strawberry melomel (mead)- frementation slowing down too soon

greetings earthlings!

so last saturday- 6 days ago- i bought me 3x 19l carboys and decided to use one to brew up some strawberry mead (strawberry melomel). now, six days later, the fermentation is starting to slow dow, which seems waaaaay premature to me, considering how much sugar is in it. here is the recepy i followed:

3gal of spring water (as in strait from the spring, not from a store. i did not sterilize because the lady at the wine kitz store told me not to)

15lb store bought honey

5lbs store bought strawberries

2 packs of brewing yeast (dont remember which exactly, but the wine kitz lady said it was the standard brewing yeast)

~5ml yeast nutrient/energiser

i sterilized all of my hardware with sodium sulphite previous to brewing, and rinsed it out. im using a proper setup- carboy with air lock on top, jammed into a bung- its air tight. i have been swireling the brew every day to make sure the strawberry gunk ontop of the must gets mixed in.

at 6 days, my fermentation is slowing perceptibly ,though not majorly- i'd say its decreased by about ~10%.

the thing is, at 6 days, i would expect the fermentation to still be going hard and not slowing at all. is this normal? should i be concerned? how do i tell if i have some sort of contam? am i just over-reacting to something thats normal?

im a bit anxious about this as this is supposed to be for xmas (yeah i know mead takes 2 years minimum to properly blend, but i chose strawberry mean because i've read several people saying that i tastes great, even imediatly after primary fermentation- and i dont inted to drink all 19L at xmas- just one bottle or so). this batch has cost me about $100, so i am also anxious about it going wrong for that reason too ($40 for the 3 carboys, 10 airlocks, and 3 racking wands (great deal for me i think, considering around here, 1 new carboy sells for $50-$60))

This is going to sound like a broken record, but get a hydrometer. It will help you know where your ferment is at as it progresses. There is a thread at the top of the beginners forum that tells you how to use it. With only 5 lb. of strawberries, don''t think you will have much flavor, but you can add more after it gets done fermenting. Read thru the forums and you will find out how to make a flavor pack or ask on here and somebody will tell you. At six days you can be getting close to the end of fermentation. Here again, the hydrometer will tell you where you are at during the ferment. I doubt whether it will be clear by Christmas this year. You should be good to go by next year, especially if you have to try and add more strawberry flavor to it. Anyway, have fun with it, good luck with it and if you want more answers, get back on here and people will help. Arne.

kk, thanks! ill pick up a hydrometer after im finished doing my overtime today and report back if anything seems amiss

Sounds liie a lot of honey and not much stawberry.
And you must, must know what yeast. If it was suggested to you as a standard they will know what they sold you go ask. What is the alcohol tolerance.
This recipe will not ferment to dry but adding fermaid O may get ypu farther. Honey is nutrient poor and there is not enough strawberry to make it up.
You migjt consider racking and topping off head space with tje juice from frozen strawberrys and a little water or apple juice. Add fermaid O at same time. Bubbling should pick back up.
Save the pulp from berries to make a flavor pack to finnish with.
I personaly cant imagine using more thsn 3 lbs of honey per gallon. No matter the yeast.

yeah, i kinda took a recipie, watched a few youtube videos, altered the base recepie slightly according to what youtube videos said; then found a % calculator, and altered it further according to the numbers i got out of the calculator. i did ask about specific yeasts at the wine kitzplace, but the only answe i got was "this is the standard yeast that comes in all of our kits, it can produce about 11-15%." i did ask about mead specificly, but the only answer i got there was "i know nothing about mead".

i was worried about putting too many strawberries in as i heard that too many strawberries dont taste good, in one of the videos i watched. i guess i should have known better then to go off of someone elses taste prefrence. i should have stuck to the recipie.

also, an update on the hydrometer- i didnt get it because i was dealing with a strawberry juice of a differant sort when i ran my hand along a razor at work today. its on tomorrow's todo list.

meadmaker- do you have any reliably recepies that you could give me? im looking for high alch %, dry but not too dry- lil bit of sugar left- and great tasting (by general aproval ;P )

Look at as many recipes as you can find. Look for common ground
Kits as ive seen/heard use ec1118 A LOT. its strong and dependable. For fruit meads I ve used D47 and I see it used and recommened often but early tests with lavin 71 B are favorable.
No matter tne amout of fruit used ( i used 4 lbs per gallon )get the seedy pulp out after 3ish days
Dont want fermented seeds

so update time!

i got a hydrometer, tested my batch and it said 5%. i kinda doubt this because when taste the brew i can deffinitly tast alchohol, not as strong as store bought but much stronger then beer. i didnt take calculate the SG when i started, so i cant realy number crunsh the %- the 5% reading comes from the markers on the side of the hydrometer. so this is a lesson for me- now that i have the hydrometer, next time take a SG reading right when i start the process.

the fermentation slowed right down, to like 10% of what it was initialy. today i poured off the liquid, dumped the particulate that was left over, then added more fruit as meadmaker suggested- 2 large bags of frozen cherries, and 2 large bags of frozen strawberries( the cherries i was able to squeeze the juice out of the pulp, the strawberries however where not very co-operative with seperating pulp and juice, so alot of strawberry pulp got poured in). i also added another shot of energizer. so its back in a carboy, with airlock on. fermentation seems to have already picked up abit.

even imediatly after primary fermentation it tasts good, bit sweet, but not overly sweet (which was suprizing, i was expecting teeth rotting sugary badness). i poured of a bottle which i am going to enjoy once its chilled abit- i know its way too early and kinda a waste realy, but i cant help my self!

*edit*- im now drunk from my own wine, which to me seems an amazing thing. this drunk started as nothing more then water, honey, strawberries, and yeast, my own intentions, and the work of my own good hands. sorry if i seem to be stressing a silly point, but to me, this is an amazing thing. the % is deffinitly far greater then 5%, in 2 1/2 glasses in and feeling pretty good. 2 1/2 glasses of 5% beer dosnt get me anywhere near this point.

ReRacked my stawberry. Used d47 and dont have notes infront of me but left sg light so to be sure of complete dryness. Used 22 lbs of berrys and had 5 gallons after racking off heavy lees. The whole room smells like strawberries. Pulled a glass aside and let sit 30 min or so. Its definitely green but smells and tastes of strawberry. Shot some honey in it and,,,,,this one is getting back sweetened for sure.

*edit*- im now drunk from my own wine, which to me seems an amazing thing. this drunk started as nothing more then water, honey, strawberries, and yeast, my own intentions, and the work of my own good hands. sorry if i seem to be stressing a silly point, but to me, this is an amazing thing. the % is deffinitly far greater then 5%, in 2 1/2 glasses in and feeling pretty good. 2 1/2 glasses of 5% beer dosnt get me anywhere near this point.[/QUOTE]

If one glass equals 5oz. then two equals ten. If your wine fermented to 10% abv. you just consumed 1 oz. of pure ethenol. Goes down smooth and easy but hits with a resounding kick. Cheers, Arne.

the glass im using comes from a budwiser box and is designed to hold 1 bottle of bud, so ~350ml. at this point im pleasantly drunk after drinking about 1.5l, and have been for about 5hrs. heres a youtube video, for anyone who wants to see (yeah im showing it off abit, but can you blame me? this is my first time and it worked).

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FvCWmrFO5k[/ame]

@lethargy : The hydrometer reading of 5% does NOT mean that you wine contains 5% alcohol. Roughly, it means that if you were to ferment all the remaining sugar to alcohol, it would add about 5% more ABV to the amount of alcohol you have at this moment.

To figure out your true ABV, you need to measure your SG before starting fermentation, and again afterwards. A rough formula is that ABV = (starting SG - final SG)* 131

Just out of curiosity, did the big glasses lead to a nice headache today? They would have for me. LOL, Arne.