten off when I get home, I will go back to figuring things out. I have only once had a batch that didn't get off so well. And have never stalled. That should be a thing of the past. I don't even pitch until I see proof my yeast are alive. And I can see this within minutes of placing my yeast in my rehydration slurry, Even before I add it to my vessel.

Here. page 7 and 30. http://www.scottlab.com/pdf/ScottlabsHandbook2016.pdf

 

[omeadows]

Thanks, I will start doing this. That first batch was a big waste of money and time.

 

[Squatchy]

Thanks, I will start doing this. That first batch was a big waste of money and time.

Don't look at it that way. It was a learning experience you paid for. I hope you learned to be patient. Slow down until you know what you are doing. Double check when you are new so others can catch your errors before they become mistakes. I'm a firm believer we learn more from our failures than we do from our success. Especially if we have the correct attitude to learn in these situations.