does stirring in primary damage yeast?

[shanek17]

Hey guys. I have just made a 6 gal batch of clover honey mead! I used lavalin ec 1118 and RO water some yeast nutrient and bentonite. its gonna be my best alcohol batch yet and i wanna take care of it accordingly. iv heard stirring in primary is a good way to oxygenate the wine and help the yeasties but i do not have a stirring spoon. i do however have a de gas whip and cordless drill that works great as it works quickly and can create a vortex with ease. but im wondering if using this may be too powerful for the yeast and may destroy them, especially in the beginning of their life, any thoughts? Does it matter what speed i go at using the cordless drill.

Oh also a good inch or 2 of honey is settling to the bottom of carboy so there's another reason to be stirring in primary. but if the honey is on the bottom isn't that bad? will the yeast still feed on it? this honey was expensive and id like to have my first batch go well.

 

[Arne]

To get things started, I believe I would use the whip to mix the honey in. When the ferment is going, never had to add that much oxygen. Just stirring with a oak stick I cut off a 1X board. I have had the ferments go balastic when i racked out of the primary too soon. Too much oxygen was added and turned the secondary into the old wine fountain. Just my thoughts and ramblin, Arne.

 

[cindy]

I got my water almost to a boil then took it off the burner and added my honey to let it dissolve before adding the rest of my ingredients, my 2 batches have been bubbling away since Sunday. I don't plan to stir at all I'm leaving it alone for the next 2 months. I would think in your case you would want to stir and get the honey dissolved. this is my 1st shot at mead as well so I used 2 glass one gallon jugs and made 2 different "experimental" recipes.

 

[shanek17]

I got my water almost to a boil then took it off the burner and added my honey to let it dissolve before adding the rest of my ingredients, my 2 batches have been bubbling away since Sunday. I don't plan to stir at all I'm leaving it alone for the next 2 months. I would think in your case you would want to stir and get the honey dissolved. this is my 1st shot at mead as well so I used 2 glass one gallon jugs and made 2 different "experimental" recipes.

Cool, thats a good idea to seperate the batches up. I could have done the same but my 1 gal jugs are currently occupied with a chocolate ale beer and a apple wine. Yea i understand most people do add some amount of heat to the honey, if not to dissolve it then they are trying to pasteurize it. Iv just listened to a podcast and james spencer and his freind made some mead and they said they dont bother pasteurizing it , they just heat it up so that they can pour it. The thing is that heat can destroy the honey and its quality...how much heat? I do not know, this is why for my first batch I just added the honey in with 80F water. It dissolved decently but there still is some honey on the bottom that iv been stirring daily. Hopefully the yeasties can handle this!

 

[BernardSmith]

I wonder whether the yeasts will in fact be able to ferment undissolved yeast. Honey in its natural form seems to be self preserving. The yeast may simply encounter a mass of honey surrounded by must and be relatively unable to convert it into alcohol. Equally troubling might be your difficulty in accurately measuring the SG of your wine. A reading taken with your hydrometer will only measure the dissolved sugars, not any mass of undissolved honey, so your must will likely have considerably more potentially fermentable sugar than the reading will indicate that can create all kinds of complications for you down the road if that sugar (the honey) slowly dissolves and becomes accessible to the yeast

 

[cindy]

I let my water/tea get just shy of the boiling point then while I was cutting
up my oranges and gathering other ingredients I let the honey completely dissolve. then I added my oranges,raisins,cinnamon sticks,clove etc to the jug then poured the dissolved honey water or honey tea over my ingredients then I let it cool to room temp and pitched dry regular fleischmans bread yeast it took off fermenting in approx 30 minutes of adding the yeast.
the honey in the jugs are really well blended no settlement at all.

 

[shanek17]

I wonder whether the yeasts will in fact be able to ferment undissolved yeast. Honey in its natural form seems to be self preserving. The yeast may simply encounter a mass of honey surrounded by must and be relatively unable to convert it into alcohol. Equally troubling might be your difficulty in accurately measuring the SG of your wine. A reading taken with your hydrometer will only measure the dissolved sugars, not any mass of undissolved honey, so your must will likely have considerably more potentially fermentable sugar than the reading will indicate that can create all kinds of complications for you down the road if that sugar (the honey) slowly dissolves and becomes accessible to the yeast

Good post! i totally agree honey is self preserving as iv heard of it
being found in ancient egypt and its still good. the majority of the honey is dissolved but there is still a layer on the bottom that is not fully dissolved....the yeast may need to work harder to get to that honey and who knows maybe It could beef them up a bit haha. But seriously if anyone has any tips about this please share. ill just keep stirring it daily to help break it up for them.

I actually used a big scale and measured out my honey and accounted for the true sugar weight added. So even though my hydrometer wasnt very accurate i had the numbers to fall back on, and its going to be an 11% mead. Later on down the road the unfermentable sugars could be a pain in the ***. But ill do my best to help the yeast eat it all up and im using champagne yeast so it ferments dry. also the honey is settled to the bottom so if need be later on i could probably rack off the undisolved honey, if there is any leftover.

 

[shanek17]

I let my water/tea get just shy of the boiling point then while I was cutting
up my oranges and gathering other ingredients I let the honey completely dissolve. then I added my oranges,raisins,cinnamon sticks,clove etc to the jug then poured the dissolved honey water or honey tea over my ingredients then I let it cool to room temp and pitched dry regular fleischmans bread yeast it took off fermenting in approx 30 minutes of adding the yeast.
the honey in the jugs are really well blended no settlement at all.

Interesting it soundx like the bread yeast has a short lag phase. so why do you use bread yeast anyhow? iv heard too not use it cuz it doesnt work as well and it cant handle much alcohol percentage and might have off flavours. is any of that true?

 

[shanek17]

so your must will likely have considerably more potentially fermentable sugar than the reading will indicate that can create all kinds of complications for you down the road if that sugar (the honey) slowly dissolves and becomes accessible to the yeast

I actually went in for a closer look at the honey at the bottom, when it settled together it looks like its more solid and bigger clumps. but as soon as i stirred it up... well take a look at the video. Also there is a good amount of bentonite in this mead so maybe that is a part of the stuff on the bottom. Sorry about the lighting thats the brightest lights i could find. The sugar looks like its very small and in millions of tiny bits, to me this means more surface area for the yeasties to get in there and feed. The fermentation is getting into the 36hr range and i think the active fermntation will help circulate the sediment. Hopefully im right!

Clover Honey sediment mead
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBmhgjff2yk[/ame]

Honey sugar sediment snowing down
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YntLozLLlMs[/ame]

 

[Runningwolf]

I would not whip the yeast. Stir it gently. Yes you can hurt the yeast whipping it up too much. I am referring to anything attached to a drill, not by hand.

 

[cindy]

Interesting it soundx like the bread yeast has a short lag phase. so why do you use bread yeast anyhow? iv heard too not use it cuz it doesnt work as well and it cant handle much alcohol percentage and might have off flavours. is any of that true?

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f80/joes-ancient-orange-mead-49106/