I have a stalled cherry mead fermentation.This is my first attempt at brewing mead so am hoping I can get it going again. I have used 3lbs honey to 2lbs cherries. My yeast is bulldog mead yeast and nutrient. Everything seemed go fine according to the recipe until now. It has been fermenting for 12 days and has just stopped. I have checked with my hydrometer and get a reading of 0.996. What should I do?
2 Answers
That sounds like it may have fermented out. What was your target FG?
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I didn't have a target as this is my first attempt and just wanted to see how it goes. Now that I know the process a bit better I can do a bit more research and hopefully refine my brewing. Any advice would be helpful. Thanks.– FitzjgJul 21, 2020 at 12:44
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For sweet mead use beer yeast for dry meads use a wine yeast. I would generally suggest adding your honey in stages over the first week, as all the honey at once can stress the yeast leading to by product formation which the requires longer maturation. Don't use blended honey as anything with Eucalyptus honey in tastes horrible. Hope that helps!– Mr_road ♦Jul 21, 2020 at 13:34
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Your mead likely won't read much more below 0.996, that is pretty well fermented. It may dry out a tiny bit over another few weeks, but depending on your alcohol content in the mead the readings can get a bit finicky that low so I wouldn't expect much movement.
Still, 12 days is not very much and it's pretty early to even really start taking readings on it. A few more weeks will do it good for conditioning, however it's likely ~98% fermented out.
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Thank you for your answer. It just seems a bit quick for it to stop fermentation. I will leave it for a few more weeks and see how it is. Hopefully it will be OK. Thanks again.– FitzjgJul 21, 2020 at 12:39
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I agree, that is pretty fast for a full fermentation of mead. I'm not familiar with bulldog yeast though, it's not common in the US. However I do hear it is a fairly aggressive strain.– robJul 21, 2020 at 14:54