AVOID THIS MISTAKE WHEN MAKING MEAD

[goldenhivemead]

I find a lot of beginners are unfamiliar with this principle and it’s important to know. I plan to do more detailed videos like this soon!

[jakobtonkin]

Yup, pasturise/stabilise before you use fining agents. Dilution would be it, there's no fermentable sugars in clay obvs. I usually add bent after pasturising and it clears it up beautifully, occasionally I swirl it to get the clay to go through a few times.

[morgannewington]

As someone who has professionally eorked on alcoholic fermentation for the past decade, I can tell you the bentonite dodnt dilute the alcohol. At least not by any amount that would affect rhe fermentation. Generall bentonite is mixed with 10x the weight in volume of water. You likely used an amount less than a gram/L. So unless you make a pot of soup with 2-3 grams of bentonite in litres of water, I doubt it diluted the alcphol.

What likely happened is fermentation wasn't completely dry (remeber that brix and specific gravity reading will be distorted by alcohol conent toward the end of fermentation ie false reading). When you added the fining agent it likely had some SO2 in it for preservation. This knocked the yeast back a bit, but wasnt strong enough to kill them. Then fermentation started up again on the remaining sugars.
Generally yeast can withstand up to 15-20% alcohol before slowing due to alcohol content. Or 400mg/L of dissolved C02 before effecting ferment.

[tomhayward]

That explains what happened to mine. Thanks for the info

[MrWhateverthenameis]

Hi! Can you make a short explaining the differences between types of yeast? 😊

[canemcave]

temperature is also important, below a certain temperature, fermentation stops, and starts again when temperature rises again

[drewtmacha]

If you chose not to clarify it and just leave it cloudy, how would that affect the product? Would it affect taste? Or only the appearance?

I prefer the orange juice with extra pulp, so I'm just not going to clarify my mead and drink it opaque... Unless there's a non-cosmetic reason for clarifying?

[taxatnsthft]

I'm making my first batch of mead and I have a question.

I thought all the honey had dissolved so I stopped stirring it and added the yeast and yeast nutrient. But the next day I saw that a pretty good volume of honey seems to still be crystallized and suspended in the brew.

So my question is, how can this affect the finished product, like what should I expect?

[OneRandom]

I like to use biofine which is typically used for beers but works really well in mead. It'll clear things up overnight and works really well in conjunction with cold crashing. Plus it comes in liquid form so it's very easy to add to the must and I've never had an instance of fermentation restarting.

[shosplecolupis]

When I make wine I usually put the bentonite in the water mixture before I even add the juice or yeast to the container so that the wine begins to clear up within a two to three week period after fermentation is done, makes the process a lot easier imo.

[thomasrennie]

I highly doubt that dilution was the reason it started fermenting again, you hardly added any liquid to it to change much for the yeast in that way. It’s more likely whatever chemicals were in the clearing agent reacted with the yeast and triggered their metabolism or maybe by precipitating all the yeast to the bottom where there’s more sugar left, it kickstarted their metabolisms again. I think that second explanation would be my guess, you practically have to be a microbiologist to figure this kind of stuff out lol

[purpledoggy]

So you can continue to add small amounts of water to fermenting mead to further dry it out?

[dddarkknight]

Maybe see some off shoot of dire miralis the hunter could fight in wilds would be interesting, just love his theme and the misheard lyrics of it

[CALL_MATE]

Hey goldenhivemead I really like your channel and it's inspired me to make my own mead. I was wondering if there is any way anyway to stabilise mead without potassium sorbate? I was just gonna leave the vessel in hot water to kill the yeast, let it settle in the bottom then make sure to leave plenty of space between the stuff at the bottom and my syphoning point. Would this work or should I definitely use potassium sorbate? Keep up the videos man

[ingemartinfosslandlkken]

Can you make a video on how to sweeten mead?

[Csetreki]

I do take a small sample out of the mead, microwave it, and use an electric stir to mix the bentonite, then dump back in

[bre]

Interesting. It does make me wonder what the stabilizing alternative would be

[cojsnuc]

Bento binds proteins which is what makes wine or mead cloidy

[camerondefebo]

Can you please offer your Beginner kit with glass?

[Botanical-One]

Glad im not the only one using a milk frother for mixing mead items together 😂