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Aerating Mead
I was wondering if aerating cooled mead will cause oxidation because I heard it is prone to that.
I'm in the middle of reading "The Compleat Meadmaker" at the moment. The book suggests aerating the same way you would aerate your beer, whether it be by shaking, aggressively stirring or injecting pure CO2 for 1-2 minutes. It is also suggested that during the first few days of fermentation you should not use an airlock but place an air permeable cloth over the carboy mouth to allow for more oxygen to be diffused into the must. Personally, I don't think I'd go that far and would just stick to using CO2. I think the problem with mead being prone to oxidization lies in the multiple rackings from fermenter to fermenter. From what I understand you're supposed to add crushed campden tablets to your mead a day before racking. I'm no expert when it comes to mead; I'm only making my first batch next week but I hope this helps.
thanks, do you know if mead is prone to blowoffs?
Not sure, but I don't think its as aggressive as fermenting a high gravity beer. A lot of yeasts that I was looking into tended to be low foaming. I'm still going to use a blow off for the first week just in case though.
the fermentation of mead is much less vigorous than beer. i have never experienced a blow off.
as to the campden tablets, i have never bothered and have never tasted off flavors. usually, i just let the primary sit for two or three weeks, than rack to secondary and let it sit for a month or more. i think my last mead i let sit in secondary for two months, than bottled and let age for 6 months.
I aerate for 5 minutes every day for the first week with pure O2 and a stainless air bubbler. I have had better attenuation doing this.
On on my fourth mead and have never had one blow-over. I aerate mine for 30 minutes with a sanitized air pump.
I have had a couple Blow offs making Mead....I never use Chemicals and try for very traditinal ways in making it...First blow off was making a Chocolate Mead and had serveral recipes to go from each one warned of having a Chocolate fountian with in 24hrs of pitching yeast...My second Blow off was making a blackberry mead and my first mead with a warmed must...Previously I had never warmed any components in my meads..It took 3 days for it to settle down enough to but a bubbler on it....How Agressive your Mead is depends on your honey and yeast, and if you are adding in fruits to it...each type of honey is made up of 3 types of sugars..each flavor of honey varies in how much of each sugar is in it...Some react well with yeast, some you might have to help out some to get a reaction with yeast, and others are like a match made in heaven....Weither you use a yeast starter or just pitch your yeast striaght in will also make a difference in reaction.....
As with any Mead type of Honey and type of yeast play a big part in how soon you get a drinkable mead...some meads from start to finish you can start drinking with in 4 to 6 weeks others will take 3 months to 3 yrs to get all the flavors to play out and taste right....As I use no chemicals , no additives to feed or add nutrient for the yeast, as my meads age they will change in taste...where as some will add chemical to stop the yeast from work which will cause very slight changes in the taste of your mead once added...
Mead will work and ferment faster if you decide to shake or add air to the mixture every day or few days..to get your yeast to work well always shake and add air to your water....Normally for 5 gals water will shake it for about 5 minutes before adding must to it and then pitching yeast in it....
Am new here but have been making mead for awhile and talking with others that have made and sold it commecially for over 40 yrs outside of the US.....Have also read some articals on the microbiology of yeast and honey....
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