Mead possibly fermenting in secondary?

[GreatNorthernLlama]

Following this apple cider recipe from Man Made Mead

Long story short, primary fermentation finished at 1.000SG on the nose. I stabilized and added 3 pounds various varieties of apples with pectic enzyme. I waited just over 24 hours post adding campden tabs and potassium sorbate.

This was now a week ago. Throughout the week I saw verrrrry little activity in the form of bubbles in my airlock. I didn't think much of it, as they were very far apart (5 to 10 min per bubble give or take).

Now, I'm starting to do what I do best: Overthinking. I'm getting ready to rack to secondary off the apples, back sweeten, and let clear. I was thinking the taste was a little flat still (though still developing a poor palet lol). For science I took another gravity reading which showed only 1.003. According to ChatGPT, the juice from this many apples should bring up my SG approximately a factor of 10 from what I've seen. Should be closer to 1.020.

Does anyone have experience with such? I'm trying to determine if A) ChatGPT is even right, maybe such a small rise in gravity is exactly what is expected and I'm just over reacting, or B) if indeed my gravity should have increased significantly more, whether this failure is due to lack of juice extraction or indeed secondary fermentation. For now, I plan on dosing it with a lot more PE and taking more readings over the next 48 hours as I evaluate my options.

 

[Ohio Bob]

Long story short, primary fermentation finished at 1.000SG on the nose. I stabilized and added 3 pounds various varieties of apples with pectic enzyme. I waited just over 24 hours post adding campden tabs and potassium sorbate.

This is not clear to me. You fermented honey and sugar until it reached SG of 1.000, then added fruit, then 24 hours later stabilized with sorbate?? Sorbate won’t kill yeast, just prevent it from reproducing. So adding more fruit will jump start fermentation.

Sorbate, IMO, should ONLY be used at bottling, and ONLY if back sweetening.

A word of advice... get your advice from WMT, NOT Chatgpt, NOT YouTube. Those sources are fraught with good advice, but more often their goal is to get clicks, not provide accurate advice. Plus wine making is a work in process, no two fermentations are the same. You have to observe what is happening with your wine and make informed decisions.

 

[GreatNorthernLlama]

Hey Bob,

I have another community of practice Mead makers with no skin in the game so to speak. I trust them for some basic fermentation recipes. When it comes to the more scientific and detailed stuff, I absolutely focus on this community. This recipe has been vetted by a number of mead makers as a solid go to basic cider.

I fermented apple juice, honey and water. After hitting 1.000 I stabilized with both campden and sorbate. From what I understand, the two working together should kill and prevent any further fermentation if done properly. The apples are then added as a kind of back sweetening. It is to impart a stronger apple flavor and sugars, before racking off the apples and finishing your back sweetening with honey.

My issue now is I'm not sure if I successfully halted my yeast from preventing further fermentation as I should have when I added my apples. I'm thinking an increase in SG of only 0.003 suggests that is the case? Attached my notes for further clarification

 

[Rice_Guy]

If there is sugar it WILL ferment. You are early and there will be a large population of viable yeast. Sorbate does not kill yeast, it is birth control.

The numbers look high. I use Pearsons square to guess gravity calculations. ,, You are overthinking. (Would you like to join the science committee in the wine club) The highest juice I have run is 78%, the apple grinder typically will yield 55%, in the lab I would expect 90 to 88% moisture and volatile. How much juice is in your calculation? ,, The apples I have looked at range from 1.042 to 1.097 gravity. How much sugar is in the apple? ,, Mineral make up is part of the gravity number. Did chat factor in the ash content in the juice? ,, ? other ?
Basically numbers are what they are. I expect Pearsons to be close but it isn’t exact.

 

[GreatNorthernLlama]

If there is sugar it WILL ferment. You are early and there will be a large population of viable yeast. Sorbate does not kill yeast, it is birth control.

The numbers look high. I use Pearsons square to guess gravity calculations. ,, You are overthinking. (Would you like to join the science committee in the wine club) The highest juice I have run is 78%, the apple grinder typically will yield 55%, in the lab I would expect 90 to 88% moisture and volatile. How much juice is in your calculation? ,, The apples I have looked at range from 1.042 to 1.097 gravity. How much sugar is in the apple? ,, Mineral make up is part of the gravity number. Did chat factor in the ash content in the juice? ,, ? other ?
Basically numbers are what they are. I expect Pearsons to be close but it isn’t exact.

I understand sorbate alone doesn't kill yeast, but wouldn't that combined with campden do the trick to stop any further fermentation? I just use the campden tabs instead of kmeta powder, but it's the same thing. From my understanding I SHOULD have stopped fermentation with the stabilization I did.

Not looking for exact numbers for the SG the apples should impart. Just a ballpark to confirm a gravity increase of only 0.003 isn't normal

 

[winemaker81]

I understand sorbate alone doesn't kill yeast, but wouldn't that combined with campden do the trick to stop any further fermentation?

Sorbate does NOT kill yeast. Sorbate + K-meta are birth control for yeast, preventing reproduction. It does not stop a fermentation, either.

When your mead hit 1.000, there is a large amount of live yeast. Stabilizing the wine means the existing yeast cannot reproduce, but it doesn't stop them from eating the new sugar source.

The reason stabilization works at bottling time is that this is months later, and most of the yeast has died off. The few remaining live cells cannot reproduce and a renewed fermentation doesn't happen.

Bob's comment about typical internet sources being bad choices is spot on. Folks who sound like they know what they're doing can be correct in some areas and completely clueless in others. One popular channel recommends stirring wine for an hour to degas.


This is not to say that other sources don't have value. The problem is that, on your own, you are less likely to discover that advice is bad until it's too late. Posting on WMT gets feedback from numerous experienced winemakers. Bad advice is overridden by facts, research, and multiple experiences.

 

[GreatNorthernLlama]

Sorbate does NOT kill yeast. Sorbate + K-meta are birth control for yeast, preventing reproduction. It does not stop a fermentation, either.

When your mead hit 1.000, there is a large amount of live yeast. Stabilizing the wine means the existing yeast cannot reproduce, but it doesn't stop them from eating the new sugar source.

The reason stabilization works at bottling time is that this is months later, and most of the yeast has died off. The few remaining live cells cannot reproduce and a renewed fermentation doesn't happen.

Bob's comment about typical internet sources being bad choices is spot on. Folks who sound like they know what they're doing can be correct in some areas and completely clueless in others. One popular channel recommends stirring wine for an hour to degas.


This is not to say that other sources don't have value. The problem is that, on your own, you are less likely to discover that advice is bad until it's too late. Posting on WMT gets feedback from numerous experienced winemakers. Bad advice is overridden by facts, research, and multiple experiences.

So I'm confused. How does one go about back sweetening then if your not killing off yeast or stopping fermentation with metabisulfate and sorbate?

 

[winemaker81]

So I'm confused. How does one go about back sweetening then if your not killing off yeast or stopping fermentation with metabisulfate and sorbate?

Although there are multiple ways to ensure a renewed fermentation does not occur, the easiest for home winemakers is to ferment the wine dry and bulk age at least 3 months. Heavier wines may need more time.

At this point most of the yeast has died and fallen as fine lees, and the wine is cleared. Rack off the lees, stabilize, backsweeten, and bottle.

Other options:

• Start with a LOT of sugar to produce an ABV that is above the yeast strain's ABV tolerance. This is rather imprecise because the ABV tolerance is a lab measurement and the individual yeast batches will differ.
• Fortify the wine with a spirit to an ABV of 18%+.
• Filter a clear wine with a filter fine enough to remove the yeast cells. Note that filtering a wine that is not fully cleared will plug the filter because there are a lot of particles in the wine.
• Backsweeten with a non-fermentable substance. This works, but sugar substitutes will alter the flavor.

Back in '98 I wrote a whitepaper on the subject that goes into detail.

https://wine.bkfazekas.com/backsweetening-wine/

 

[GreatNorthernLlama]

Although there are multiple ways to ensure a renewed fermentation does not occur, the easiest for home winemakers is to ferment the wine dry and bulk age at least 3 months. Heavier wines may need more time.

At this point most of the yeast has died and fallen as fine lees, and the wine is cleared. Rack off the lees, stabilize, backsweeten, and bottle.

Other options:

• Start with a LOT of sugar to produce an ABV that is above the yeast strain's ABV tolerance. This is rather imprecise because the ABV tolerance is a lab measurement and the individual yeast batches will differ.
• Fortify the wine with a spirit to an ABV of 18%+.
• Filter a clear wine with a filter fine enough to remove the yeast cells. Note that filtering a wine that is not fully cleared will plug the filter because there are a lot of particles in the wine.
• Backsweeten with a non-fermentable substance. This works, but sugar substitutes will alter the flavor.

Back in '98 I wrote a whitepaper on the subject that goes into detail.

https://wine.bkfazekas.com/backsweetening-wine/

Jeez. Learning so much....

So back sweetening is big in the mead community. The standard practice seems to be to "stabilize" as I've done above, and add whatever sweetener you like. (fermentable; non-fermentables have been specified for bottle conditioning where in a specific "dose" of fermentable sugar is added while no stabilizing is attempted).

I'm wondering then how this became such standard practice? Are mead makers just quickly back sweetening and then bottling, thereby starving yeast of O2? It seems so weird to me that this recipe is so tried and tested among that community and I'm getting such different results.

To be clear, I'm not questioning the advice I've been given here; I'm questioning the information I've obtained up until now instead.

 

[GreatNorthernLlama]

Ah, okay. After reading your white paper I see the big missing element is removing the healthy yeast. "birth control" as you said gets you only so far. I should have done something like "cold crashing" my must after sterilizing, and rack off that way. This would have caused the still living yeast to drop as sediment, and I could have avoided this yeast as I rack off. I come away now with a better understanding of K Meta and K sorb, thank you!

As you said: We don't make wine. Yeast makes wine

 

[winemaker81]

Jeez. Learning so much....

I've been making wine since 1981 ... I'm still learning. It doesn't stop unless you choose to.

I'm an IT guy -- been learning about IT since 1979 ... another thing that doesn't end. Just finished a couple of training sessions this week.

So back sweetening is big in the mead community. The standard practice seems to be to "stabilize" as I've done above, and add whatever sweetener you like. (fermentable; non-fermentables have been specified for bottle conditioning where in a specific "dose" of fermentable sugar is added while no stabilizing is attempted).

I'm wondering then how this became such standard practice? Are mead makers just quickly back sweetening and then bottling, thereby starving yeast of O2? It seems so weird to me that this recipe is so tried and tested among that community and I'm getting such different results.

One factor is the yeast used. Mead makers typically use a mead strain, which often has a low ABV tolerance. It's very possible the OG is around the tolerance level for the yeast, so the ferment is pretty much at its limit when the sugar is exhausted.

If the ferment is slow enough, stabilization may prevent a renewed, but in this situation the yeast count may also be low. There's no way short of a lab to determine that. I err on the side of caution, ferment dry, let it bulk age, then back sweeten.

It's also possible that folks talk about the method, but don't mention the failures. I've worked with a lot of people that won't admit failure when it was directly witnessed by a dozen people. And this is on the net ....

Ah, okay. After reading your white paper I see the big missing element is removing the healthy yeast. "birth control" as you said gets you only so far. I should have done something like "cold crashing" my must after sterilizing, and rack off that way. This would have caused the still living yeast to drop as sediment, and I could have avoided this yeast as I rack off. I come away now with a better understanding of K Meta and K sorb, thank you!

Live yeast doesn't drop -- fine lees is dead yeast.

Cold stabilization's main purpose in wine is to precipitate excess tartaric acid. Clearing the wine is a beneficial side effect. A non-beneficial side effect is precipitating too much tartaric, which leaves the wine flabby. This is a more rare case, as the threshold for precipitation needs to be lower than the drinker's need for acid to balance the other flavor components, but it can happen.

What is the strength of your mead? I made table wine strength, typically 12-14% ABV. A lot of folks make a beer strength (6-8%), which uses a different yeast. THAT is a key point -- if someone is using a lower ABV tolerant strain for their wine, and you're using a wine-strength strain, your failure makes sense.

My notes on meads are here:

https://wine.bkfazekas.com/1988-metheglin/
https://wine.bkfazekas.com/1998-mead-metheglin/
https://wine.bkfazekas.com/2018-metheglin-mead/
https://wine.bkfazekas.com/2023-metheglin-mead/
https://wine.bkfazekas.com/2023-metheglin-mead-in-detail/

The "in detail" blog may be the most useful to you.

 

[Raptor99]

So back sweetening is big in the mead community. The standard practice seems to be to "stabilize" as I've done above, and add whatever sweetener you like. (fermentable; non-fermentables have been specified for bottle conditioning where in a specific "dose" of fermentable sugar is added while no stabilizing is attempted).

My practice is to put the fruit in primary and let it ferment dry. If you want additional fruit flavor, you can add some fruit in secondary. You get a different flavor profile depending on whether you add the fruit in primary or secondary. So you can do either of both. Either way, I add the fruit/juice well before bottling, so that the sediment has time to drop out.

After several months of bulk aging, I stabilize with Kmeta and KSorbate and backsweeten with honey. If you add enough fruit earlier, you don't need to add any more fruit flavor just before bottling.

I'm wondering then how this became such standard practice? Are mead makers just quickly back sweetening and then bottling, thereby starving yeast of O2? It seems so weird to me that this recipe is so tried and tested among that community and I'm getting such different results.

Depriving the yeast of O2 won't keep them from fermenting sugars. Kmeta and KSorbate won't stop an active ferment. If you "quickly backsweeten and bottle" a young mead it will be drinkable but not very good. Mead benefits from some aging, so I do a minimum of 6 months of bulk aging before I even think about bottling.

Mead makers typically use a mead strain, which often has a low ABV tolerance. It's very possible the OG is around the tolerance level for the yeast, so the ferment is pretty much at its limit when the sugar is exhausted.

Some try to hit their target sweetness by fermenting to the ABV tolerance level, leaving some unfermented sugar. But there are many factors that affect the exact ABV tolerance of the yeast, so many mead makers ferment it dry and then backsweeten, like we do with wine.

 

[GreatNorthernLlama]

My practice is to put the fruit in primary and let it ferment dry. If you want additional fruit flavor, you can add some fruit in secondary. You get a different flavor profile depending on whether you add the fruit in primary or secondary. So you can do either of both. Either way, I add the fruit/juice well before bottling, so that the sediment has time to drop out.

After several months of bulk aging, I stabilize with Kmeta and KSorbate and backsweeten with honey. If you add enough fruit earlier, you don't need to add any more fruit flavor just before bottling.

Depriving the yeast of O2 won't keep them from fermenting sugars. Kmeta and KSorbate won't stop an active ferment. If you "quickly backsweeten and bottle" a young mead it will be drinkable but not very good. Mead benefits from some aging, so I do a minimum of 6 months of bulk aging before I even think about bottling.

Some try to hit their target sweetness by fermenting to the ABV tolerance level, leaving some unfermented sugar. But there are many factors that affect the exact ABV tolerance of the yeast, so many mead makers ferment it dry and then backsweeten, like we do with wine.

Right. So I guess the main secret many of the "YouTube" mead makers omit is giving the mean sufficient time in secondary before adding fruit and back sweetening in secondary?

 

[winemaker81]

Right. So I guess the main secret many of the "YouTube" mead makers omit is giving the mean sufficient time in secondary before adding fruit and back sweetening in secondary?

I would not say that is true ... but I also cannot say it's not.

YouTube is all about "clicks". Channels on YouTube are about money. Conversely to that, you make as much money as @Raptor99 and I do from our posts on WMT.

Consider the experience behind the responses to your posts, consider the science as far as it takes things, and make your own best decision.

 

[Raptor99]

Right. So I guess the main secret many of the "YouTube" mead makers omit is giving the mean sufficient time in secondary before adding fruit and back sweetening in secondary?

Not quite. You can add more fruit right after primary fermentation is finished, or even before it is finished fermenting. The key is to give is several months to bulk age after adding more fruit/juice. Then, after 6 months or so, you can backsweeten with honey and bottle.

The main thing that many YouTubers omit is the patience necessary to make good wine/mead.

 

[winemaker81]

The main thing that many YouTubers omit is the patience necessary to make good wine/mead.

Ditto for kit vendors. If customers were told that good wine takes 1+ years to make, they'd sell a lot less kits.

 

[GreatNorthernLlama]

="Raptor99, post: 900952, member: 45669"]
My practice is to put the fruit in primary and let it ferment dry. If you want additional fruit flavor, you can add some fruit in secondary. You get a different flavor profile depending on whether you add the fruit in primary or secondary. So you can do either of both. Either way, I add the fruit/juice well before bottling, so that the sediment has time to drop out.
[/QUOTE]
So how long do you wait for each of the following if you add fruit in secondary?
- fermentation ends (advice I've been seeing is about three days no SG movement)
- post stabilizating (24 hours after adding k meta and k sorb, and do this pre or post racking? I did post which is probably my issue)
- after racking do you wait longer for more sediment to fall before adding fruit?

And last question, if adding fruit in secondary I would assume a fermentation bucket is better. But this opens up the issue of oxidation post fermentation. Do you usually add fruit to secondary in a glass carboy to avoid o2?

Edit: the forum didn't update your most recent post till I published. Your last comment I think either blew the lid off and assures me there's no issue, or confused me even more:

You can add more fruit right after primary fermentation is finished, or even before it is finished fermenting. The key is to give is several months to bulk age after adding more fruit/juice

If I'm learning everything I have today about stabilizing your saying you add the fruit where it would still ferment at this phase (albeit slowly) and then allow bulk aging. My whole concern was that the fruit I added I assumed was supposed to raise the SG and impart the sugar from my apples to give the mead flavor, and if this sugar was basically eaten away by the still active yeast, that's flavor that's being eaten away. Am I wrong in adding this? Is this still imparting flavor even it I ended up with such a low SG even after fruit in secondary?

I also plan on kegging this. Everyone promotes forced carbonation. I'm getting way out of the realm of wine here, but I wonder how aging vs kegging works? Does the carbonation accelerate some of what is achieved via bulk aging, or does it just hide the imperfections otherwise found? Just something I'd never considered before

 

[Rice_Guy]

@GreatNorthernLlama
Wine and mead are a multiple factor preservation system.

When you start a fermentation you have high osmotic pressure which keeps most bacteria from growing. In contrast Beer at 1.050 has less osmotic pressures so their first layer of protection is boiling for an hour. Another selective pressure is pH. Below 3.5 we exclude most bacterial families. Honey can be pH 4.5 so either we drop the pH or live with some risk. Honey has non fermentable sugar and proteins which seem to be bacterial static. In secondary we exclude oxygen which prevents aerobics from growing. You added SO2, sorbate, etc. to build your recipe. Bryan says patience/ time.
This is like building a wall. By itself 11% alcohol may not stop a yeast fermentation or a wild lactic bacterial infection. By itself sorbate will stop yeast reproduction but has no effect on bacteria or viable yeasts. By itself carbonation won’t exclude molds and most bacteria but if it is natural CO2 cells have used up all the dissolved oxygen therefore aerobics are being excluded kinda by accident.
The science is complicated, The rules are not A plus B equals C. A lot of industry is experience worked last week, so as long as the crop is equal it works (or supplier, or packaging film, or plug flow on equipment, etc etc).

Last note on risk; pH below 4 and alcohol above 5% exclude food poisoning organisms so you may have horrible flavor or exploding bottles but you won’t kill your self.

 

[Raptor99]

Sorry if I was unclear. Here are the steps I usually follow:

1. Fruit/juice in primary, in a bucket. You can add more fruit if you want to after a few days, before fermentation is completely finished, still in the bucket. This would be my preferred method of adding additional fruit/juice.

2. Once fermentation is finished, I rack into a carboy and put on an airlock. This is now the "Secondary" container. You can add more fruit at this stage, but I usually do not, because:
* It is difficult to get fruit in and out of the carboy
* Active fermentation requires more headspace, while build aging requires minimal headspace
If I was going to add a fermentable in carboy, I would add fruit concentrate (no fruit pieces to deal with), and leave some extra headspace for foam. Once the fermentation was finished, I would rack into a carboy with minimal headspace. This is really just continuation of the primary fermentation in a different container, not really a "second fermentation."

3. Once all fermentation is finished, bulk age for at least several months in a carboy with very little head space. Add Kmeta at this stage to prevent oxidation. For mead, you could leave it there for 6 to 12 months if you want to.

4. Once bulk aging is finished, rack and stabilize, then backsweeten with honey (not fruit), and bottle. This is your last chance to make any flavor adjustments you might want. If you plan on kegging, then everything is the same except that you rack into a keg instead of bottling at the end. Kegging does not eliminate the need for aging. There are some complex chemical reactions that take place during aging, and it requires time for that to happen.

I know that some people backsweeten with fruit or juice right before bottling, but that is not my preference. There are multiple ways of doing things!