Stalled fermentation or being impatient?

[coreyc23]

This is my first two batches of mead. Both were 2.5 gallons of distilled water and 7 pounds of honey in each.

The batch with Red Star Premier Blanc Yeast is done fermenting and racked off into 3 smaller carboys. It is very dry so I hit it with a campden tablet and will back sweeten it in a few days.

The batch with the Lavlin 71b-1122 seems stalled. I added hibiscus flower tea to it in the very beginning. I racked it into 3 small carboys at the same time I racked the other finished batch (3 weeks into fermentation).
My OG was 1.0911 on 2/25
3/10 it was 1.040
3/28 it was 1.024
4/6 it was 1.022
At .002 difference every 10 days, this will take 4 months to reach the same SG as the other batch. Should I be patient, or could I add another teaspoon of nutrient to feed the yeast? It is very tasty already, and I can't wait to finish this one off. I was very careful during the racking process to not disturb the mead, but I've also seen people agitate the hell out of their mead after the first racking to "degas" it. Should I have done this step to either batches?

 

[Squatchy]

You're missing a ton of good practices. Not only will these take forever to finish fermenting. They will take forever to become drinkable as well.

If you find the podcast here. I walk, step by step through modern mead making with the most current science. Doing those things have made medals winning meads in less than 4-5 months Start on 9/5/17

 

[darigoni]

At this point it's really to late to add nutrient, especially if it has DAP in it.

You don't have to be that careful with mead. It's a lot more forgiving than when brewing beer.

1. Don't use distilled water. Use spring or tap (as long as you treat to eliminate chlorine and chloramines).

2. Did you do daily degassing and aerations?

3. Why are you racking before the fermentation was complete?

4. Read the NewBee guide.

5. Watch the 9 episode series, called "Meadology", by The Canadian Sasquatch. Pay particualr attention to episodes 6, 7 and 8.

6. Listen to the gotmead podcasts, starting on September 5th, 2017, about Modern Mead Making.

7. Let the batch get down to 1.020, then (if you are impatient) cold crash, stabilize and drink.

 

[caduseus]

Uhh nutrients? SNA or all at once? GoFerm?

 

[coreyc23]

I did a staggered nutrient (FermK) the first week and a light swirling of the carboys. I added another teaspoon after 2 weeks on the batch that seemed to be going slowly. I realized the error of the distilled water after the fact but my chemical engineering wife insisted upon it. I racked it because it had a huge cake of yeast at the bottom and a ton of sediment from the hibiscus flower tea that I apparently didn't filter as well as I thought.

Only the fully fermented mead had DAP in it. It is the second one that has not fermented that I did not add anything else to yet. The mead in question only has
7 pounds honey
2.5 gallons distilled water
Lavlin Yeast
2 teaspoons of FermK added over a week and lightly spun each time.

So just let it go slowly or can I do anything to it to help? It is striking the difference between the two batches I made at the same time and only changed the yeast between them.

 

[darigoni]

Fermaid K has DAP in it.

How do you expect a fermentation to finish if you separate (rack) it from the yeast? You should have been degassing, aerating and rousing (keeping the yeats in suspension) during the fermentation.

Are you doing any kind of temperature control? You could try stirring enough (every other day) to keep the yeast roused and also raise the temperature (just keep it in the range of operation 59-86F).

 

[caduseus]

Avoid DAP
Google TiOSNA to use Fermaid K
TOSNA for just Fermaid O which is ideal
I don’t know chemical engineering.
But as a BIOchemistry major and on in the medical field: never ever use distilled over spring water unless absolutely necessary
This is not chemistry.
More lik 2/3 biology and 1/3 biochemistry

 

[Stasis]

I doubt lightly swirly counts as aerating. If the ferment is already rolling lightly swirling will mostly just degas the mead. If your mead is in a carboy when fermenting it's difficult for oxygen to get into the carboy when aerating. It could be done but it needs to be much more vigorous. Even the most vigorous aerating has been proven scientifically to be insufficient and this is why I aerate much more when I do it manually vs if I were to use pure oxygen and a diffuser stone. This is how I do it when I want to aerate:
First I take off the rubber bung and start to swirl and splash as much as I can. The mead will start foaming and Co2 will be quickly escaping the carboy. I continue this until the must behaves like an unfermenting liquid i.e. something which does not have Co2 in it.
Then I start considering myself as aerating. I was probably aerating a bit before but you can't over aerate when just splashing your carboy, so no worries. I then splash the carboy as much as I can. There should be enough headspace that the liquid can go up the side of the fermenter and splash back down like a wave. The carboy is usually not more than 2/3 full when I do this and I even use carboys which are 1/2 full.
This 2nd step in aerating takes at least 5 minutes and up to 15 minutes. More or less I would aerate twice daily for the first 2-3 days and would aerate once daily after that depending on how the ferment is going. I can't give you an exact schedule because it varies depending on how the ferment is going. After the 1/3 sugar break there is no more aerating unless the mead seems to need help, although this has never happened to me yet.