# What Yeast For A Mead.



## Tony (11/4/06)

I am thinking of making a 10 to 12 % ABV mead. I have found a local and cheap source of fantastic honey. Fresh, natural and un-processed. Perfect!  

Im not sure what the best yeast would be.

LAger yeast? malty or a dry one?

Ale yeast? A clean WLP001 or an english ale yeast as it an english traditional drink isnt it?

cheers


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## bradmcm (11/4/06)

A wine yeast or, of course, one of the mead yeasts from Wyeast or White Labs.

Many beer yeasts will conk out at around the 10% mark, some less - around 8-9%, so this should also be a factor in your decision if you choose a beer strain.


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## MHB (11/4/06)

D-47

MHB


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## Airgead (12/4/06)

Tony said:


> I am thinking of making a 10 to 12 % ABV mead. I have found a local and cheap source of fantastic honey. Fresh, natural and un-processed. Perfect!
> 
> Im not sure what the best yeast would be.
> 
> ...



Tony

Definitely a wine yeast. I haven't used the white labs or wyeast ones but I have had good results with the gervin dry wine yeasts. The Number 5 (white label) and the E (Blue on white label). They are about $4.50 at my LHBS.

Cheers
Dave


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## Tony (12/4/06)

is that a dry yeast mate?

was looking at the wyeast range and a couple cought my eye

3632 dry mead of course and some googling has revealed they the 3782 Sauternes wine strain is highly recomended

cheers


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## Airgead (12/4/06)

Tony said:


> is that a dry yeast mate?
> 
> was looking at the wyeast range and a couple cought my eye
> 
> ...



Tony

Sauterns might end a bit sweet. Depends on whether you want a dry or sweet mead of course.

I know the champane strains are very popular for dry meads.

Cheers
Dave


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## MHB (12/4/06)

Tony
Dry Mead means all the sugar has been eaten by the yeast therefore higher alcohol, sweet means residual sugar and generally a lower alcohol around the 10-12% you were looking for.

Start with a good dry wine yeast I would recommend Lavin D-47 for less than $5 and get your process right before bothering with the expensive liquid yeast.

MHB


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## colinw (12/4/06)

I got really good results with Lalvin D-47, and don't think I'd bother with anything else for a dry mead.


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## Tony (12/4/06)

thanks folks.

The advice is great and all taken on board

I will try the D-47, my local Miter 10 has it on the shelf and will be doing 1 galon batches in 5 liter glass caboreys.

Less waste if i muf it hey.

One more question.

I was reading on a couple of sites that it can oxidise real easy and it is recomended to have minimal headspace in the firmentation vessle.

Does this wine yeast foam up much? 

If it does, can i leave a good head space and purge it with Co2 before i pop the stopper and airlock in?

What is recomended?

cheers folks


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## Airgead (13/4/06)

Tony said:


> thanks folks.
> 
> The advice is great and all taken on board
> 
> ...



Tony

I can't speak for the D-47 but all the yeasts I have used foam a bit at first but then settle down for a loooonnnngggg slow fermentation with little or no foam.

My experience has been that mead is no more likely to oxidise than beer so I wouldn't worry about purging with co2 or anything like that. I think that a lot of the paranoia that mead makers seem to have about oxidisation comes from poor brewing practices. Many mead makers seem to rack 2 or 3 times then mature in the carboy for extended periods. The racking will oxygenate the mead anyway and will reduce the volume which gives a big oxygen filled headspace for the long bulk maturation. Many mead recipies also assume that you will be adding an antioxidant (like sodium metabisulphate) at every racking which I prefer not to.

If you treat it like a beer - rack once to a secondary once fermentation is finished then wait for it to clear before bottling you should be fine. The only diference is that primary and secondary will take longer than a beer.

From reading several mead making forums lately my view is that mead making is lagging home brewing technique wise by about 20 years (and wine making by about 200). Few people keep good records. Many of the recipes use non standard measurements and few have any gravity readings. Most recipes seem to be posted from memory months or years after the brew was made when they have a bottle and find that it was good. Nothing seems to be repeatable.

I suspect this is bacause mead makers are fewer in number and thus more silitary. They don't have the kind of community that homebrewing has. It is the amazing passion in the homebrewing community that has lifted home beer making from a tin of goo in a bucket to a real craft in a very short time. Mead makers are still stuck at the tin of goo stage.

I have decided to throw all my mead making books in the bin and start again from first principles. I am brushing up on my wine making reading and will apply this to mead. Hopefully in a year or 2 I will have enough material for a mead making guide of my own.

Apologies for the rant. 

Cheers
Dave


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## Tony (13/4/06)

no such thing as a rant when good advice is at hand.....

I am dedicated to producing fime AG beer and i have a few trophies to prove it.

I will be putting the same dedicated fanacisism i have for beer into the mead. I am only going to start with 1 gallon batches and get it right first. I have done some reading and from the sounds of it if i buy the gear tommorrow i will be drinking mead by mid to late 2007

well maybe it wont last that long.

cheers


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## Stuster (13/4/06)

Nice idea to branch out into mead making, Tony. I also have a couple of 5litre glass carboys and seems a shame not to be putting them to productive use.  

Interesting post, Airgead. Get in there and be the Mead Guru.

PS Any chance of a recipe?


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## Airgead (18/4/06)

Stuster said:


> PS Any chance of a recipe?
> [post="120213"][/post]​



I'll be putting on a test batch of Strawberry Mel sometime during the week (ran out of time over the weekend with the Belgian pale and all). This is the start of my serious experimenting. I am starting with mels as they (in theory) mature faster so the learning curve shoud be quicker).

Honey is a bit variable so exact quantities are hard but for a 1 gal batch I am aiming for 12%ABV so around 1.5kg of the White Box honey I have at home. Fermented with Gervin number 5 as its neutral and I don't want any yeast character to mask any mistakes I make. I will use some yeast nutrient to get things going as honey is a bit low nutrient wise. One hint from the winemakers here - acid will be adjusted AFTER fermentation not before. Wine PH is much lower than beer and yeast will ferment much slower at the low PH, especialy in a nutrient poor environment. Most mead recipes tell you to adjust acid before fermenting. This could be why meads are tradtionaly known for really slow fermenations. Pulped strawberry will be added at a rate of 50g/l in the primary. 

I will rack off the pulp after a week and continue fermentation in a secondary. Once complete acid will be adjusted using a 50/50 malic/tartaric blend.

Once clear, I'll be bottling this in some 330ml beer bottles with crown seals as I don't want any flavours from corks.

This will be my baseline wine for the rest of my experiments. I will brew this same wine over and over again (hope I don't get sick of it) changing one thing at a time (yeast strain, honey type, acid blend, diferent amount of fruit, adding fruit in secondary, sealing with cork etc) to see what changes in the wine when I change the process. I'll also try a bottle every month or 2 to see how it changes as it ages.

Once I've learned all I can from this one I'll apply that to some other fruits and hopefully start making some interesting wines. 

Cheers
Dave


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## GMK (18/4/06)

Tony

If the honey is natural you might wnat to biol and skim the crap off...
Also - 1/4 teaspoon of grape tanin per 5ltrs is good also.

i use the wyeast Sweet Mead yeats.

Never ever use champagne - way too dry and really the yeast leaves nothing behind for you - no body at all.

Hope this helps


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## berapnopod (18/4/06)

Airgead said:


> I will rack off the pulp after a week and continue fermentation in a secondary.



Why so quick? I have had meads that take longer than a week to get going with the primary fermentation and they typically take many weeks to get through the primary phase. BTW, I don't use acid.

Perhaps you mean after primary is done, add the strawberries and then rack a week later. Sounds more reasonable. I don't have much experience with adding fruit to meads, but I've read that you would typically add at the rate of 100g per litre or higher.

Would be interested to hear the results in any case!

Berp.


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## berapnopod (18/4/06)

GMK said:


> If the honey is natural you might wnat to biol and skim the crap off...



Don't boil the must! For a start it will quickly evaporate some of the more delicate aromas. Secondly, although I have no scientific evidence for this, the crap you're talking about skimming off is probably one of the few sources of nutrients available to yeast when fermenting a must, since its probably protien matter made of bits of bees etc.

Berp.


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## GMK (18/4/06)

berapnopod said:


> GMK said:
> 
> 
> > If the honey is natural you might wnat to biol and skim the crap off...
> ...



The crap i am referring to is any wax and stuff left in.
The are 2 divided camps with mead - one is for boiling the other is not to boil.
Pros and cons on boyth sides.


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## Airgead (19/4/06)

berapnopod said:


> Why so quick? I have had meads that take longer than a week to get going with the primary fermentation and they typically take many weeks to get through the primary phase. BTW, I don't use acid.
> 
> Perhaps you mean after primary is done, add the strawberries and then rack a week later. Sounds more reasonable. I don't have much experience with adding fruit to meads, but I've read that you would typically add at the rate of 100g per litre or higher.
> 
> ...



Berp

I am planning to add the fruit right at the beginning then after a week rack off the pulp and let it ferment out. I suppose its not strictly a secondary, more like a second primary. he reason for this is to get the wine off the fruit pulp before it starts to decay and does anything nasty to the taste. After a week it should have extracted all the flavours that its going to. After the second primary I will rack to a secondary (tertiary?) to get it off the yeast and let it clear before bottling.

Future batches will change the process so i can see what effect addign ghe fruit later in the process has. I'll also be testing racking off the pulp sooner and later as well. I might even split a 5l batch into 5 1l flasks and decant one off the fruit pulp every week to see whether the pulp does decay and impart any off flavours.

I chose 50g/l as being in the middle of the range I am going to test. Subsequent batches will be 25g/l, 75gl/ and 100g/l. I would rather start testing with a fairly mild flavour to see if larger additions are noticeable. If I started high I suspect it would be harder to tell the diference between the additions.

I'm going full on anal about this I know but with a distinguished food scientist as a father (the inventor of passiona and one of the brains behind GI cordial no less) its in my genes :lol: 

Cheers
Dave

Edit - I was trying to think of this while writing the post but of course it only came to me as I hit the submit button - the theory behind the racking off the fruit is borrowed from winemaking where wine (mostly red) is left on the crushed skins for a period fo time during initial fermentation to extract colour and tanins but is then racked off after a few days/weeks to complete fermentation.


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## Airgead (19/4/06)

GMK said:


> The are 2 divided camps with mead - one is for boiling the other is not to boil.
> [post="121095"][/post]​



Thats one of the things I will be testing as well - identical batches one boiled the other not. I may even do diferent length boils plus just pasturisation.

Cheers
Dave


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