1st time brewer:

It’s been 6 hours since I added the yeast and I’m seeing lots of foaming and seperation of my pear bits from the rest of the mead melomel. Should I be concerned?

  • SpiderShoeCult@sopuli.xyzM
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    1 year ago

    The process is normal - fermentation creates carbon dioxide that rises up as bubbles once it reaches a concentration high enough to no longer dissolve in the liquid around it. Bubbles then stick to whatever they find around that can act as a nucleation site - in your case, the bits of pear - and transport the thing to the top.

    The concern here is that once you get very high krausen, you’ll potentially block off your airlock with bits of fruit and cause a small geyser as the pressure builds up and your cork pops off. Do try and monitor it to make sure that does not happen. You could replace the airlock with a blow-off tube that has a bigger diameter - just seal one end to the bottle (you’d normally use a rubber bung of adequate diameter and run the tubing through it) and put the other end in a jar of water. This way, you also have an airlock but any misbehaving bits of fruit can just end up in the jar via tube.