Beer Forum

Colville wrote:Hi DonMoleon

Many thanks for the speedy reply( - and to the mods for clearing me to contribute!)

16 months sounds a terribly long time to have the fermenter going. I have read up on nutrients for yeast in Mead, and the Blue Flame suggests Calgon (Calcium, potassium etc.). I have also seen grapes / raisins, citrus peel and charred toast suggested as nutrient sources. What have you tried that made a difference?

The small fridge idea sounds good. Do you vent it to the outside somehow? What happens if you are away for a long period. Do you have some way of keeping the temperature stable? I assume the fermenter gives off some heat in the first place, but a refrigerator on normal speed would probably shut fermentation down to a crawl.

I have a 'light desert wine' yeast which I brought with me precisely for the purpose of doing mead - it should be more tolerant to the sugar than the bread yeast would be and ought to ferment out more fully. I am hoping to create / start and split a culture from it using 50% the first time and chilling the rest for the future.

best regards,

Colville. HH.

You don't have to wait 16 months, 6 months probably would have yielded similar results for a mead of that quality. I just waited longer cause I put it away and basically forgot about it for a while. I think this is a good thing to do with any mead, considering how long they take. The longer you can forget about it the better...

I used raisins as yeast nutrient in my bread mead experiment. Now I have real yeast nutrient (I think I ordered it from Northern Brewer in the States and had a family member bring it here on a visit). If you don't have access to this then you should try raisins. I don't have experience with anything else, but they seem to work fairly well, and they won't create any undesirable flavors in your mead. A gentle shake (swirling motion) of your primary fermenter every couple of days will help keep the yeast active too.

My fridge is behind my house on a fully shaded back porch. I bought an analog temp controller used in air cons and other cooling mechanisms and by-passed the fridges thermostat, so I am able to adjust the fridge temp as warm or as cool as I want. You cannot use a fridge "as is" for fermenting, it would be far too cold. There is plenty of good advice on other threads here that can help you convert a fridge or freezer. If you are planning on keeping a batch of mead in there then you better get a large fridge/freezer, because you will need to dedicate a large mount of space for a long time to it, and you'll want extra space for your cider and anything else you're making. My fridge is fairly small, that's why I use it for fermenting my beer and just leave my mead in a warm room after primary fermentation is complete.