How do I know when my Mead or Wine is Finished Fermenting? Is it STALLED?

today's brew talk is all about how do you really know when your brew is finished fermenting now this is a question that we get like all the time okay i see it in our vip group i see it on the channel people are always asking well how do i know how can i tell if it's done well it sounds really simple on the surface and it is actually a simple thing but there's a few caveats to it so i have some notes here believe it or not i took notes and i'm going to read some stuff to you and we're going to go from there the first thing is knowing is half the battle gi joe right you know we all saw that as kids and if you didn't well then you're just not as old as i am i'm sorry but anyway you need to know the tolerance of your yeast that's the alcohol tolerance you want to know your specific gravity of your must at the beginning and you need to know the specific gravity at the end once you know all those things that is the key to knowing what your must is really doing okay and it is important it's not just about knowing your abv taking gravity readings it's not just about that you really do want to understand this stuff and if you want to make it as a brewer no matter what level you are if you want to you know improve you want to understand the concepts and the science behind brewing right so this is just a basic primer for this but let me explain what i mean number one let me read any yeast can make a dry or sweet meat cider wine given the right conditions this is a fact so all the hui about yeah that's right i said hui about sweet mead yeast or dry wine yeast is just that it's just hui it's all crap it's bull it doesn't mean anything the two factors that determine the alcohol content in your brew are a how much sugars or fermentables there are and b how much alcohol your yeast can tolerate before going dormant so you can make a dry mead with a sweet whiny sweet meat yeast and you can make a sweet wine with a dry wine yeast see the difference um anyway so if you have a just for example 15 tolerant yeast in your potential alcohol like the fermentables is 18 it's not likely to go dry and it will probably remain sweet conversely if you use a higher tolerance say an 18 yeast with the same potential alcohol means the same amount of fermentables as you did for the other one it could and will likely just go dry something that a lot of people don't think about and don't realize is yeast are living things and therefore they do not read and they don't follow the rules and laws set forth by us humans and they sometimes just do as they like and can go higher or lower than expected due to a million factors but that's beyond the scope of this video point number two the amount of fermentables be it sugar honey fruit agave invert sugar dextrose maltose or what have you that is fermentable is the first huge factor in deciding the alcohol content of your brew generally speaking one pound of sugars gives .046 specific gravity in a gallon of must and honey gives .035 maple syrup is a little bit lower than that but it does vary quite a bit different sugars are all slightly different what that means is one pound of that fermentable dissolved in a full gallon of must that's the approximate numbers they're not exact because these are all natural products so there is some variance what does this mean it means those numbers give a rough estimate of how much alcohol can be produced per volume of must and fermentables yeasts produce roughly equal amounts of co2 and ethanol this is according to several different sources as well as hundreds of other compounds in smaller quantity when they ferment so we have a relatively reliable way of calculating alcohol that's what what those numbers actually mean also one other thing yeast is yeast when it comes to producing alcohol all saccharomyces cerevisiae which is the type of yeast used to make mead wine cider and beer produces roughly the same amounts of gases and alcohol but other types of yeast might vary but those are not generally used for brewing okay included in this type of yeast are all the types of wine meat beer and bread yeast types available for brewing and baking that's right baker's or bread yeast is the same type of yeast as that used for brewing in fact that's how beer was originally made and beer making and bread making share a long symbiotic relationship the main differences in the different yeasts including bread yeast versus yeast used for brewing is mostly in flocculation which is the way things fall out of suspension at the end the way the leaves form at the bottom how well it can clear things like that and some flavor profiles various yeasts are used to produce various different profiles and work under different conditions different temperatures things like that bread yeast baker's yeast they aren't generally so specific they're made for making bread can they make a wine sure but also generally speaking most brewers find two or three yeasts that they like use them over and over getting more accustomed to how they react and honing in on methods to get the best results from them like for me i like to use 71b um i'm experimenting with a couple others but 71b is like my favorite it can do almost anything i need uso4 is another really good one for making ales or lower abv brews just a really good all-around yeast for lower abv now point number three the next step in what you need to know alcohol tolerance of the yeast is the high water mark you might say for how much alcohol can be produced now the tolerance won't matter at all if you make lower gravity brews but let me explain the alcohol tolerance is the level at which the yeast say nope we're not going to ferment anymore we're going to go dormant notice i didn't say die they don't actually die the only way to kill yeast is with high heat pasteurization kills them um even fortifying doesn't necessarily kill them it puts them to sleep it makes them go dormant all other forms of stabilization other than pasteurization actually don't kill the yeast they impair their ability to reproduce or build a colony or ferment but they don't actually kill them but by lower gravity what i mean is below like 1.100 nearly any commercial yeast will ferment that with the exception of some elise like uso4 like i was saying will not actually ferment out past 11 or 12 percent most beers and ciders fall into the sub 1080 range 1.080 which comes to about 10 to 11 percent and even uso4 ales will normally ferment that out dry so if you're using below like 1.080 or 1.070 almost any yeast is going to ferment that dry more on that in a little bit but anyway the gist is even if you gave the yeast all the fermentals for say 20 alcohol if the yeast aren't bred to go past 12 you're not going to get 20 percent um and if you only have fermentables enough to make say 5 alcohol using 12 15 or 18 taller yeast will not give you more alcohol that's a big stickling point with a lot of newer brewers they seem to say well i'm using 18 yeast yeah but you only used one pound of sugar in a gallon there's just no way you're going to make 18 alcohol from one pound of sugar vice versa putting in 10 pounds of sugar and using almost any yeast you're still not going to get the amount of alcohol that that amount of sugar has the potential to produce and i say potential because it's only potential in that when that is fermented it can become alcohol so just because there's the potential there doesn't mean it's actually going to happen the yeast has to actually make that happen some guidelines to help just to simplify things so you made a muster work it's been a period of time be it days weeks or even months and you notice much less activity in the airlock you are using airlocks right or in the must itself it's time to check gravity you take a reading then take a note wait one week and repeat let me say that again you take a reading you write it down you wait a week you take another reading you write it down you need two readings for good habits sake even if your reading seems like it's done take a second anyway that week will not have any detrimental effect on your brew say with me time heals all bruce now you have those two readings if the first is higher than the second your brew is still fermenting albeit possibly very slowly okay just something to keep in mind give it more time a week few weeks it doesn't matter once you get two identical readings over at least a week it's finished and it's ready to rack now i know i'm saying time doesn't matter it really doesn't many people are quick to want to get it off those lease and get it get it racked and get it but it's not done yet if it's not finished there's no point in taking off the lease much of your active colony is still in that lease and still in suspension within the solution there's no reason to remove it there's a myth that people say oh if i leave it a few days it's going to change the flavors no no it you can sit on lease for months with most meads and it's not a problem in beer making in very low gravity beer making it is possible for it to alter it but that's because of the low alcohol content it can alter flavors very quickly most meads and wines being you know eight nine ten percent twelve percent whatever they're not going to be as affected so quickly i have things that i've left in primary fermentation for six eight months and it was not a problem i left them in the secondary or conditioning phase for another six eight months or a year sometimes no problem i didn't get any weird off flavors there's no rush the only thing that's going to happen is it's going to get better because all meads all wines get better with time now some caveats to all of this this is how you can actually understand what's happening in most cases assuming a typical fermentation scenario your final reading should be somewhere around 1.000 a little higher sometimes even lower sometimes totally fine as long as you know your original gravity and yeast alcohol tolerance for instance i know there's a lot of math here but i do have a really simple way to figure this out coming at the end of the video that you don't even really need to worry about so much math just stay tuned but it's good to understand this stuff too and i hope it's not too much you know rapid fire numbers thrown at you all at once anyway let's say i used a 15 alcohol tolerance yeast and i have a 1.100 original gravity it doesn't matter if it's meat wine cider whatever after some time my two readings that i take after it's done are both 1.000 right it's finished fermenting everything is good if it were lower than 1.000 that's all fine too it just means that you know it went beyond 1.00 it's all good though that's the point it is done fermenting it's safe it's stable okay but what if my reading was say 1.020 or even higher well let's do the math if abv equals your original gravity minus your final gravity multiplied by 135 then we have 1.100 minus 1.0200 for .080 which is 80 points of gravity times 135 gives us an abv of 10.8 percent okay that's the important thing to remember here it's 10.8 percent that means we haven't reached these tolerance because remember we used a 15 yeast for this example so there's still sugars left so if there's still sugars left and it hasn't reached the yeast tolerance that means it's stalled that's exactly what a stall is is when there's still sugars left and you have not hit the tolerance of your yeast yet stalls happen for many reasons and are often difficult to overcome that's a whole other video the easiest method though is to dilute your must a little bit which means either split it in this case i wouldn't split it i might just you know pour some of it off and pour a little bit more water into it to dilute it slightly that can sometimes kick it back in or you can also add yeast or do both of those things but that's a whole other video so as you can see even with a typical setup you can have an unfinished or stalled brew even with a semi reasonable number as your final gravity 1.020 doesn't seem too bad but when you think about it if you understand what you're working with that was a stall but without readings in the yeast tolerance we wouldn't know for sure now one thing i want to be clear on i've had people say oh i am at 1.002 i have a stall what should i do okay if you have 1.002 two weeks in a row and you know that you're pretty close to the you know you're not past the tolerance of the yeast more than likely you just have something unfermentable in there which can happen there are non-fermentable sweetener density things that are in honeys and in some sugars and in different compounds that you could have added to your brew don't worry about it that's not really a stall that's just actually finished there's there's nothing to worry about two points or four points not even anything to be worried about but let's look at another situation so we just did a very typical simple mead that was stalled let's look at this though let's say you have a starting gravity of 1.160 this is often done when someone just wants to make more alcohol it's often problematic with our natural brewing techniques and that's why we tend to avoid such high gravities because they do stall readily but let's say you did it that's enough for minimals to make 21.6 alcohol content under the right conditions now let's use that same 15 yeast right and let's even give the yeast some benefit of the doubt they worked overtime they went beyond they went above and beyond the job they went to 17 i mean they can't read after all 15 17 what do they know right so they actually got it to 17 abv your original gravity was 1.160 and your final gravity is 1.034 sounds kind of high right i mean common sense says that it's stalled so it's at 1.034 it must be a stall but no actually the brew is completely finished fermenting if you want that to go dry you have to either add a stronger yeast or dilute that brew because you have reached the alcohol tolerance of that yeast and there's still sugars left so it didn't stall the yeast actually went further than they probably should have it might have might stop way higher than 1.034 but even in that case it's still too sweet but it's not stalled it's actually finished so you want to know the difference between a stall and you just happen to have too much sugars in there for the yeast so that you can take the appropriate action once you have that high of an abv though it's harder to get it to ferment further so you probably would have to dilute it a bit and add yeast and that's you know that kind of thing i mean it's yeast they don't want to swim in their own poop any more than you and i do so you know more alcohol makes it harder to keep going so summary how do you know if your brew is done one you know your yeast two you know you're starting gravity three you know your final gravity with two identical readings a week apart when you put it all together it's pretty easy to know if it's really done or not too much math i got you covered don't you worry let's use the kiss method now i don't like to call anyone or anything stupid so in my case i like to say it's keep it seriously simple for this use a yeast that is made for wine or meat and avoid alias this is basically a rule of thumb okay you're going to choose a yeast just don't choose an ale yeast choose a wine yeast or a mead yeast and you're fine most of them are going to have at least an 11 to 12 percent tolerance and this will work and that way no matter what use to use it's going to be fine make sure your original gravity is no higher than 1.080 that's right i said that 1.080 that's still going to make like an 11.5 to 12 percent alcohol content in your meat or wine which is totally acceptable we make those all the time and i actually really like the 11 to 12 percent alcohol range for most meat it really makes it taste nice but you can rest assured that it's going to end right around that 1.000 mark ending any well oh did i have too much and did it stall or did i not have enough and it's actually too much or you know you don't have to worry about it if you maintain that kind of yeast which is another reason why a lot of people stick to just a couple different types of yeast to keep it simple so they can predict it and know what's to come and the other way is keep your gravity a little bit lower a your yeast will thank you because they won't have to struggle quite so hard once it starts to get to those higher numbers and b you know it should end around the dry mark 1.000 that way it's repeatable it's consistent you don't have to think as hard you don't need to do as many calculations and it just makes life work a little better if only all things in life were quite that simple oh and with that method if you want more alcohol just drink two glasses by the way you see these people over here that's our vip club that's our bejesus and plaid members this is the people that keep this channel going those and all the other vips and if you want to become a vip and get your name and lights there's a link in the description below but if you like this video look up there's another one up there you might like that one too thanks for watching have a great day

Channel: City Steading Brews

Views: 40,450

Keywords: How do I know when my mead or wine is finished, how to know when fermentation is done, how to know when to rack my mead, how to know if my mead is stalled, is my mead stalled, is my mead done, know when wine is finished fermenting, know when to rack wine, know if wine is stalled, is my wine stalled, Is my wine done, is my wine done fermenting, how to know when wine is done fermenting, how to know when fermentation is done wine, how to tell when wine is done fermenting

Id: 2FqCLcYDlo8

Length: 17min 34sec (1054 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 21 2021