Regarding using cold to "kill" yeast: My experience is this doesnt work well at all. It will temporarily stop the active fermentation, but mine have always started back up once I warmed the must back to room temp. To add to that, even my attempts to stabilize an active fermentation using chemicals & cold have failed. YMMV.
Stopping the ferment
- Thread starter cabeasle
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This is also called "crashing" or "crash cooling", and 4°C is about 39°F, and 1) best results are done slightly under freezing (-1°C, 30°F), 2) it doesnt kill the yeast, just puts them into dormancy... you bottle like this with backsweetening honey and then warm the bottles up, bottle bombs or shooting corks. 3) Significant drops of organic material and clarity from crashing usually takes a number of days at that temperature. Now once the yeast go dormant, and drop to the bottom, you can rack off of them, but keep it cold (below the yeast fermentation range) and it should keep them dormant. Dangerous game, your doctor bills.
Actually Mars, for Nate and I, our doctors don't bill. Yay for country-mandated health care. ;D
But yeah, if you're drinking everything within 6 weeks (bleck!) what the heck, it's barely worth the trouble of bottling. Although I'd probably opt for 2 litre pop bottles, at least you can squeeze them to see if they're TOO hard and let off some pressure if they are... and they do LESS damage (although not NO damage, ask Fatbloke) if they explode.
Cold crashing, if it drops a lot of yeast out of your must AND then you rack off it, can decrease the number of viable cells that you have to deal with when you hit it with chemicals to try to stop it so the chemicals are more likely to work. But there are still going to be some yeast still suspended, in most cases, unless the yeast was ALMOST pooped out anyway, it won't just stop a fermentation longer than it takes to warm back up.
And Nate, it might be worth some experiments with nutrients and energizer, I've found since I started using those I am a lot less likely to end up with a ferment that sticks or takes a long time to finish or develops off-flavours due to ticked-off yeasts. Prove it to yourself. That's how I am too, gotta see the results myself before I change my habits, especially if I think what I was doing worked fine already. ... of course, this is how my to-do list became the stuff of legends...
I'm sorry, I'm still a lot new to all of the brewing world. We have sulfites (like K-Metas and the like) to kill off any remaining yeast after what we think would be a full fermentation from hydrometer tests.
My question: what would be a reason NOT to use sulfites? Bad taste? Wierd taste? Causes cancer? Causes the devil's threesome?
My question: what would be a reason NOT to use sulfites? Bad taste? Wierd taste? Causes cancer? Causes the devil's threesome?
as mentioned above cooling it down simply pauses the yeast so you can rack the yeast off the mead. however that doesn't remove all of the yeast. whats left fire back up once it warms up.
you will need to chemically stabilize, sterile filter or pasteurize.
I'm sorry, I'm still a lot new to all of the brewing world. We have sulfites (like K-Metas and the like) to kill off any remaining yeast after what we think would be a full fermentation from hydrometer tests.
My question: what would be a reason NOT to use sulfites? Bad taste? Wierd taste? Causes cancer? Causes the devil's threesome?
Some people are sensitive or allergic. I can't breathe near my sulphite sanitizing solution, but I have no problems drinking it (siphoning incident, don't ask)... According to what a lot of people here have found in their research, there are a lot more people who think they're sensitive or allergic to sulphites than who really are, but I'd never argue with what someone says is an allergy or a migraine trigger. I just make sure I carefully track what's in each of my meads and wines so that I don't accidentally give anyone something they'd rather avoid.
Is there anything wrong with just leaving the mead in the carboy indefinitely, and just removing the airlock and pouring some out whenever you want it? The only problem I can think of off hand is risk of oxygenation from opening the lock once or twice and creating more headspace...
Your mead will oxidize unless you replace the lost volume with something like sanitized glass marbles. And if you have a larger carboy, that will get expensive.
It will be fine if you use a Nitro Keg System, like the one from Northern Brewer.
So your mead level is now down below the shoulders of the carboy?
A few things are possible... if your airlock's still bubbling occasionally, it's safe to leave it as long as you're leaving the airlock on, the CO2 it's producing should displace any oxygen that got in there when you were racking.
If it's perfectly still, as other have suggested, aquarium-grade marbles can be used to raise the level, or sanitized synthetic corks... or you can top it off with wine, must, mead, juice, water or spirits...
A few things are possible... if your airlock's still bubbling occasionally, it's safe to leave it as long as you're leaving the airlock on, the CO2 it's producing should displace any oxygen that got in there when you were racking.
If it's perfectly still, as other have suggested, aquarium-grade marbles can be used to raise the level, or sanitized synthetic corks... or you can top it off with wine, must, mead, juice, water or spirits...
Don't forgot a mylar balloon. Stuff it in, then inflate it, works rather well.
