staggered nutrient addition

I have been reading a lot about nutrient additions to mead but there is so much information that I am overwhelmed.

Anyone want to share what they would do for a batch of a 1.10 gravity mead made with just honey and water? How much of what per gallon and when.

I've read in the Bray's One Month Mead recipe that nutrients should be added at the 1/3rd and 2/3rds sugar breaks. This means if you start at a SG of 1.10 and it is going to <1.00, then you should add the nutrients when the SG reachs 1.066 and again at 1.033, or thereabouts.

Has anyone used fermaid-O as the only nutrient in staggered doses.

All I've used is Fermaid-O, since I bought it ~2 years ago..

You'll need a decent understanding of YAN, so you might want to read this and this, if you havent already..

You'll need to guesstimate the amount of YAN provided by the must.. If it's just honey and water, then its basically a starting YAN of 0/zero.

So then you'll want to look at the yeast you're using, and the nutrient demand/requirements it has for optimum health.

I dont have time to do the math right now, but I can try to get back to this later this evening and help you out again.. But basically, there's formulas for figuring the YAN of the additions, and you'll need something like ~250 ppm (mg/L) for an average fermentation (low-medium nutrient demand yeast)..

So if you had an SG of 1.100, you have ~0.100 worth of movement.. Because fermaid-o is an organic nitrogen source, you can add it later in the ferment / the yeast will be able to metabolize it for a longer period of their life than inorganic forms..

You'll notice Seth and I differ a bit on our approach here, but they both work; I'm not scared to add Fermaid-O @ 1/3 sugar-break, where Seth normally stops @ 50% or so.. Also, he adds more of it than I do, I believe (been out of touch with winemaking for a bit myself, not as fresh as I should be).. So how does this translate to the 1.100 SG?

That 0.100 movement could be broke into 2 or 3 parts.. So you'd add nutrients every 0.033 or 0.050 worth of movement... The batch would start at 1.100, first addition is after the lag-phase / when the yeast form a cap (probably ~1.098 ish), then the 2nd addition would be either at ~1.074-1.050, and if the 2nd addition was at `1.074, a third addition would be @ ~1.040..

2 versus 3 additions though, the amount added would be different, just to point out..

Yep, I am still having an internal debate over whether or not I should stop at the 1/2 sugar break or continue to add through to the 2/3 sugar break. I am pretty sure I heard the ammino nitrogen is good up to the 2/3 sugar break from one of the experts who makes fermaid O. But, I have not found any supporting documents on that. So, I am kind of unsure if I just think I heard that or not.

If you visit the last page of Fermaid thread that I started I crunched down a general equation for nutrient addition.

That helps a lot. Thanks.

Let me see if I get it correctly. Let say I want to make a mead with just honey and water with a starting brix of 25 and 71b for yeast. I would shoot for a YAN level of 300 ppm. I would need about 30g of fermaid-O to get there so I could put in 10g after lag, 10g at 1.074 and 10g at 1.040. Or should I put in 15g after lag and 7.5g for the two remaining additions?

I haven't done the math (just got home), but if those are the numbers, then it'd either be 10-10-10 or 15-15... You could probably do 15-7.5-7.5 if you wanted, but that's going to lead to a fermentation rate graph that has a higher but shorter arc, as opposed to one with a lower peak but longer fermentation (slow & cool)

I've come to find in some fermentations, that I don't always need the last addition, or if I do, I don't need to add all of it.. But that depends on factors specific to each individual fermentation

Deezil said:

I've come to find in some fermentations, that I don't always need the last addition, or if I do, I don't need to add all of it.. But that depends on factors specific to each individual fermentation

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How do you determine if you need the final addition or not?

I keep my nose on it, and watch the SG like a hawk.. If the smell doesnt change much, I wont add anything, but if the cap starts to disappear or the smell changes, then I'll add 1/2 of the last (3rd) dose

booboo said:

That helps a lot. Thanks.

Let me see if I get it correctly. Let say I want to make a mead with just honey and water with a starting brix of 25 and 71b for yeast. I would shoot for a YAN level of 300 ppm. I would need about 30g of fermaid-O to get there so I could put in 10g after lag, 10g at 1.074 and 10g at 1.040. Or should I put in 15g after lag and 7.5g for the two remaining additions?

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I believe you will need significantly more fermadi O than that. What is your volume?

seth8530 said:

I believe you will need significantly more fermadi O than that. What is your volume?

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I was going to use 6lbs of honey in two gallons of water.

Odd batch size, what do you plan on aging it in?

seth8530 said:

Odd batch size, what do you plan on aging it in?

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Two 1 gallon glass jugs.

You might want to consider scaling up a bit. Mead is a very long wait for small batches. BTW, based on getting 350 mg/l YAN. I am estimating that you would need a total of 66 grams of fermaid O.

seth8530 said:

You might want to consider scaling up a bit. Mead is a very long wait for small batches. BTW, based on getting 350 mg/l YAN. I am estimating that you would need a total of 66 grams of fermaid O.

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I am considering stepping up to 3 gallons in order to use 3 gallon carboys.

Can you share your calculations on how you came up with 66 grams?

Sure, Check out the last post few post in the linked thread.

http://www.winemakingtalk.com/forum/f86/got-off-phone-fermaid-people-38704/index7.html

I pretty much used this equation that I derived

mg/L YAN (PPM) =(.10*(mg/L) fermaidK +.04*(mg/L)*FermaidO+.2(mg/l) DAP).

Set the LHS to 350 set all terms to 0 except for the fermaid O term and divided the LHS by .04. Then divide by a 1000 to get units of grams and multiply by the volume of must in liters to get the total grams needed of a fermaid O only nutrient schedule.

I am still a little confused as things aren't adding up. If we are shooting for 350 ppm yan (or LHS???).

350/.04= mg/l Fermaid O
8750 mg/l fermaid O needed.
8750/1000 = 8.75 grams per liter fermaid O needed
8.75 x 8 = 70 grams for 2 gallons

Looking at this you need a lot of Fermaid O. I don't mind spending the money if it gets the best results. Using some Fermaid K or DAP would cut back on the nutrients needed but would the quality of the finished product suffer?

Things aren't adding up? Seth came up with 66 and you came up with 70 g. Sounds the same to me.

Of course, the actual (small) difference is that there are not 8 L in 2 gallons, but only 7.57 L. With that figure, you get 66.2 g.

Yup, thumps up to both of you.

sour_grapes said:

Things aren't adding up? Seth came up with 66 and you came up with 70 g. Sounds the same to me.

Of course, the actual (small) difference is that there are not 8 L in 2 gallons, but only 7.57 L. With that figure, you get 66.2 g.

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Yea, I figured the small difference didn't matter. I was unaware that there wasn't exactly 4L in a gallon.