I was happily watching my brand new mead ferment, and then after one day it slowed down. I was confused. I made tons of beer and it took a few days to slow fermentation.
Then my friend mentioned I should degas my mead since Co2 can get stuck in the thick layers of the honey mead.
Degassing mead is important, but may not be necessary. When you degas mead you reduce Co2 and introduce more oxygen into the must. Fermentation can get stuck or produce off flavors with mead, so degassing can fix this. You should degas during primary either every day, or every few days.
I wondered what the best ways to degas my mead were. Also could degassing my mead make it more prone to infection?
Degassing Mead and its Importance
Its not exactly a proven science. Degassing mead may in the end just be an myth, but it does make some sense.
I mean when it comes to brewing beer you don’t need to degas. But that may just be because honey is thick and harder to ferment than typical beer wort.
Off Flavors
When I heard that not degassing mead could produce off flavors I was hooked. After all both my friend and brother brewed a mead and they both had terrible smells and wierd flavors.
Both eventually dissipated over time, but I wondered if degassing my mead could solve those initial problems.
Yeast does not like Co2. I mean it is a waste byproduct after all. Would you want to sit in your own waste?
So if the health of my yeast is affected by the Co2 its probably going to produce off flavors so degassing it is probably my best bet at perfecting my mead.
The most common taste/smell when it comes to bad Co2 during fermentation is sulfur, rotten egg and raw sewage smell.
This likely explains why my brothers mead smelled so bad, its likely it had tons of Co2 in it. He never degassed it as far as I know.
Healthy Yeast and Continued Fermentation
Honey wine or mead is very difficult for yeast to ferment. It’s like the yeast is trying to pass through a brick wall. So instead the yeast eats it from the outside.
Because of the thickness of the honey Co2 often gets trapped. This makes it necessary to the health of the primary fermentation to degas or “help” the Co2 escape the clutches of the honey.
It also might be great to mix up your must or degas it in order to get that yeast nutrient moved around to benefit yeast throughout your fermenting mead.
Degassing is not the only factor that contributes to yeast health. Check out this easy guide for mead nutrient additions to learn more. I wish I knew this when I first began.
How often to Degas Mead
There is no real answer to how often you should degas, since its not certain if its entirely necessary.
The general rule of thumb would be to do it every day at least during primary fermentation which could last a few weeks. However, if you skip a day or two its not the end of the world.
It’s possible degassing mead regularly could speed up the time it takes for it to be complete and satisfactory to your taste. After all since you helped it push out its off flavors it doesn’t have to slowly clean up after itself.
If you think about it, degassing your mead is essentially helping it with its natural process, but instead of slowly off gassing its Co2 over several months, your pushing it out in an instant.
Ways to Degas Mead
So now that you know the importance of degassing mead what is the easiest way to do it?
The easiest way to degas mead would be to shake or swirl the carboy that you are fermenting in. This will kick loose the Co2 trapped in the mead and inject some good old oxygen into it for healthy yeast.
there are many ways to degas mead with more than I can probably conceivably imagine here. But here are just a few.
- Use a paddle to stir the mead physically.
- Agitator rod – Take a power drill attach a stick with two retractable paddles on the end and turn on the drill.
- Transfer vessels, this will naturally degas the mead as it transfers.
- Wine Saver – Creates a vacuum and pulls oxygen and Co2 out of the container and mead itself. Its pretty cheap and if you want one you can grab it off Amazon.
I really like the agitator rod and I linked to it in the above list on Amazon. Its also useful for mixing must, since it can be a bit difficult to mix honey and water, especially through a small carboy head.
Make sure you are degassing during primary, while you can degas during any stage its not really beneficial and could cause negative effects through oxygenating your homebrew.
The safest way to degas is probably just shaking up the carboy.
Carbonation and Mead
Mead does not have to be carbonated. In fact most mead isn’t. But, you can carbonated mead and its then called sparkling mead.
If you want to make sparkling mead, you don’t have to worry about your degassing during primary affecting this. Co2 builds up very quickly.
This is why above I mentioned degassing so often during primary fermentation.
But if you do want to carbonate your mead there are a few ways to do it.
1. Bottle Carbonate
Bottle carbonating your mead essentially is the opposite of degassing your mead. In fact you want to do the opposite.
You will need to add some sugar, typically more honey in order to activate the yeast and contain the Co2 within the bottle. This is very similar to beer carbonating.
2. Force Carbonate
This is probably the safer and most effective way to carbonate a mead and retain the flavor you want.
I say retain the flavor since, if you are pushing the yeast back into fermentation the flavor may change slightly, since it could get drier if you are trying to back sweeten.
A local brewery to me does just this and can get some pretty wild flavors. (Mostly from safely using fruit in secondary)
Do You Need to Degas When Ageing Mead?
The short answer to this question is no. When you get to the point of aging most of the fermentation has taken place.
At this point the yeast has gone into hibernation and is not as active. What aging your mead will do is let the flavors mellow out.
Bottle Ageing
Aging your mead will also naturally degas your mead slowly over time, so if there are so funky smells and flavors going on aging it will fix that.
What you don’t want to do is age a stinky foul tasting mead in a closed container.
If its being aged in a closed container then the Co2 is stuck in the bottle or the mead itself, and shaking it up could cause enough pressure to explode. Its not common but it is possible.
Whatever you do, don’t bottle your mead before fermentation is complete!
The reason I say its not very common is because if you are transferring to a bottle then you are in effect degassing it.
Degassing a Braggot
Since I’m a beer brewer and mead maker making a braggot is the obvious choice.
Check out my article on braggots.
Since you typically don’t degas a beer but you do degas a mead what should you do with a braggot?
The answer is not obvious and well it depends. If you have enough nutrient from grain then its probably not necessary, but if you are using DME or a lot of sugar with very few grains then you may need to degas.
The reason being is the extra nutrients and non fermentables will make it easier for the braggot to ferment and not get Co2 stuck in place.