Yeast nutrients and staggering for mead

[CoastalEmpireWine]

I had a question about yeast nutrients for mead and the proper way of staggering. I plan to make a blackberry mead/melomel when I get home. I read that staggering nutrients is the best way to go about it with a mead. I plan on using Fermaid K. I know one teaspoon is enough for 5 gallons. What I thought about doing was splitting it in quarters and add it roughly every other day after/before I mix it to remove the CO2 and add oxygen. How does this sound?

 

[Bob1016]

Shooting for ~200ppm YANC is a good idea. This is 2g/L or about 8g/gal of fermaid K, with a tsp weighing about 4g IIRC. This is why you see a lot of DAP in mead recipes: the fermaid K starts to get expensive at these doses.
What yeast will you be using, and what's the OG? These will help determine the nutrients required, as well as oxygenation practices.

 

[CoastalEmpireWine]

I will be using Wyeast 4184 sweet mead yeast. I am not sure what the O.G. is going to be yet as I have not started it. I will be using 12lbs. of clover honey and 96 oz. of blackberry puree.

 

[Bob1016]

I haven't used that yeast before, so it may behave differently (they all do). I try to feed as often as I can. If I have the time to feed it every 4 hours I will (I usually us SG as an indication for feeding, breaking it up into even additions until 1/3 break), if I can only manage every 12 so be it. Aerate every time you feed, and I stir the yeast back into suspension at about 1/2 and 2/3 sugar as well.
Hope this helps,
Bob

P.S. you can have success with lower nutrients, but hedging your bets is a good practice with meads, at least that's what I find.

 

[CoastalEmpireWine]

I can always get DAP also. How much should I add of DAP and Fermaid K on each feeding?

 

[Bob1016]

4g/gal fermaid K and 2g/gal DAP will get you ~216ppm YANC. I split them up equally amongst all the feedings:
OG 1.100
FG 0.99X
End of lag/1.095 1g/gal of mix
1.090 1g/gal of mix
1.085 1g/gal of mix
1.080 1g/gal of mix
1.075 1g/gal of mix
1.070 1g/gal of mix
This will change based on OG and anticipated FG, so if your OG is 1.120 and you expect a 100 gravity point drop, then your last addition should be around 1.090. It really depends on the anticipated gravity drop.
If you don't want to feed as often they can be condensed to feedings at 1.095, 1.085, and 1.070 or something similar.
This can be as complicated or as simple as you want: I tend to front load on DAP and not add any at the last addition, or you could feed more often, or you could taper the feedings so that each one provides less nutrient, or any variation.
*It is also useful to have some fermaid O to add after the 1/3 sugar break if you detect sulphur problems.
Hope I didn't scare you ,
Bob

 

[BernardSmith]

I use DAP and I have only made mead a few times. My method has been to feed the yeast with 1/2 of the total DAP before I pitch the yeast and 1/4 after the SG has dropped by fifty percent and a1/4 after the SG has dropped again by fifty percent (so, eg If my initial must is 1.090 I add half the total DAP I intend to add then I add 1/4 of the rest when the mead reads about 1.045 and the last 1/4 when it reads about 1.020. I think you can over feed the yeast and so encourage other bacteria and yeasts to thrive.

 

[CoastalEmpireWine]

Bob, I do not understand what YANC means or how you calculate it. This is my first time making mead and usually when I add nutrient I just go off what the bottle says. Someone introduced me to staggered nutrients and says it creates better wine. So let me get this straight Bob, when you say "1g/gal of mix," is that 1 gram of Fermaid K and one gram of DAP per gallon of mix each time the S.G. drops .005? Which with your calculation would in total give you 30g of Fermaid K, and 30 grams of DAP added to your wine in total. You stated that 4g/gal of Fermaid K and 2g/gal of DAP would be the correct amount. With that you just went up on your fermaid k by 10 and doubled your DAP amount. Am I overlooking this?

 

[fatbloke]

Dunno about the C but YAN is Yeast Available Nitrogen.

The Fermaidk provides a certain amount as does the DAP. You'd have to do a google search as I'm using my phone to post but there's a good amount of data about how much each provides in PPM in weight per litre form.

There's also an academic paper out there that suggests the nutrients/energiser should be front loaded to a max of 85% of the total. You can just do that after there's visible signs of fermentation - DAP can be injurious to yeast in the earliest stages which is why GoFerm doesn't contain any DAP.

You can just split the total amount into 2 if you want or into more. It's up to you.

Inorganic nitrogen sources like that shouldn't be added after the 1/3rd sugar break. If the ferment needed more then a source of organic nitrogen should be sourced.

Oh and normally its about 1 tsp per gallon for Fermaidk or similar...

 

[CoastalEmpireWine]

What I am thinking is breaking it down into 4 days, 25% each day. Which would be roughly 1.25 teaspoons of Fermaid K a day?

 

[Bob1016]

YANC- yeast assimilable nitrogen content, jut a habit of mine to include the C.
Fermaid K is 10% YANC
DAP is 21% YANC
So, 1g/L * 0.1 (or 0.21) will give 0.1g/L YANC (or 0.21g/L YANC) and to conver to ppm (aka mg/L) multiply by 1000 (1000mg/L) which gives 100ppm YANC (or 210ppm YANC), to convert to gallons decide by 3.785.

 

[CoastalEmpireWine]

Simple enough equation which converts % of YANC to ppm/gal? is that correct? How could I use this equation to know how much I should use?

 

[Bob1016]

Xg/L * % * 1000 = Y ppm YANC

Where X is the amount of product per liter weighed in grams, % is the percent nitrogen in the product (0.1 for fermaid K, 0.21 for DAP), and Y is the resultant YANC of the must.

Xg/gal / 3.785 * % * 1000 = Y ppm YANC, for grams per gallon.

As a good guess, 1g/gal of fermaid K will give ~26 ppm YANC, and 1g/gal of DAP will give ~55 ppm YANC.
Ratios of Fermaid K to DAP are personal preference based on experience and technique (or law for comercial meaderies).

Sorry to get so technical about this stuff, but if you grasp the concept it will realy help your process understanding, or you could go the more artful route, both can make excellent mead.

P.S. minimum YANC levels for fermentation are quoted at around 140 ppm, with higher brix levels, the yeast need more nutrients, and some yeast naturally need more than others.

 

[CoastalEmpireWine]

Xg/L * % * 1000 = Y ppm YANC

Where X is the amount of product per liter weighed in grams, % is the percent nitrogen in the product (0.1 for fermaid K, 0.21 for DAP), and Y is the resultant YANC of the must.

Xg/gal / 3.785 * % * 1000 = Y ppm YANC, for grams per gallon.

As a good guess, 1g/gal of fermaid K will give ~26 ppm YANC, and 1g/gal of DAP will give ~55 ppm YANC.
Ratios of Fermaid K to DAP are personal preference based on experience and technique (or law for comercial meaderies).

Sorry to get so technical about this stuff, but if you grasp the concept it will realy help your process understanding, or you could go the more artful route, both can make excellent mead.

P.S. minimum YANC levels for fermentation are quoted at around 140 ppm, with higher brix levels, the yeast need more nutrients, and some yeast naturally need more than others.

I understand what you are saying. In order to get approximately 140 ppm you could use 1g/gal of DAP (55) and roughly 4g/gal of Fermaid K (104). That would give you 159 ppm/gal.

My next question is that something that you want to maintain or is that something you want to build up to, or feed at different time (staggered). I am just making sure I fully grasp all ends of this.

 

[Bob1016]

Ahh! 161ppm (or 159 as estimated) YANC broken up into as many increments as you can manage, generally you should front load a little bit (add more at the begining and taper down) so maybe 1g/gal each after lag, then taper the fermaid K (81ppm (1g/gal each), 46ppm (1.75g/gal fermaid K), and 33ppm (1.25g/gal fermaid K)) or any variation.

 

[CoastalEmpireWine]

so when you say 1g/gal, and Im making 5 gallons, should I assume you mean 5 grams total per lag? What is a lag? So if I understand correctly, for a 5 gallon batch, to get the correct YANC initially I would add 1g/gal each (5g of fermaid k, 5g of DAP) and then step it down? Is this correct?

 

[Bob1016]

For 5 gallons:
5g Fermaid K, 5g DAP @ begging of active ferment
8.75g fermaid K @ 1/6 sugar depletion (or you could round to 9g)
6.25g fermaid K @ 1/3 sugar depletion (or round to 6g)
This will give progressively lower levels of YAN in the must.

 

[CoastalEmpireWine]

Makes sense. Thank your for explaining it in detail for me. I figured that but I'd rather be safe than sorry.