Starting mead on ale lees

[Unferth]

I'm going to brew a lower ABV oatmeal stout-should end up around 5 %. And am planning on using Wyeast 1945 neobrittania. If I racked an otherwise traditional mead (18 lbs honey for 6 gallon batch) on top of this, do you all think it would ferment out?

Cheers

 

[nitack]

I'm going to brew a lower ABV oatmeal stout-should end up around 5 %. And am planning on using Wyeast 1945 neobrittania. If I racked an otherwise traditional mead (18 lbs honey for 6 gallon batch) on top of this, do you all think it would ferment out?

Cheers

Really depends on the yeast tolerance. You'd be looking for a 108 point drop, or just over 14% ABV. The yeast should not be strained at 5%, but it's upper limit is the question. I can't find that yeasts tolerance listed anywhere, not even on Wyeast's website. You'll have to do some research.

 

[Unferth]

I can't find it either, but brewers friend has it listed at 10% alc tolerance with 74% attenuation, which is pretty darn strong.im expecting sweeter mead, but I don't want cloying.

If I rack off the beer a bit early, I wonder if it would help. I guess if it is too sweet I could just throw a few packets of wine yeast in to knock it on down. Has anyone done something similar?

 

[nitack]

If you step feed in the honey, and do staggered nutrient additions, you may be ale to get the yeast up to 11%. That is if all goes well. Your FG might end up around 1.026. Sweet, but not undrinkable.

I think your best options are to 1. skip the ale yeast and just use wine yeast if there is not something about that particular yeast strain you want to maintain, or 2. reduce the amount of honey you add. If you took it down to 13 pounds, and did everything right you'd ferment out dry or almost dry.

 

[biochemedic]

5 gal of 5% ale is a great starter! You may find that the simple sugars in a mead are easier for the yeast to deal with; your situation is slightly more extreme, but as an example I've taken Wyeast 3711 (rated to 12%) up to 13% doing a mead. I think the others' suggestions are good (step feeding, reducing the overall amount of honey), but there are also a couple of other options.

Another consideration is to let the first yeast chew through a good chunk of the sugar, and if it looks like it's slowing down, you could then pitch a second yeast (perhaps EC-1118, or one of the high gravity ale yeasts) to get it to finish off. Overall though, I think you have a slight risk of ending up with a stuck ferment and overly sweet mead -- I think it's easier to stabilize and back sweeten than to deal with the former situation. Still, if you end up too sweet, a final option is while you're bulk aging for a while, you could whip up a batch of a very dry lower gravity mead to blend into the other...

Let us know how you play this, and how it turns out!

 

[Unferth]

I'm kind of partial to the ale yeast and proportions because I'm using a historic recipe.

I guess if it is a fail, I'll do a blend.

Thanks for the help folks! Ill post any progress.

 

[MarshmallowBlue]

I used Muntons Ale yeast for a Hydromel and its turning out great, however I pitched the yeast fresh instead of a cake. I would see if you can get a starter bubbling with the yeast cake so you know if your in business or not.

 

[svenalope]

One thing you should keep in mind is that trub has other stuff besides yeast in it. I've done this with skeeter pee on trub from a raspberry rye and the results were surprising. The color was orangey instead of the light yellow I expected, and there was some definite hop flavor that carried over, although I didn't notice any malt flavor. So don't be surprised if you get a little character from the beer in the mead.

 

[Unferth]

One thing you should keep in mind is that trub has other stuff besides yeast in it. I've done this with skeeter pee on trub from a raspberry rye and the results were surprising. The color was orangey instead of the light yellow I expected, and there was some definite hop flavor that carried over, although I didn't notice any malt flavor. So don't be surprised if you get a little character from the beer in the mead.

I had considered that, and I'm kind of looking forward to it. It's going to be a metheglin, with lots of weird herbs and ferns in it, so I think the hops will fit right in.