The yeast that w..i..l..l.....n..o..t......d..i..e.....
  • reverendbeerreverendbeer
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    Ok, a little background....SWMBO and I made a little 3 gallon batch of mead over the holiday season. Used 5 lbs of honey in three gallons of water. Did almost EVERYTHING wrong, according to the Compleat Meadmaker.



    Used some ale yeast...figured it'd finish around 4-4.5%. Pitched on 13 December. Yay! All is right and good with the world.



    Except it's STILL GOING.



    Yeast? Cheap-ass Coopers Ale yeast.



    And where, you may ask, is this husky, pedestrian, working man's Ale yeast doing it's business? The bottom of the f&^*ing carboy, sirrah, with the finest, most delicate trub EVAR...I mean, you could make ceramic out of this shit. Seriously. Give me a kiln. I'll prove it.



    So...my initial gravity of 1.050 should, I suspect, have, if I surmise correctly, and stop using so many commas, have completed by now.



    EXCEPT IT'S STILL GOING.



    Checked it on 26 December....26 DECEMBER...and it was at 1.026.



    Haven't checked again...yet...but IT'S STILL GOING.



    Anyway, I'm going to siphon off about a half gallon and throw in 4 lbs of raspberries and see where that leads me.



    SWMBO doesn't like the dry stuff, so I think the rest will get bottled soon and pasturized...the cider forum on HBtalk has a sticky with instructions....



    ...



    I've completely forgotten where I was going with this, now.



    Oh, right....random thoughts, anyone? Anyone want some purportedly Cooper's Ale yeast that W..i..l..l.....N..o..t.....D..I..E....?



    I'm going to check the SG again tomorrow night...I can't believe that there's anything vaguely dextrus/glucus/fructus (or however such things are spelled) left....except for the steady stream of tiny bubbles coming of of the yeast cake.
  • KkralicekKkralicek
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    Well I can say that Honey is 95% fermentable and ferments slower than most simple sugers. Maybe plays a part?
  • KunkemonsterKunkemonster
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    Yeah from what I understand and have experienced unless you use stepped additions of nutrients and energizer and plenty of aeration for the first few days you will have a fermentation that takes months instead of 2 weeks. I'm on my second mead (blueberry) and used some harvested S05 yeast, some yeast nutrient, 2.5 pounds of honey, and 1 pound of frozen crushed blueberries November 22nd and it's still going.



    I have since listened to Ken Schramm on the brewing network and picked up a copy of his book so I think my next mead attempt will be much shorter. My goal is a mead in the 6-8% range that is drinkable in 2 months which I think is very reasonable.
  • gordsellargordsellar
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    Yeah from what I understand and have experienced unless you use stepped additions of nutrients and energizer and plenty of aeration for the first few days you will have a fermentation that takes months instead of 2 weeks. I'm on my second mead (blueberry) and used some harvested S05 yeast, some yeast nutrient, 2.5 pounds of honey, and 1 pound of frozen crushed blueberries November 22nd and it's still going.



    Well, I only did one addition of the DAP right at the beginning and my bokbunja melomel only took a couple of weeks to ferment out -- though it also had a bunch of pasteurized black raspberries right in primary. (Now I'm waiting to rack it to a keg, since I know I'll be staying on; the keg is opaque and will be nice and airtight, so it seems a better bet to me.



    I figure I'll try wash some of the yeast and get a second batch of dry mead out of it. (The current yeast cake is going to be full of spent black raspberries, so I don't really fancy dumping the next must right on top of that all... though who knows, maybe the spent berries will still provide enough nutrient to keep the process quick?



    I happen to have a second yeast batch, for sweet mead, which I'll likewise also be trying to get used up soon. I figure three batches of mead before summer is a lot.



    I have since listened to Ken Schramm on the brewing network and picked up a copy of his book so I think my next mead attempt will be much shorter. My goal is a mead in the 6-8% range that is drinkable in 2 months which I think is very reasonable.



    Are you going for something sweet, or will you just be putting not much honey into the pot?



    Did you want a sample of my (dry) mead yeast? (Or, later, once I've built it up and pitched it into something, the sweet?) By no means must one use mead yeast -- you know as well as I, with that chart of wine yeasts Schramm has in his list -- but the advantage is that it's from a nice strong yeast cake, and we know it works.



    Anyway, let me know, as I probably won't rack it for a week or so anyway.
  • KunkemonsterKunkemonster
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    Just not a lot of honey. Thanks, but I don't plan on doing anything with another mead for a few more weeks. My next experiment is magkoli.
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