I have been making mead for a few years now. I have done this same recipe before (apple cider) and expected no issues. However- I am on day 5, and my mead has yet to start visible fermentation.

Recipe:
4 gallons of local apple cider
2 packets of EC-1118 yeast
~9 lbs of wildflower honey
Usual additions of Fermaid O and DAP
Some pectic enzyme for clarity

What is going on? I have been aerating twice a day and have yet to see any bubbles!

Clarification: Secondary fermentation = 1.000 gravity for 3 days, and is racked into another container, off the lees.

During secondary fermentation you generally use a carboy to reduce surface area and oxygen exposure, but what if after racking you only have enough mead to fill the carboy up to right where the neck starts to narrow, so it's not reducing surface area?

Also is it so bad to rack into a bucket with lots of surface area?

And finally: if primary fermentation takes place in a carboy, how do you replace lost liquid volume from racking to get up to the neck?

This has been bottled for about 6 months now. First batch I’ve made.

Is this residue sitting on top of the liquid standard?

Disclaimer: This is my first time making mead, and I realize I might be missing some basics so I apologize in advance :). I was relying on my own enthusiasm, advice from "knowledgeable" folks, and a few things I picked up online.

I started four days ago. I’m using a 30 liter barrel with a clamp-style lid and an airlock. I used about 5.5 kg of homemade honey and around 22 liters of water (I heated the honey to about 40-45°C, then added room-temperature water, after that wait for must to cool down to room temperature in the barrel). Beforehand, I sanitized the barrel and all tools with a Bio-San and added about 9 grams of fermaid e to the must.

I rehydrated a sachet of Mangrove Jack’s Mead (M05) yeast in room-temperature water, added it to the mix, stirred it in, sealed the barrel with the metal clamp, and installed an airlock filled with vodka.

Today marks the fourth day, and the airlock is silent. I’m wondering: is it time to worry? I’ve checked the seal, and as far as I can tell, the barrel is airtight.

I acknowledge I might have made some fundamental mistakes. I’d like to know if the situation is salvageable or if I should just dump the contents down the drain and chalk it up to "experience" :)

Any kind of advice is highly appreciated

Hi all. I just returned from a trip to Prague, and my wife fell in love with the sweeter meads served in a lot of the bars. I’m a fairly seasoned beer homebrewer, but have never made mead, and would like to give making a batch similar to what we tried a shot. The first one we tried was a dessert style, and very sweet. She liked that one, but also enjoyed the less sweet varieties that we had. The herbal varieties not as much.

I’ve tried googling, but could only find one recipe in BrewersFriend. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Thanks!

I’m looking for a low alcohol mead fo a beginner.

Bottled 3 Meads on 10/09 and checked them yesterday and noticed discoloration on the bottom of the corks (side touching the mead). Is this mold? I am very thorough with my sanitation and soaked these puppies for 5-10 mins each before corking.

Testing what ratio of sugar to add for my bone dry Apple melomel. I am thinking of adding cinnamon as well, or maybe even some Graham Crackers to get more of a "pie" character.

I'm in Viet Nam so most of the usual stuff is not available. Been using boiled bread yeast and wondering if this would work well.

the description of this product translate to :|

Yeast extract, also called Yeast Concentrate, is the name for products made from yeast that are processed by removing the cells. They are used as food additives, flavorings, or as nutrients for microorganism growth media.

It is extracted from the nucleus of the Saccharomyces Cerevisiae yeast cells. This part of the yeast has the highest nutritional content, containing lots of carbohydrates and amino acids. Therefore, Yeast Extract FM902 is considered a carbon source for microbial culture.

Features:

- Nutrient-rich, meets the growth needs of microorganisms

- Non-GMO

- Affordable price

Ingredients:

- Total Nitrogen > 10.0%

- Amino Nitrogen > 5.0%

- Moisture ≤ 6.0%

- Ash ≤ 15%

- Sodium Chloride ≤ 2%

- pH (2% solution): 5.3 ~ 7.2

Dosage: from 0.5% to 5%, can be adjusted depending on the specific product.

Storage: in a cool place, tightly sealed after use.

Shelf life: 24 months from the manufacturing date.

Packaging:

- 500g bottle

- Bag

Estoy muy ansioso de probarla cuando termine la fermentación, apenas lleva una semana, la hice como simple experimento con levadura de pan, miel, manzana y canela. Siguiendo todos los tips de esterilización, de momento parece ir bien y el airlock sigue cumpliendo su función. Según mis cantidades (3L agua, 1L miel y 4g de levadura) podría llegar a unos 8 grados de alcohol, ¿alguien sabe si puede llegar a más o se mantendrá de 8-11?

Basic Orange blossom honey mead, back sweetened with the same. If i did everything correctly with the measurements, it’s at 7.8% abv.

Definitely feel like it’s lacking but it’s a start. Its smooth n lightly sweet.

The large bottle ill keep n the 4 flask ill give to friends. (I want my bottles back 👀). Not sure what i wanna do with the last one yet lol.

3lb 3.25oz snap dragon apples, cored and macerated

5lb local wildflower honey, raw

1 gal. Bigelow's Apple Cinnamon blend tea, steeped hot

1pkg(1/4oz) Fleischmann's ActiveDry yeast, original

1.5tsp yeast nutrient, staggered; 1.0tsp on pitch, .25 day 1, .25 sugar break

3/4tsp nutrient booster, added at pitch

3/10tsp pectic enzyme, added 1hr pre-pitch

I pitched the yeast into approximately 1.4 gallons of must at 85°F, with an OG of 1.120 per hydrometer last night.

This evening, after degassing with a stir wand until the bubbles stopped whipping up, the hydrometer read 1.048. That seemed really steep after a single day using bread yeast, so I checked again after another stir. Same reading, so I took a refractometer reading to compare against and that read 17° Brix.

tl;dr Apple cinnamon cyser batch dropped ~72 points overnight, mildly confused.

Just bottled half of my first batch - I divided into two smaller batches, this one was the hibiscus metheglin -, it did render two demi sweet to almost dry bottles and two sweet ones.

Recipe:

- 2,4kg of assa-peixe honey

- Water until I got to 7,5L

- Red star premiere classique

- 6g of BBY

Transfered to secondary and added 750ml of hibiscus tea into 3L of the original mead, the rest stayed traditional

Hi, the title says it.

This is my very first batch of melomel, and today after 6 days of primary the gravity is 1.000.

I tried it, tasted god awful. Very boozy, like cheap wine that's been left sitting in a fridge for a week. The taste of the raspberries is barely noticeable, just a scratch of a hint.

I know its supposed to age, but I didn't expect it to taste this bad... How normal is this? Should I leave it in primary for another week or transfer it to secondary already? It's supposed to be 8% ABV, but tastes like 20.

The recipe is:

Lalvin 71b

850g Honey

1.5kg Frozen raspberries

rest is water, until 4.3L of total must, SG 1.061

0.8g pectic enzyme

Staggered DAP for 2.4g total: 1st 0.8g before pitching yeast, 2nd 0.8g after 2-3 days as soon as bubbling appeared, 3rd 0.8g after 24 hours.

Since I started making mead, I’ve struggled to get it clear. I see people online making crystal-clear mead without any fining agents. Even a friend who doesn’t use any additives gets clearer mead in less time than I do.

Across different batches, I’ve tried bentonite, gelatin, pectic enzyme, different honeys, and different yeasts. Somehow, my mead always stays a little cloudy or continues dropping sediment, leaving a layer at the bottom of the bottles.

My current problem is a mixed berry mead I started on September 2. It’s still very cloudy, with no noticeable improvement.

Here’s what I used and tried:

• Strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, and some cherries.
• I froze the fruit, then added pectic enzyme while it thawed.
• Mangrove Jack’s yeast and local honey.
• Bentonite in secondary for 10 days, which had no noticeable effect.

I’m considering another dose of pectic enzyme or trying gelatin, but I’m not sure either would help.

Could my siphoning technique be stirring up sediment and contributing to the cloudiness? Or could this be a persistent haze that needs a different approach? Is it simply too early to expect it to clear?

Any advice on what to check or try next would be appreciated.

Happy fall everyone! I was wondering if anyone on here knew of a meadery that’s producing any fun fall themed mead? Last year I went to Viking Alchemist in Atlanta around Christmas and they had an amazing Christmas mead, I’m wondering if I can get something like that right now for fall! I’m located on the west coast but open to any suggestions! Thank you :)

2025 traditional dry mead.

4 quarts of honey
Water to 5 gallons
Wyeast dry mead

I think I added some nutrient. Pretty and strong but not using the Wyeast again. I hate trying to pop those inner packets and not crazy about the end flavor. Although this does need to be aged some more.

I just picked up SafMead Twist and Classic and I’m going to start a batch of each this week.

So what was supposed to be 2.5L of Elderberry mead turned into 10L of Gurdy. This was more than me and my partner were bargaining for, but after the discovery of an extra 1kg of Honey and 0.5kg of Applestroop, we decided to go big.

We used bottled water, boiled wild elder berry into juice, sanitised the equipment, and added everything together with 1 packet of MJ M05 Mead yeast and 6g of yeast nutrients.

The problem: After 2 days of waiting, we started getting some bubbles, and it looked strong for about 2 days. However, all progress has halted for the last couple of days, and there hasn't been any activity.

Ideas: Is it possible for the sudden change in temperature (we are in Belgium), over the last week halted the progress of the fermentation. Is there a problem with the method? I heard about stagaring the yeast nutrients, or is it that we needed to temper the yeast?

??Is there even a problem???

Thanks for any guidance. Everything i have read up on so far has just told me to have patience.

Please help us save Gurdy!

Ingredients: 9L - Water 2kg - Honey 0.5kg - Applestroop 1L - Elder berry juice 10g - MJ M05 Mead Yeast 6g - Yeast Nutrient

Initial specific gravity - 1064

Hey fellow mazers! I got myself into a bit of a pickle on a recent batch and wanted to crowd source ideas. Was going for a Bochet using Amber LME but ended up burning the honey to the point of blackness. It finished at 1.030 (thinking it's finished and not a stall based on the non-fermentable sugars in the malt and the burnt honey probably having more NFS than usual) yet the burnt honey taste and hops are the strongest flavor. It's not terrible but not what I was hoping for.

Anyone have any ideas to bring this back to life aside from just sweetening the heck out of it? I'm open to anything honestly. Spices, fruits, flavor extracts?

Recipe:

1.1 lbs Sparkling Amber LME

1.5 lbs Wildflower Honey bochet'd for 40 minutes (burnt)

1 oz Nugget Hops at beginning of boil.

1 oz Centennial Hops added at last 5 minutes of boil.

128 oz water, half for boil and half added after.

1/2 packet of SafAle BE-134

Fermaid-O

SG 1.082 8/29

FG 1.030 on 9/26 and consistent since.

Howdy yall, im looking to make some mead for my wonderful gf for December, she jokingly said she'd want apple pie mead, mind you shes celiac So this won't be an easy recipe, I've had ideas for this like using a creamed honey for part of it, if any of yalls have an established recipe id be happy to have em!

Been working on this since early August. 3lbs of local Maryland wild flower honey, 3 pounds of fresh blueberries in a brew bag for 3 weeks with pectic enzymes, 71B and fermaidO fed. Took about 4 weeks to go dry then back sweetened to 1.016 with more honey, rested with vanilla bean for a week then bottled today. Tilt was taken out a little early when I moved containers to finish fermenting. Already tastes great and named after my daughter who was born 2 weeks ago :D

Very happy and came out very clear.