Nutrients
Nutrients
I thought I would ask some questions.
Who uses nutrients? What do you use them in and which ones do you use?
There seems to be lots of ways to use nutrients in things like mead, wine, and even cider. Many people even debate whether and when they are actually needed especially in the mead space.
I've even been blocked before for suggesting SNA (Staggered Nutrient Addition) is unnecessary or elitist even though it's a recent invention.
I use nutrients when making big beers (>9% ABV), otherwise i dont bother with it. I just add them in the last few minutes of the boil before i chill the wort.
Bought a blend at my local brewing store, cant remember the name/brand. I've used a pack of bakers yeast in a pinch as well, works just fine too.
I thought beer grains had some nutrients in them. I guess you guys have it easy compared to us. There are some people who use 3 or 4 different nutrients in the same mead, I can't tell if they are crazy or that's actually helpful.
Wort absolutely has some nutrients in from the malt, but when brewing high ABV beer you get a better end-product if you help the yeastie-boys get a good start with extra nutrients.
I do think that a lot if people are overthinking and way overengineering nutrient additions. Sure there might be a theoretical benefit to doing it in a specific convoluted way, but that doesnt necessarily mean it actually makes a perceptible difference in the taste of the finished product.
I chose to use finished blends for both my ciders and beers, as opposed to making my own blends, because its easier and works just fine for me.
I usually don't add any nutrients for beer (biggest I've done was 10% I believe), I just let it age out by itself, it's quite nice for me to see how it evolves in time.
And for mead, I don't really have access to good honey (like one I know comes straight from the bee box, preferably somewhere near a field of wildflowers, untainted by pollution and such) so I mostly make it either with sone mashed grains or with a significant amount of fruit, thinking those bring the needed things.
My very first mead was a JAOM, barebones, and it turned out very good actually, no nutrients.
I'm probably apprehensive about delving to deep into the arcana of advanced mead making techniques vs set it and forget it. More power to whomever has the discipline to remember the times to do that though.
Me and some friends have used SNA in the past but I have never really played with it so to speak. I hope to do a comparison between SNA and front-loading or even no nutrients one day in the future.
Lots of people seem to have good results with no nutrients at all. Some I have seen get good results with front-loading as well. So it makes me skeptical of SNA especially some of the more complex ones with many nutrients if all that stuff really makes a difference.
I don't often use nutrients when I'm brewing beer unless I'm making a big beer (>8% A.B.V.) and I want to ensure a nice healthy fermentation. I do however use nutrients every single time I make cider/wine/mead since the fermentables here do not provide enough FAN (Free Amino Nitrogen) and so without them fermentation is sluggish, throws off a ton of sulfur and often requires a long conditioning/aging time to get to a point where I would want to drink it.
As for the actual nutrients I use, for beers I will use Wyeast Beer Nutrient Blend and for mead I rehydrate dry yeast with Go-Ferm and do a Staggered Nutrient Addition of Fermaid O over the first 4 days of fermentation along with oxygenating/degassing with pure O2 through a sintered stone.
Is FAN or YAN more important?
Have you done any comparison between SNA vs front loading? I actually want to do an experiment with that at some point but I am not really in a position to do that at the moment.
I would guess YAN is more important because what's the point of having free nitrogen if the yeast can't actually utilise it.
I've never done experiments between SNA and front loading all the nutrients. I don't find the staggered additions difficult to do or a burden and I'm typically degassing/oxygenating anyway for the first few days. Plus it gives me an opportunity to take samples and see how fermentation is progressing.
Sure it's technically more work than the one and done method of front loading but not enough of an added burden that it's too much effort to bother.
I've started using it in all my brews and while I cant prove it I do think it has helped with improving attenuation. I recently saw an interview with someone from one of the major yeast manufacturers (cant remember which one) and he also recommended just always using them. At worst it isnt going to hurt anything and it isnt much of an expense.
I've just been using one from my local homebrew store. No idea what it is.
It's not just whether you should use nutrients but also how you use them. For mead there are some very complex nutrient schedules involving sometimes 3 or 4 different nutrients added in increments at specific times or gravities. Not all of these line up with nutrient manufacturer directions. I am wondering how necessary or useful these steps actually are.