Mead yeast

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labrewski

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Have a friend starting out with mead and basic kits I can help with kits but yeast for mead I have no idea all I know is he using honey what yeast can u recommend please
 
Normal bakers yeast will do the job too. If you need a good guide to making mead then go to youtube and look for CSMead city steading mead, they mostly brew mead and it's fun to watch too =)
 
Normal bakers yeast will do the job too.

I'd second that, I've been a bit of an obsessive mead brewer for the last decade or so and have tried pretty much every yeast imaginable, bread yeast has given some of the best results to date.
 
Interesting. I have seen on the internet people say that bread yeast can only tolerate up to 5% alcohol. Brewing mead probably goes a bit above that?
 
I typically use Allinson dried active baking yeast, about £1 for a 125g tin in Tesco, and have had that get the mead to 12% ABV plenty of times.

I generally halt the fermentation when it hits 6-7% ABV just through personal preference. I suppose different bread yeasts could yield different results, as long as there's plenty of nutrients it tends to keep going for quite a while.
 
Always use ec1118 it will ferment anything out,But as an experiment i made some mead with bread yeast well it fermented OK but didn't taste very nice.Pain in the proverbial to clear as well.
 
I typically use Allinson dried active baking yeast, about £1 for a 125g tin in Tesco, and have had that get the mead to 12% ABV plenty of times.

I generally halt the fermentation when it hits 6-7% ABV just through personal preference. I suppose different bread yeasts could yield different results, as long as there's plenty of nutrients it tends to keep going for quite a while.
Hi Druss, I have never brewed a mead but am interested in doing something akin to "table mead" which I believe is beer strength.

How do you stop the ferment when you reach the wanted abv? Does it end up sweet?

Do you drink it carbed or flat?

I have heard there are specific sweet mead yeasts... but bread yeast sounds good too as it should be the same family as brewing yeast.
 
What yeast you use will depend on the type of Mead you are looking to make. A formal 'Mead' type yeast will typically attenuate to 18% if fermented cool, so if you want this to be sweet you'll need an awful lot of honey. You can use bakers or wild yeast fermentation but the sweetness is more difficult then to determine, as adding more honey for sweetness will just referment up to the ABV tolerance of the yeast. Lower abv meads may be served carbonated if you wish. The following is a link to a calculator that will allow you to calculate the amount of honey required depending on the sweetness and ABV of the yeast used.
https://www.meadmakr.com/the-meadmakrs-toolbox/There's also this article on the specific yeasts recommended for different sweetnesses for mead:
https://homebrewanswers.com/mead-yeast/
Anna
 
Hi Druss, I have never brewed a mead but am interested in doing something akin to "table mead" which I believe is beer strength.

How do you stop the ferment when you reach the wanted abv? Does it end up sweet?

Do you drink it carbed or flat?

I have heard there are specific sweet mead yeasts... but bread yeast sounds good too as it should be the same family as brewing yeast.

That's pretty much what I was after when I started brewing mead the way that I now do regularly, something akin to beer strength that I could drink by the pint without it being sickeningly sweet, but still retaining a decent amount of body and flavour.

I halt the fermentation with good old fashioned heat, when it gets to a specific gravity of about 1010 (I brew it a gallon at a time, with two pounds of honey, the original gravity is usually 1056) I just carefully pour the whole gallon into a stockpot and heat it to 70c then cold crash it and bottle.

It clears well enough in the bottles and tastes amazing, I always keep it still as the carbonated version was a bit of a nightmare for me (storing bottles sideways, popping corks, lots of mess :() and to me there's something that just feels right about a tankard full of still, ice cold, mead.

I did play around with it for a long time, I've made it a bit stronger, a bit weaker, sweeter, drier etc.
It all comes down to how you like it, it's such an easy thing to tailor in my experience, at the end of the day if it works for you and it tastes good then it is good.
 
That's pretty much what I was after when I started brewing mead the way that I now do regularly, something akin to beer strength that I could drink by the pint without it being sickeningly sweet, but still retaining a decent amount of body and flavour.

I halt the fermentation with good old fashioned heat, when it gets to a specific gravity of about 1010 (I brew it a gallon at a time, with two pounds of honey, the original gravity is usually 1056) I just carefully pour the whole gallon into a stockpot and heat it to 70c then cold crash it and bottle.

It clears well enough in the bottles and tastes amazing, I always keep it still as the carbonated version was a bit of a nightmare for me (storing bottles sideways, popping corks, lots of mess :() and to me there's something that just feels right about a tankard full of still, ice cold, mead.

I did play around with it for a long time, I've made it a bit stronger, a bit weaker, sweeter, drier etc.
It all comes down to how you like it, it's such an easy thing to tailor in my experience, at the end of the day if it works for you and it tastes good then it is good.
Sounds awesome thanks.

How soon can you sample such beer strenght mead?
 
Sounds awesome thanks.

How soon can you sample such beer strenght mead?

It's usually crystal clear after a couple of weeks in the bottle for me, I used to open a few around the two week mark before I'd built up a decent supply (about sixty 750ml bottles of 'standard' mead at last count in my 'cellar') and it's usually very drinkable then although I'd give it a month in the bottle to settle down and give a more rounded flavour.

Like all mead though it gets much better with time, I opened a three year old bottle a few weeks ago and it was much smoother than the young stuff, not so good that I'd routinely age it but the flavour changes quite a bit so it's interesting to have a spectrum to choose from.
 
I like my mead bone dry.
Although i am fond of sweeties,Sweet mead is yuk.!!

I must admit though i have never made it with a dedicated mead yeast,

It conjours up images of monks in a freezing climate having a wee dram before bedtime ;)
 
I've seen lots of recommendations for Lalvin ICV D47 yeast for mead, it's what I have used for the mead I having brewing at the mo. Has an alcohol tolerance of around 15%. Need to be sure to provide a good amount of extra nutrients.
 
I like my mead bone dry.
Although i am fond of sweeties,Sweet mead is yuk.!!

I must admit though i have never made it with a dedicated mead yeast,

It conjours up images of monks in a freezing climate having a wee dram before bedtime ;)

What yeast do you normally use in your meads?
 
EC-1118.

TBH its my goto yeast but i am having a few problems getting it at the moment.

Just about to get another one on the go with Gervin GV1
 
The typical guide for sweetness at least during my time of doing it is the less honey you use the dryer the mead will taste. I use the £1 stuff from Sainsbury's about 3 jars of that I find to be enough. I am usually hitting anything from 10-12% depending on what I am brewing.

Hint, Oranges in mead may seem to be a good idea, but unless you are brewing a pure orange and honey mead, steer clear of em. They tend to overpower it.

I've used kveik and brewers yeast and I've not noticed that much difference to be honest save for the brewing time. I tend to leave my meads for 6 weeks of fermentation before yanking it into a secondary.

I've not tried the suggested way the OP wants with short brewing. But I am guessing that also depends again on what you are brewing too. For example, a coffee mead as a beer probably wouldn't go down too well as the flavours will not have fully had a chance to brew through and it will be more like treacle with a disgusting taste to be honest. Where as a more fruit based one would most likely work better. But the one thing I can say that is especially good about mead is that you can back sweeten it just like wine later to adjust for taste and what you want out of it - unlike beer which in general wouldn't work so well at the end of fermentation which backsweetening requires for mead =)
 
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