# Ec1118 Mead



## troopa (13/1/12)

Hi Everyone
Well my wifes really wanting to go full swing into Meads these days but i have a little concern that i was hoping someone might be able to clarify 
She has a plain Mead down at the moment that started out at 1.105 in a 5L demijohn using EC1118 and is now in secondary and clarifying very nicely(Read my wife is getting excited about it being finished and wants to bottle)
So after a few little tastes (Sweet) and a refractometer reading its sitting about 14brix or about 1.027 (Beersmith conversion) or about 10.5%
Would I be right to think that this isnt nearly close to finished ? And need to do a little something to either get it started again or camden it ... if my wife likes the level of sweetness?

Edit: Well i was wrong all the way ... just been informed that it wasnt a EC1118 and infact just a standard plain wine white yeast. So any thoughts on this would be good too 
Thanks Tom


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## Airgead (13/1/12)

Troopa said:


> Hi Everyone
> Well my wifes really wanting to go full swing into Meads these days but i have a little concern that i was hoping someone might be able to clarify
> She has a plain Mead down at the moment that started out at 1.105 in a 5L demijohn using EC1118 and is now in secondary and clarifying very nicely(Read my wife is getting excited about it being finished and wants to bottle)
> So after a few little tastes (Sweet) and a refractometer reading its sitting about 14brix or about 1.027 (Beersmith conversion) or about 10.5%
> ...



Really depends on the alcohol tolerance of the yeast. If its EC1118 it will handle 18% so I would expect the mead to finish dry. Other yeasts have tolerances down around 11-12% which is in your ballpark.

It could be finished. You could do the check every few days for a week trick but meads are known for getting stuck and fermenting really, really slowly which you might not catch if you check readings for a week. I tend to check every month for a couple of months if I'm not sure.

What you really need though is to look up the yeast strain and see what it is likely to get down to...

If the yeast has finished and you want it fryer you could pitch some 1118 and dry it out. 1118 is designed for that sort of thing.

Cheers
Dave


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