I finally let others try my mead last night for the first time. 2 out of the 3 people liked it. They have had mead before and knew how it was supposed to taste. My brother didn't like it at all because he's a whiskey and beer guy. I came away from the situation feeling pretty good about myself because I wasn't sure if anyone would like it since my mead is the only mead I've ever had and I didn't know if I did it right. The ones that liked it said it was awesome. That instantly made me want to start doing 5 gallon batches.
I had a stuck fermentation (barely started) with a very high gravity cyser, I followed one of your tutorial and made a starter (in apple juice in my case) and pitched it in after a couple of days. It did a wonderful job. For very strong meads, I make a lower gravity starter now. It was also suggested in the book "The complete meadmaker". Cheers
I use half a packet for pretty much everything short of a 6 gallon batch, which gets the full packet, 2.5g~ is plenty to get an aggressive fermentation going, and makes your yeast go a bit further
This is the first time I make mead I don’t know anything about anything lol but this is very helpful. I now understand a little bit about what I did. I used yeast and yeast nutrient because the recipe called for it and that’s all I know.
Hello, thank you for the amazing videos, they are awesome and very informative. For a batch containing 24.2 liters of water and 6.2 kg of pure raw thick and crystalized wildflowers honey, I used 10g of BC S103 yeast and 10g of DAP at pitching. It is now the third day of fermentation, and it is progressing well. Do I need to add anything else? I would prefer not to interfere with it until the first fermentation is complete, but you mentioned the need for nutrients other than DAP. Thank you again.
The way I see it, extra yeast won’t hurt, and if throwing a few extra $ at the mead will potentially save months of aging out off flavors, it’s worth it. Also, most yeasts are made for wine/beer, which are much easier to ferment. So extra help for the less hospitable environment is good. I’m currently testing out 4 different yeasts at the moment, the easiest ones for me to come by where I live. D47, 1118, Nottingham ale yeast, bread yeast. I used 1 packet in each 1gal mead (hydromel). I want to do another test for “regular” gravity mead, and another test for nutrients. 1, 1.5, and 2 X the Recommend nutrient dosage (maybe even more). Just to see what happens. Is there a point where it stops helping and adds too much nitrogen or something. I also want to compare 1 addition vs staggered additions. I have been making beer and mead for 9 years, and you/Brülosophy have inspired me to do my own side by side tests.
Thank you for your informative videos. Started 4 one gallon meads . Did this to all 4 gallons. I started 12-1-20 with a whole pkg. Lalvin EC1118, 3 lbs. of local raw unfiltered wildflower honey then topped with spring water. Beginning BG before pitching yeast was 1.110 then hydrated my yeast and let it perk for 5 weeks. My fermentation slowed to a drop every 45 seconds so I checked my Gravity which was 1.000. I have a few questions please. 1. While open to do my gravity check, would it benefit the brew if I stir the bottom before corking again? 2. I will after a week check again to see if gravity has changed prior to racking into secondary is that correct? 3. If I decide to ad fruit to my secondary, will there be any residual fermentation or do I simply use a time period. Thank you, I very much appreciate your time. Bill B
It really depends on what your yeast need! Some yeast need more nutrients than others. Here is a good calculator for reference: www.waldmet.com/tools/nutrient-addition-calculator/
I generally do 1/4 tsp per gallon. I think i’m going to start doing 1/2 tsp instead. Ive noticed flavors develop better with yeast that populate in the brew. This i have found using 1/4-1/2 tsp yeast energizer. My recent plan of black berry/blue berry chocolate mint mead recipe. I have no start or rather slow start if at all with 1/2 tsp. Added another 1/2 tsp of M05. Sp. Gr. 1.082 is what it read out at. All fruits thoroughly blended. One note i read is to little yeast could result in fusal alcohol. I opened a berry melomel recently that before was fine. This one apparently not. Im finding yeast nutrients to be very needed. At least if you dont want to keep it bulk aging a long time.
I had a really large abv for my current one gallon. I poured in a full pack of yeast and even though it took a couple days to get started it's been chewing through the sugar like a beast
I agree,don't add all the sugar all at once.It is a preserver after all. I am making 23L 6 us gal elderflower wine at mo. Needs 6 kg sugar,I have added 4 kg amd am adding rest daily bit by bit. Seems to be working ok !
Overpitching yeast doesn't hurt meads, now if you want to save money on yeast you can do one of two things: either make a starter using light dme and goferm to buildup the yeast count, or harvest yeast to use from one brew into another. Either way you go you would only have to use one pack of yeast
LoL! I've gone as low as 0.05 grams per gallon, and it fermented just fine. Looking at the yeast that settled out, it was the same as putting in 0.5 grams of yeast in a gallon. The more yeast started faster, but only by a day or two. This presumes the must is clean; boiled or pasteurized. If you're crushing the grapes in a press (or heaven forbid your feet), all bets are off. Then you do need a bunch of yeast to overwhelm the natural yeasts on the grape skins.
A blind test of these would be interesting. 0.1g per gallon - 1g per gallon - 2g per gallon - 5g per gallon - 20g per gallon as a nice range of possibilities to get a better idea. Would also be interesting to do a test alongside that with a basic yeast starter for each of those amounts. Then a blind taste test.
HI! Thanks for the nice video! Not only is it very informative, but it gets to the point immediately! No dumb intro video followed by "before we continue, if you like this video and find it useful, remember to hit that like and subscribe and click the notification bell so you don't miss out on our future videos!" It does belong in the video, but like yours, it belongs at the end of the video. Thanks!
I think 2 grams of EC-1118 will yield me a strong wine. I want my wine to be as strong as I can get it. I use 3 liters (under 1 gallon) of juice and add 3 additional cups of sugar to the mix. The result will be a lot of sugar that I don't think 1 gram of yeast is sufficient. My last brew attempted yielded a strong wine and the juice didn't taste sweet at all, but I think I can do better.
Amount of yeast and strength don’t totally correlate! Yeast will multiply so if you start with less yeast - they will eventually grow stronger. To make a stronger mead you just want to start with more honey!
@@ManMadeMead Or in my case, more sugar! The EC-1118 has an upper limit of 18% alcohol content. Which is, in technical and scientific terms, a kick ass strong wine! So I guess I did good with the amount of yeast I put in initially.
@@rippalmer6296 Rip i'm about to make my first mead ever, but having researched etc it would seem you are trying to make a very very strong wine, arent you worried about it losing taste? Using EC-1118 and that much sugar, you should be making mead, not wine!
So would you say for the newer person getting into this that more yeast is the safer bet? Is it possible to add too much yeast and taint the end result flavor? Or is too much yeast just a hit in the wallet with no other concerns?
I wouldn’t go above 3 grams of yeast per gallon for any reason. There is no benefit to too much yeast. You just have to deal with getting yeast out of the brew when there is too much!
@@ManMadeMead awesome thank you! I wasn't planning on going overkill but it's nice to know there's a bit of cushion when adding the yeast. I love your channel btw because I've seen a lot of these channels that just go about making mead (which is fine) but I'm particular about a lot of things I do so I love that you science the shit out of this.
Thanks for the info I was going to ask before how do you know if you have enough yeast but this answers it. My last batch I have brewing now had a reading of 1.190, which was 3lbs of honey and 1 gallon of spring water. I used a full packet (5grams). Using your 1:1 ratio I should have used 1.5- 2 grams instead and been fine?.
I've tried making a couple cranberry (wine & mead) or mint as an ingredient and even though I put plenty of yeast in at the start and added more at every reading checks I'm having the hardest time getting them about 6%! And I didn't add so much sugar that my OG was super high (most of my OGs were 1.100 to 1.110)
How about if you make a video of two traditional half gallon meads each with a gravity of 1120. In one you put only 10 small grains of yeast and in the other the rest of the package and compare them
in the old days they didn't add yeast at all. The ingredients naturally have yeast. Adding it just speeds up the process, unless you boil the ingredient, in which case you killed the yeast and would have to add it.
Very true! They also had a lifespan of like 40 - 50 years! I’m going to trust the science we have now a days (especially because I can make more consistent mead by using store bought yeast!)
@@ManMadeMead Yeah but getting killed in war, by viruses, consuming heavy metals and having no knowledge of nutrition has nothing to do with yeast or making mead.
Would you ever add 1.5 gr of yeast AND a yeast nutrient? I've never made mead before and am ready to try with our own honey from our own bees. Edit: talking about for 1 gallon of mead.
I finally let others try my mead last night for the first time. 2 out of the 3 people liked it. They have had mead before and knew how it was supposed to taste. My brother didn't like it at all because he's a whiskey and beer guy. I came away from the situation feeling pretty good about myself because I wasn't sure if anyone would like it since my mead is the only mead I've ever had and I didn't know if I did it right. The ones that liked it said it was awesome. That instantly made me want to start doing 5 gallon batches.
Also found your new 2 out of 3 friends
If yeast can literally regrow itself then why can't we use just a pint of yeast to start brewing ?@@mobiusone9997
I had a stuck fermentation (barely started) with a very high gravity cyser, I followed one of your tutorial and made a starter (in apple juice in my case) and pitched it in after a couple of days. It did a wonderful job. For very strong meads, I make a lower gravity starter now. It was also suggested in the book "The complete meadmaker".
Cheers
I started making mead a couple years ago with your videos.
Thank you, Don Corleone
I use half a packet for pretty much everything short of a 6 gallon batch, which gets the full packet, 2.5g~ is plenty to get an aggressive fermentation going, and makes your yeast go a bit further
Build and support your Yeast army!!! Great video.
This is the first time I make mead I don’t know anything about anything lol but this is very helpful. I now understand a little bit about what I did. I used yeast and yeast nutrient because the recipe called for it and that’s all I know.
Good video. Nothing like reviewing and relearning about various mead and wine yeasts.
Hello, thank you for the amazing videos, they are awesome and very informative.
For a batch containing 24.2 liters of water and 6.2 kg of pure raw thick and crystalized wildflowers honey, I used 10g of BC S103 yeast and 10g of DAP at pitching. It is now the third day of fermentation, and it is progressing well. Do I need to add anything else? I would prefer not to interfere with it until the first fermentation is complete, but you mentioned the need for nutrients other than DAP.
Thank you again.
The way I see it, extra yeast won’t hurt, and if throwing a few extra $ at the mead will potentially save months of aging out off flavors, it’s worth it.
Also, most yeasts are made for wine/beer, which are much easier to ferment. So extra help for the less hospitable environment is good.
I’m currently testing out 4 different yeasts at the moment, the easiest ones for me to come by where I live. D47, 1118, Nottingham ale yeast, bread yeast. I used 1 packet in each 1gal mead (hydromel).
I want to do another test for “regular” gravity mead, and another test for nutrients. 1, 1.5, and 2 X the Recommend nutrient dosage (maybe even more). Just to see what happens. Is there a point where it stops helping and adds too much nitrogen or something. I also want to compare 1 addition vs staggered additions.
I have been making beer and mead for 9 years, and you/Brülosophy have inspired me to do my own side by side tests.
How much time it takes to start fermantation after mix a yeast with juice
Thank you for your informative videos. Started 4 one gallon meads . Did this to all 4 gallons. I started 12-1-20 with a whole pkg. Lalvin EC1118, 3 lbs. of local raw unfiltered wildflower honey then topped with spring water. Beginning BG before pitching yeast was 1.110 then hydrated my yeast and let it perk for 5 weeks. My fermentation slowed to a drop every 45 seconds so I checked my Gravity which was 1.000. I have a few questions please.
1. While open to do my gravity check, would it benefit the brew if I stir the bottom before corking again?
2. I will after a week check again to see if gravity has changed prior to racking into secondary is that correct?
3. If I decide to ad fruit to my secondary, will there be any residual fermentation or do I simply use a time period.
Thank you,
I very much appreciate your time.
Bill B
I think a step feeding comparison would be a fun how to video. For those high ABV meads
How much yeast nutrient should I use for a gallon and how often should it be used for that same gallon during the fermentation process?
It really depends on what your yeast need! Some yeast need more nutrients than others. Here is a good calculator for reference: www.waldmet.com/tools/nutrient-addition-calculator/
I generally do 1/4 tsp per gallon. I think i’m going to start doing 1/2 tsp instead. Ive noticed flavors develop better with yeast that populate in the brew. This i have found using 1/4-1/2 tsp yeast energizer. My recent plan of black berry/blue berry chocolate mint mead recipe. I have no start or rather slow start if at all with 1/2 tsp. Added another 1/2 tsp of M05. Sp. Gr. 1.082 is what it read out at. All fruits thoroughly blended.
One note i read is to little yeast could result in fusal alcohol. I opened a berry melomel recently that before was fine. This one apparently not. Im finding yeast nutrients to be very needed. At least if you dont want to keep it bulk aging a long time.
Thankque So Much Give Us Such A Nice Information Sir🙂
I had a really large abv for my current one gallon. I poured in a full pack of yeast and even though it took a couple days to get started it's been chewing through the sugar like a beast
I agree,don't add all the sugar all at once.It is a preserver after all. I am making 23L 6 us gal elderflower wine at mo. Needs 6 kg sugar,I have added 4 kg amd am adding rest daily bit by bit. Seems to be working ok !
If yeast can literally regrow itself then why can't we use just a pint of yeast to start brewing ?
I put a whole packet of yeast into my apple juice and now it smells like eggs. Will the smell go down? Will the taste change?
and what about too much of yeast ? is it going to affect the flavor ?
Too much yeast won’t really affect the flavor in the long run! In the short term you might have a more yeasty taste (possibly) though!
@@ManMadeMead okay thanks, because I used 7 grams of Fleischmann's active dry yeast for a gallon.
i am very pleased by the slash
haha, thank you!
Since yeast will reproduce fast. Souldnt the amount of yeast not affect
Amount of yeast can definitely affect a brew! More yeast means a bigger army and less stress on them!
Your Teaching Style Is Oosam
Overpitching yeast doesn't hurt meads, now if you want to save money on yeast you can do one of two things: either make a starter using light dme and goferm to buildup the yeast count, or harvest yeast to use from one brew into another. Either way you go you would only have to use one pack of yeast
If i started with 1g. Can I add the extra .5g yeast in say 3 days later? How will this have an effect?
You can definitely add extra! It will just give more fighting power for the yeast
@@ManMadeMead great! Thank you for the reply!
Please do a quick and easy video about yeast nutrient and how much to add
Can do!
I added 1/2 teaspoon for 8 cups of rhubarb juice will it work and what will my abv range be?
Oh gosh, it's hard to know to be honest!
@@ManMadeMead today's the day to filter and find out
@ManMadeMead well it's not bad way to sweet so I need to dilute it or let it keep going but it's over 20%
LoL! I've gone as low as 0.05 grams per gallon, and it fermented just fine. Looking at the yeast that settled out, it was the same as putting in 0.5 grams of yeast in a gallon. The more yeast started faster, but only by a day or two.
This presumes the must is clean; boiled or pasteurized. If you're crushing the grapes in a press (or heaven forbid your feet), all bets are off. Then you do need a bunch of yeast to overwhelm the natural yeasts on the grape skins.
A blind test of these would be interesting.
0.1g per gallon - 1g per gallon - 2g per gallon - 5g per gallon - 20g per gallon as a nice range of possibilities to get a better idea.
Would also be interesting to do a test alongside that with a basic yeast starter for each of those amounts. Then a blind taste test.
how can i fix if i put to much yeast on my fermented wine?is there any solution for that problem?or it is just failed and i can't fix that?
i make my wine yesterday so i think its not ready for consume and i think i put too much yeast on the process
i put like 1 teaspoon in like 60ml wine,it was a begineer mistake🤣🙏🏻
Too much yeast is totally okay!
HI! Thanks for the nice video! Not only is it very informative, but it gets to the point immediately! No dumb intro video followed by "before we continue, if you like this video and find it useful, remember to hit that like and subscribe and click the notification bell so you don't miss out on our future videos!" It does belong in the video, but like yours, it belongs at the end of the video. Thanks!
I’m happy to help!
I think 2 grams of EC-1118 will yield me a strong wine. I want my wine to be as strong as I can get it. I use 3 liters (under 1 gallon) of juice and add 3 additional cups of sugar to the mix. The result will be a lot of sugar that I don't think 1 gram of yeast is sufficient. My last brew attempted yielded a strong wine and the juice didn't taste sweet at all, but I think I can do better.
Amount of yeast and strength don’t totally correlate! Yeast will multiply so if you start with less yeast - they will eventually grow stronger. To make a stronger mead you just want to start with more honey!
@@ManMadeMead Or in my case, more sugar! The EC-1118 has an upper limit of 18% alcohol content. Which is, in technical and scientific terms, a kick ass strong wine!
So I guess I did good with the amount of yeast I put in initially.
@@rippalmer6296 Rip i'm about to make my first mead ever, but having researched etc it would seem you are trying to make a very very strong wine, arent you worried about it losing taste? Using EC-1118 and that much sugar, you should be making mead, not wine!
So would you say for the newer person getting into this that more yeast is the safer bet? Is it possible to add too much yeast and taint the end result flavor? Or is too much yeast just a hit in the wallet with no other concerns?
I wouldn’t go above 3 grams of yeast per gallon for any reason. There is no benefit to too much yeast. You just have to deal with getting yeast out of the brew when there is too much!
@@ManMadeMead awesome thank you! I wasn't planning on going overkill but it's nice to know there's a bit of cushion when adding the yeast. I love your channel btw because I've seen a lot of these channels that just go about making mead (which is fine) but I'm particular about a lot of things I do so I love that you science the shit out of this.
What does 1 gram of yeast measure out in spoonfuls?
Maybe like a half a spoon?
Thanks for the info I was going to ask before how do you know if you have enough yeast but this answers it. My last batch I have brewing now had a reading of 1.190, which was 3lbs of honey and 1 gallon of spring water. I used a full packet (5grams). Using your 1:1 ratio I should have used 1.5- 2 grams instead and been fine?.
At that point you’ll want to put atleast 2 grams per gallon in, so your 5 grams is definitely enough!
Curious, if making something like skeeter pee would you want to add more yeast due to the acidic nature of the brew?
Ive found if you have over 1000 gram of ingredient fruits more yeast is needed. Apples and hard fruit not so much.
Possibly but I’m not totally sure!
how much liter in 1 gallon do you mean?
3.8 liters per gallon! So I would do .4 grams per gallon
Will it hurt to add too much yeast?
Nope! Its just not necessary to use too much yeast!
I've tried making a couple cranberry (wine & mead) or mint as an ingredient and even though I put plenty of yeast in at the start and added more at every reading checks I'm having the hardest time getting them about 6%! And I didn't add so much sugar that my OG was super high (most of my OGs were 1.100 to 1.110)
How about if you make a video of two traditional half gallon meads each with a gravity of 1120. In one you put only 10 small grains of yeast and in the other the rest of the package and compare them
Maybe in the future!
in the old days they didn't add yeast at all. The ingredients naturally have yeast. Adding it just speeds up the process, unless you boil the ingredient, in which case you killed the yeast and would have to add it.
Very true! They also had a lifespan of like 40 - 50 years! I’m going to trust the science we have now a days (especially because I can make more consistent mead by using store bought yeast!)
@@ManMadeMead Yeah but getting killed in war, by viruses, consuming heavy metals and having no knowledge of nutrition has nothing to do with yeast or making mead.
Would you ever add 1.5 gr of yeast AND a yeast nutrient? I've never made mead before and am ready to try with our own honey from our own bees. Edit: talking about for 1 gallon of mead.
Shit i just put 7 grams in a 64 oz 😮
what are you going to do with all that mead!!!!????
:)
You're using the wrong yeast for high gravity.
This was not helpful at all