Champagne yeast is less-than sparkling

[Daisy at the dairy]

Hi

Can anyone help me with this problem:

I started my first ever batch of mead, followed a recipe from a reliable (?) source, mixed up all the ingredients into a murky but sweet-smelling brew, filled my food-grade bucket, put an airlock in the lid, sat back and waited....and waited....and waited. That was three days ago and absolutely nothing is happening. What might have gone wrong and what can I do to put it right? I used a champagne yeast (Lalvin EC118) and included yeast nutrient and aid mix as per instruction.

A couple of things occur to me:

Could I have mixed it too hot? I used cooled, boiled water for the must and I guess it was at about 40oC when I took some out to mix up the yeast.

Could the must be too cool for fermentation to take place? it's in my airing cupboard but this is not much warmer than my living room so about 20oC

Could the yeast have died through hanging around too long? The instructions said to let the initial yeast mix work for about 2 hours before adding it to the fermentation tank. I practice I had to leave it longer as the bulk of my water was taking an age to cool.

Now on to "what do I do about it?" Should I treat it as a "stuck fermentation" and add more yeast? If so, should I stick to the same kind or should I try another one? shouldI treat the whole batch with a campden tablet before re-sarting - avoid any left-overs from the original blend.

I'd really appreciate some help here

Many thanks

[P cuthbert]

Hi Daisy;

Welcome to the forum. You will find all sorts of interesting information and more help than you may wish.

Ec 1118 yeast is a low foaming yeast. It may not show any activity whilst the fermentation is underway.

Some meads can be very difficult to start. Honey is one of those food products that tends to be self protecting against spoilage organisms, including yeast.

Have you taken hydrometer readings to ensure the correct opening gravity? Have you taken a more recent reading? A drop in the SG will indicate that fermentation is happening for you.

It is possible that your hydration of the yeast was not optimal, and the higher temperature of your must could be at fault. Did you notice any activity in the must you used to start your yeast? If not, you may wish to try another packet. This time, simply use luke warm water for the process.

EC 1118 yeast is very hardy, and will ferment your mead even if the temperature drops close to freezing. It will take much longer at lower temperatures, so your closet should be fine for a nice steady fermentation.

Were I in your position, I would let things lie as they are for another day or two to see if there is any activity. If not, then the second packet of yeast would be the appropriate action. Be sure to check the expiry date on the packet. Stale dated yeast may not perform to the expected standard.

Hope this helps you out;

Pat

[Cellar_Rat]

40c is too hot IMO. Start a new yeast separately in 25c water - add when foaming. Most wine yeasts have dehydration instructions.

[lockwood1956]

40 deg should be ok for yeast hydration, i'm fairly sure thats the temp lalvin recomends for yeast hydration...

What is the specific gravity currently, as Pat says EC-1118 is a very low foaming yeast and sometimes can be sworking away without seeming to be. You dont want to put your brew under airlock so soon, take the lid off and give it a good stir, then just place the lid on loosely till fermentation is well under way.

your hydrometer is your friend!

regards
bob

[lockwood1956]

just checked..... 40 to 43 degrees is what they recommend, so i am fairly sure that isnt your problem.

How long since you pitched the yeast, and what is the SG are the two most important questions (for now)

regards
Bob

[fatbloke]

Lalvin ones certainly have instructions.....

Ok, so without the recipe, method, etc its a guess, but if you presume something you've done isn't quite 100%, then as long as you have the pre-requisites i.e. honey, water, nutrient and the yeast, then its probably just in the lag phase. Which is where the yeast is multiplying into a viable colony.

So for the moment, just give it a vigourous stir/aeration (if the recipe doesn't have any fruit in it, you could use a sanitised electric whisk or a stick blender). Once a day minimum. Then after each aeration, take a gravity reading. If you know the starting gravity, you'll be able to know when 1/3rd of the sugars have been metabolised, that's when you can add a bit more nutrient after the aeration, then airlock it off and it should finish fine.

Oh, and champagne yeasts are a poor choice (often recommended by HBS, who tend to know little or nothing about meads - so just generalise for advice).

For the best guidance, go to the Gotmead forums home page and read the "NewBee guide" which are linked from the left hand side dialogue box

[Cellar_Rat]

Temp to hot: My thinking was this is a sprinkle not a rehydrate. So The yeast had to contend with elevated sugar levels as well and little oxygen - not optimal conditions.

[Daisy at the dairy]

Wow! Thanks to all for such a wealth of info!

The news is good: On your advice I removed the airlock and stirred. Three days later I have a nice, sparkling must which now smells of yeast, rather than honey (I assume this is good at this stage). Best of all, the SG is down from an initial 1.105 to 1.065! We are brewing on gas here!

My next question is, when to move on to the next stage? Fatbloke, you say I should feed it and airlock it when a third of the sugar has been metabolised which, according to the table I have with my hydrometer, is now! (initially 245g/l, now 150). Should I leave it in the same container or rack it off into demijohns (yes, I did start with a 2-gallon brew. No half measures for me!)?

Again, recipes aren't totally helpful. Some say to rack it "when you have 2-3cm sediment" (that's about an inch Pat ). Some say "when the initial fermentation has died down" - not too helpful when your ferment is a bit sedate anyway. Some say "after 4-10 days". Duh??

Supplementary question: One of my books is recommending "Montrachet" yeast for mead recipes but I can't find anything under that name. what should I be looking for please?

Thanks again for your help so far.

[NorthernWiner]

Supplementary question: One of my books is recommending "Montrachet" yeast for mead recipes but I can't find anything under that name. what should I be looking for please?

I could be misinformed, but I believe Gervin no 2 is the Montrachet equivalent.

[goldseal]

I could be misinformed, but I believe Gervin no 2 is the Montrachet equivalent.

I'm pretty sure you are correct Steve.

[P cuthbert]

Wow! Thanks to all for such a wealth of info!

The news is good: On your advice I removed the airlock and stirred. Three days later I have a nice, sparkling must which now smells of yeast, rather than honey (I assume this is good at this stage). Best of all, the SG is down from an initial 1.105 to 1.065! We are brewing on gas here!

My next question is, when to move on to the next stage? Fatbloke, you say I should feed it and airlock it when a third of the sugar has been metabolised which, according to the table I have with my hydrometer, is now! (initially 245g/l, now 150). Should I leave it in the same container or rack it off into demijohns (yes, I did start with a 2-gallon brew. No half measures for me!)?

Yes, Daisy, it is likely time for you to feed the wee beasties. I am sure they would enjoy that little jolt of nutrient.

Again, recipes aren't totally helpful. Some say to rack it "when you have 2-3cm sediment" (that's about an inch Pat ). In Canada, we have been using the metric system for nearly 40 years, but some of the fine folk from the US appreciate the translation. Some say "when the initial fermentation has died down" - not too helpful when your ferment is a bit sedate anyway. Some say "after 4-10 days". Duh??

I prefer to rack the first time when the SG reaches about 1.010. This is a point where the fermentation has slowed down and begun giving up a lot of the CO2 that holds particles in suspension. You can leave a large part of the sediment behind when you do this.
Supplementary question: One of my books is recommending "Montrachet" yeast for mead recipes but I can't find anything under that name. what should I be looking for please?

Thanks again for your help so far.

And who will help you drink this nectar? Best of luck in producing a fantastic mead.

[fatbloke]

Wow! Thanks to all for such a wealth of info!

The news is good: On your advice I removed the airlock and stirred. Three days later I have a nice, sparkling must which now smells of yeast, rather than honey (I assume this is good at this stage). Best of all, the SG is down from an initial 1.105 to 1.065! We are brewing on gas here!

My next question is, when to move on to the next stage? Fatbloke, you say I should feed it and airlock it when a third of the sugar has been metabolised which, according to the table I have with my hydrometer, is now! (initially 245g/l, now 150). Should I leave it in the same container or rack it off into demijohns (yes, I did start with a 2-gallon brew. No half measures for me!)?

Again, recipes aren't totally helpful. Some say to rack it "when you have 2-3cm sediment" (that's about an inch Pat ). Some say "when the initial fermentation has died down" - not too helpful when your ferment is a bit sedate anyway. Some say "after 4-10 days". Duh??

Supplementary question: One of my books is recommending "Montrachet" yeast for mead recipes but I can't find anything under that name. what should I be looking for please?

Thanks again for your help so far.

To start with (for meads anyway) here's a link to the "NewBee guide".

With meads, it's quite normal to mix the must, rehydrate the yeast, pitch it into the must and then stir daily. Though because it's been found that the nitrogen element of yeast nutrients can cause a few problems early on in the yeast cell development, there's a few products like "GoFerm", which looks like any of the other "combined" yeast nutrients, but has little or no di-ammonium phosphate (one of the main sources of inorganic nitrogen in yeast nutrients) and is specifically designed for helping with the rehydration of yeast.

A rough guide of how much nutrient is needed for the batch is also worked out before hand, it's then split into at least 2 parts (some people like to split it up into smaller amounts - for adding it at more stages - I've found that 2 doses seems to work well enough for me), then once the rehydrated yeast has started the ferment, the daily stirring is done, then the first part of the nutrient is added, stirred in and a gravity reading taken (which is only to judge the progress - you should have already taken a reading before pitching the yeast to know the starting gravity, and then to work out where the 1/3rd point is). The next day, it's just stirring (or being lazy like me, a stick blender or electric balloon whisk is much quicker - and yes, if you read enough around at Gotmead, you will read about some who are so anal about the aeration stage, that they use compressed O2 and bubble it through a stainless steel "air stone") and gravity reading.

This is carried out until the batch reaches the 1/3rd sugar break, when the batch gets it's final aeration and gravity reading as normal, then the second half of the nutrient is stirred in and the batch is then air locked off to finish.

If you rack a batch before it's finished fermenting, you're asking for trouble. Because by racking it off X amount of sediment, is actually reducing the size of the active yeast colony. Hence you'd be hoping that there's enough nutrition left for the colony to re-establish itself and continue with the ferment.

Racking after X amount of days is also a pointless exercise. You only have a gravity reading to tell you what's happened. Plus, all the time that a ferment is active, it's producing CO2, which provides a protective blanket that prevents any possible issues of oxidation (not that meads oxidise quickly like grape (and other) wines....). So, once you've confirmed that the ferment is finished (3 identical readings in the "finished range", each single reading taken a couple of days apart- which will depend on how much honey you used to start with and the yeasts alcohol tolerance - across a period of about a week). Then once it's dropped a sediment, rack it to another container. Oh yes, and then read up about topping up, if you've used a DJ for the main ferment. You don't want much, if any, airspace above the brew while it's clearing (I like to make 5 or 6 litre batches - then once it's racked into a DJ, the last part of the liquid is racked into a pop/soda bottle and put in the fridge - this is the portion that is used to top up the main part of the batch - and the cold of the fridge will make it settle/clear anyway.

Grammes per litre, is helpful to some, but most of us just use gravity numbers to follow the ferment - Bob's chart for converting %ABV from gravity drop is excellent. You just deduct the finish from the start gravity to get the drop and the chart shows the %ABV that matches your gravity drop result.

As for Montrachet yeast, as far as I'm aware, using that for the nomenclature, would suggest it's a Red Star product - which are vvv hard/impossible to find in the UK. Pete (Goldseal) did produce a list of equivalents, like Lalvin K1V-1116 is the Montpellier isolate strain. It's the same as Gervins Varietal "E", but while it's reasonably easy to get the K1V (Karl a.k.a. Duffbeer, stocks it as far as I know), it seems that a lot of the HBS who sell the Gervin range, don't usually keep the Varietal "E" - don't know why.

Plus I stick to the Lallemand/Lalvin yeasts, because they publish more data about their products than any other producer. So I find it easier to make yeast selections for a given batch. Plus, if you're having to mail order stuff, places like Morewine in the US, stock a wider range than just about any other dealer that I've managed to find (I presume that they must be repackaging "commercial only" types in some cases, as there's normally only about 5 or so of the lalvin range that you see in home brew sized packs).

Hopefully that lot makes sense

[Daisy at the dairy]

Thanks again Pat and apologies for moving you south of the border! Trying to work out why I thought you were American, I realise that it's because you used the non-metric term "closet" to describe a cupboard! So much depending on such a simple and everyday word! Plus I failed to check your location. I do know Alberta is in Canada, honestly. Pardon me while I blush.

I imagine I will have queues of people wanting to share the mead, but since it won't be ready for a year, I'll have plenty of time to prepare for the party!

Cheers!

D.