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Ceegar

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A couple of weeks ago I started a blueberry mead and used Pasteur Red for my yeast. My starting SG was 1.110. For the past few days the SG has been stuck at 1.030. I was still seeing fermentation acitivity with a bubble about every 30 seconds. It's been doing that for a while now without the SG moving so I decided to rack it onto a crushed camden tablet yesterday, then topped it up and reattached the airlock. It's been sitting here now with no fermentation activity at all since I did that. I figured the abv is around 10% as is, plus I was going to back sweeten it anyways. Although it's clear that fermentation had not completed, do you think I'm OK with the way it is?
 
Ceegar,

Others more knowledgable will chime in here but from my experience so far and with the reading I've done, Honey takes a long time to ferment. racking into a new container has sometimes helped. And recently I learned that a lack of movement in the airlock does not mean that fermentation has stopped (incident with a sack mead eruption). The braggot I have going drops a bit every couple weeks and it's been going for about 3 months. The sack mead fermented to dry but it took a little over 2 months and that was with a bit of energizer added and I'm just waiting for it to clear so I can bottle.

Oh and Patience, the constant and best advice...I'm trying my best to exercise it but it can be difficult.
 
Ceegar,

Others more knowledgable will chime in here but from my experience so far and with the reading I've done, Honey takes a long time to ferment. racking into a new container has sometimes helped. And recently I learned that a lack of movement in the airlock does not mean that fermentation has stopped (incident with a sack mead eruption). The braggot I have going drops a bit every couple weeks and it's been going for about 3 months. The sack mead fermented to dry but it took a little over 2 months and that was with a bit of energizer added and I'm just waiting for it to clear so I can bottle.

Oh and Patience, the constant and best advice...I'm trying my best to exercise it but it can be difficult.


Thanks - I figured I was just seeing for the first time a stuck fermentation. I always thought if a few days goes by without SG dropping either it's stuck or it's done. In my case I knew it didn't complete yet.

If the abv was any lower I probably would have let it set, but I have a whole case of Everclear hanging around (or 7 bottles left now I should say after making my Limencello) where I can bump the abv up just a bit with that by adding few ounces.

So do you think it will start fermenting again? If not, it should fine the way it is shouldn't it? Obviously I would eventually have to sorbate it.
 
Meads are a little tricky and slow to ferment and blueberries or cranberries add to the problem and is why I always feed meads a 3 part nutrient regimen to keep things going well. I would also add sorbate to your mead there and just keep an eye on it for rising corks when you bottle just in case. Youre also more like 11% abv.
 

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