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I feel as though I've unlocked a homebrewing achievement: At about 2 weeks in, my cherry mead stopped fermenting. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but when I tested the gravity it was at 1.030, which means there's more than half a pound of sugar left, and based on the original gravity, the brew was only about 9-10% ABV. At first, I tried adding another half packet of yeast an let it sit overnight, but there was still no activity. I've heard/read that honey tends to be low in the nutrients that yeasts need to metabolize sugars. Many brewers add commercially prepared "yeast nutrients" to their must for this reason, but I did not, and hadn't needed to with my previous mead. I hypothesized that this mead was "stuck" because the yeast ran out of available nutrients. I don't have any "yeast nutrient" on hand, but I do know that yeasts will cannibalize their own kind, so I baked 1.5 tablespoons of dry bread yeast in the oven at 170F for 30 minutes to kill it, then added it to the jug. Within 2 hours, it was foaming and bubbling vigorously. Looks like that did the trick! 💯 🏆

#homebrewing #fermentation #mead #yeast