Blueberry Melomel

[Ceegar]

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?

 

[WildSeedGrrrl]

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]

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.

 

[Wade E]

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.