I have everything I need. But I bought redstar vs Fleishmans yeast. anyone done this? Results? Hints? Thx!
Both will make mead, but I would do yourself a favor and get a real wine or mead yeast. The cost for a couple packets is minimal (should be no more than $3.00 for 2 packs) and will give much better results.
Both will make mead, but I would do yourself a favor and get a real wine or mead yeast. The cost for a couple packets is minimal (should be no more than $3.00 for 2 packs) and will give much better results.[/quote]
I recently bought some Lavlin 1118 for 95 cents each.
Back during prohibition bread yeast was used to brew beer and got a well deserved reputation as…not good. Get some yeast meant for brewing.
I use Red Star Cote Des Blancs in most of my cysers (and some of my sweat meads)…it’s a nice yeast. It’s labeled as a dry wine, but the fruity notes along with just a tiny bit or residule sugar left makes it great for meads & cysers.
I used that in my Cider. This is more of a experiment. I’ve read a lot of good results. Its fun to experiment… Mad science you know 
This particular recipe needs bread yeast. Wine yeast will leave you with a dry, unbalanced mead. Redstar is fine though - doesn’t have to be Fleischmanns.
I will have to vehemently disagree with you here. There are many good wine and mead yeasts out there, some of which will give you a dry mead, other of which will not. I would suggest Ken Schramm’s The Compleate Meade Maker, it has a good discussion on good yeasts that can be used to come up with any style of mead: sweet, semi-sweet, dry, and anything in between.
To figure out how it would come out, take a hydrometer reading before fermentation and check the abv tolerance of the yeast you want to use. Generally anything that finishes 1.025 or higher is sweet.
[quote=“Jeff180”]This particular recipe needs bread yeast. Wine yeast will leave you with a dry, unbalanced mead. Redstar is fine though - doesn’t have to be Fleischmanns.[/quote]+1 The bread yeast is part of the recipe and it’s actually quite good if you don’t heat the honey and you keep fermentation temp in the low- to mid-60s. I opened a 5-yr-old bottle of JAO a couple weeks ago and was pleasantly surprised at how well it has aged.
I did not warm anything. I filled. Pitched. And I wait. It bubbles about every 3 seconds. No aggressive ferment. Smells good.
