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First timer....a little...stuck?
Heh. Stuck. Sorry, bad /mead making joke', but I just couldn't help myself. 
Hello!! This is my first post and I was THRILLED when I found this website! Hopefully you guys will be able to answer some of my questions!
I started my first batch of mead about 6 weeks ago; I used 6 pounds of Mesquite Honey, 6 tsp of acid blend, 2 tsp of yeast nutrients, 1 crushed campden tablet, 6 quarts of water, and 1 package of champagne yeast.
I boiled up my honey and water, put it in my primary fermenter, let it cool, then added everything else.
I was told that mead takes patience; and after two weeks I was all excited about doing my first 'rack' ever. However, when I did I bit more research, I was advised to wait until I see bubbles out of the air lock every 30 seconds or so.
Well, I waited. And waited. And waited. At about week 5 1/2, the bubbles finnally happened 30 seconds in between. I waited until the next day to rack, making sure they were consistant 30 days in a row and now....nothing.
No bubbles. It seems....dead to me. The ferment really does seem...stuck.
My PH is sitting at 4.0 two days in a row and I'm at 1.020. My recipe that I'm using doesn't tell me what I should be looking for at this point.
Is the ferment stuck? What should the final numbers look like for mead?
Help. I so badly don't want to give up on this first time experiment, but I'm sort of lost....
What size batch was this? What was your original gravity?
Did you add the campden tablet and yeast at the same time?
And mead does take patience. A LOT of patience. Don't let time or air lock bubbles dictate when to rack or when you think your mead is done. It'll be done when your hydrometer tells you. Champagne yeast will rip through anything but meads ferment slowly. I would have left it in primary and wouldn't have taken a gravity reading for a few months.
A big second on the patience. I have a mead that I started fermenting 3 months ago and after the first gravity measure I havn't bothered it since. it just sits in my closet bubbling away. another 3 months and I'll taste it/ get a gravity reading and either rack to secondary for some more aging or secondary for a week and then to bottles. Even if fermentation is mostly done good things can only come from so more aging. With mead when in doubt wait a month.
And thats my two cents. Another Expert on meads in this Forum is Tess if she pops on I hope she'll have some more insights for YA.
Oh Yeah also we really need the batch size an Ingredients list and any measurement readings that you have taken so we can help you interpret the info you have gathered.
Happy to have you here lots of really great people here with lots of experience to help new (me included) brewers and Meaders (?) along.
ID
Thanks for the woop-woop ID!
Bunny, Bunny, Bunny, I share in your excitemnt and enthusiam as if it were my first mead! Isn't it great?!?!First thing you should know, is that there aren't any set rules when it comes to meads. Different honeys produce different ph's and hydrometer readings in conjunction with different types and brands of yeast. Second rule of thumb, when in doubt, do NOTHING. Mead takes time, lots of time and patience galore. From just reading your post, I would say your yeast has done it job and now time is gonna do its thing. After 6 weeks, I wouldn't say it was stuck, I would say the hoorah! it is on it's way to becoming something fabulous! Since you have not added any fruit or spices to your mead, good call for a first choice by the way, I agree with Firepitbrew, put it away for several months before racking. But if you have a lot of dead yeast cells, (there is a fancy name for it, but we can talk about that later), resting on the bottom of your bucket or carboy, go ahead and rack it into a clean carboy and then forget about it for at least few months.
I like to rack my meads several times before I actually bottle and I take fresh hydrometer readings each time. Keep a notebook to track your information, with starting gravities and born dates. My first mead was a Hujillo honey mead and I made the mistake of not racking enough & bottling to soon. I only have 4 bottles left but they have about 1/8 inch of sediment in the bottom. Not the look you want in a beautiful amber coloured mead. I have had meads only take a few months to another that took 18 months to clear enough to bottle.
Did the recipe call for 6 teaspoons of acid blend? I find that is a lot but if it is a tried and true recipe, who am I to question. I also never boil my honey, I bring it up to warm with the water, so it mixes well and that is it.
Oh, one other thing, make only small batches until you get a feel for it. Making 1 or 2 gallon batches and playing around with different fruits, spices and/or herbs is half the fun of making mead. Use spring water jugs to rack into if you don't have enough small carboys, they can be expensive. You can use the balloon trick with jugs and you won't have to buy a 1/2 dozen or so air locks. Also by making small batches if something should go wrong with one, you haven't lost so much.
Tess
Tess, Irondavy, FirePitBrew, Thank you so much for your responses!
Yes, I added the campden tablet and the yeast at the same time......*looks paniced* Is that bad??
Patience has never been one of my better qualities; I'm glad I posted here yesterday and talked with you guys. I was going to bottle today!! o.0
I LOVE mead; I had a friend of mine give me a bottle of home-made mead when I got married years ago, and I've wanted to make my own ever since. When I started this one, I wanted to do something simple. This being my first brew ever, I didn't want to add anything fancy and it die on me. The over all goal was to have a tasty simple mead that I would enjoy drinking. I was more worried about it 'dying' than anything else. The recipe wasn't very descriptive and explained that 'when everything is done,bottle..... then wait 6 months to a year before really expecting anything good. Because I lack in the patience department, I doubled the recipe, hoping to yield more mead. But I think I will take everyone's advise to do things in smaller batches; more variety that way, and special types of honey can get expensive!!
I hope I didn't kill the brew by racking it when I did.
So instead of hovering over the carboy like a pot of boiling water, I'll let it sit in it's place. I racked it two days ago, (the day before starting this thread), so it's wasn't sitting on dead yeast and cause the 'recipe told me to'. I'll let it clear for the next few months and see what happens.
Until then, I've gotta give that Vanilla Bean thing a try. That sounds amazing. I guess I'll just have to fill my time with new brews while I wait for this one to clear. Oh darn. *snaps her fingers playfully*
Thanks again, and look forward to seeing everyone on the forum!
The thing about campden tablets (potassium metabisulfite) is that its used to prevent biological spoilage, aka: infections from wild yeast and bacteria. You can add it when pitching your yeast but the recommend dosage is to keep it below 50 ppm or about 1 tablet per gallon. If you add more than that you may run the risk of preventing the yeast you pitching from doing its job. Lots of recipes instruct you to add the crushed tablet to the must 24 hours before pitching your yeast or after the mead has fermented completely.
If your gravity is still 1.020 the next time you check you may want to pitch some more yeast and maybe some yeast nutrient and energizer.
And I wouldn't boil the honey either. You'll lose the flavor and aromatics. Honey is resistant to mold and bacteria growth due to its high sugar concentrations so just heat up some water and mix in the honey. What I've heard from some great mead makers is, "If its too hot for your hand, its too hot for your honey."
Check out The Compleat Meadmaker by Ken Schramm. Great book and you can usually get it cheap on Amazon.
The only thing that i will add is when using metabisulfite add it to the must without the yeast and do not seal the carboy/bucket. It will need to "vent off." I typically cover with cheesecloth for 24 hrs. then add my yeast, nutrients and energizer after the wild yeast and bacteria are taken care of.
Your ph and gravity looks good, me thinks thou doeth worry to much. lol Which is to be expected from a first timer. Hell, I still worry about mine! lol
Have fun with your mead and your mead will have fun with you!
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