Mead should be left in primary fermentation for approximately 4 weeks. Unless you are an experienced mead-maker, judging when to move your mead into secondary fermentation can be a guessing game. Now I really like that smell, and I can even appreciate* the rotting garbage smell (mmm, fermented kitchen waste!) Take 4 oz. I'm talking about restarting fermentation). Otherwise, you may have to spend longer aging your mead so you can mellow the off-flavors that were developed during fermentation. It is well worth experimenting with yeast strains. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding. You can do that here but since you want to add the yeast at full kräusen I think it is preferable to add all the liquid in the new starter. I have shaken it to try to re-oxidize it. you need to produce the ABV and sweetness you desire in your finished product before pitching the mead. Have tried adding yeast, energizer, and nutrient. Then consider supporting the site and becoming a Patron! It separates the liquid portion of your mead from any solid sedimentary particulates that have precipitated to the bottom of the vessel. as well as the logo are trademarked properties. I encourage your questions and comments to this article.  Please feel free to comment below, or reach out to me on the forum. Yeast reabsorb diacetyl that was produced during fermentation, and hydrogen sulphide escapes from the top of the fermenter as a gas. If you’re doing a fruit mead, or you have other large chunks of stuff in there (spices, oak chips, etc.) The gradual build up of yeast also gives it a chance to cool down slowly to the same temperature as the must in the primary. Some more advanced wine makers space out additions of yeast nutrients into 2 or 3 additions, one before fermentation and then another addition once fermentation has started. Does racking actually do anything to help your mead clear faster?  Yes and no.  If this simple action helped mead clear faster all the time, we would rack our mead a dozen times with every batch.  But remember that racking primarily serves to separate your mead from something, and ‘that something’ might be keeping your mead from finishing the way you want it to.  Racking your mead away from some types of sediment might actually improve your conditions in a way that will speed up clearing! Hope that helps, Oskaar Growth refers both to an individual cell and the overall cell population. It necessarily sacrifices a small portion of your mead, which gets discarded with the solids/precipitates at the end (i.e., you lose a little of your precious liquid each time you rack). As yeast ferments (digests sugars) it also reproduces. Add it at the same time as the yeast if you do use it (prior to fermentation). Post fermentation oxygenation causes your mead to smell and taste like sherry or cardboard, and is almost always considered a flaw by judges. 2) You can back sweeten. At the end of this primary fermentation, you can then add more honey and water as you rack the original solution into another cleaned carboy, and/or pitch a more aggressive yeast strand. To get to what a secondary fermentation phase really is, let me first describe the primary fermentation phase.  At its most basic, a mead begins with the mixing of water, honey and yeast, at which begins a period referred to as the “lag phase.”  Arguably, during this period, no actual fermentation is taking place, because the yeast are busy absorbing oxygen, uptaking nutrients, and getting their little yeasty freak on, reproducing like crazy.  Once they’ve done all that they get down to work, and the anaerobic process of actual fermentation takes place.  The yeast eat sugars, and produce alcohol and carbon dioxide.  This is called the primary fermentation phase, which is marked by all the sparkly bubbly activity, and the smells of heavenly wonderfulness coming out through the airlock, or whatever you have covering your fermentation vessel.  If you wish, you may refer to this as your “primary fermentation vessel,” or “primary fermenter.”  I’ll allow it. 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