First Attempt at a Mead
 

First shot. I decided to try a mead because of the expense of hops these days. Just wanted to get some feedback on if this was a good recipe because I kind of winged it...

10 pounds of cheap honey.
4.5 gallons of water.
Juiced (2 pears, 1 orange, 10 kumquats)
a dash of lime juice
3 bags of decaf green tea
2 packages of champagne yeast.
3 tsp yeast nutrient

My original specific gravity = approx. 0.088

So am I right to assume that this will wind up being a fairly alcoholic beverage?

And do y'all think that 2 packages of yeast is overkill?

Thanks in advance for the help!

Check out www.gotmead.com and do a search for some basic recipes. Your recipe as posted will be BONE DRY! Seriously, check out the webpage I mention.

- GL63

so too much yeast then?

It's not a function of the quantity of yeast, but the type, that's going to determine your mead type. Champagne yeast can handle high levels of alcohol, and it will have a very high level of attenuation. These two factors mean that you're going to ferment the sugars in your mead close to completely, so it's going to be a very dry mead. That isn't wrong, it just may or may not be what you want.

In the event you wanted a sweet mead you will want to try a yeast meant for that next time you make this. Based on a OG of 1.088, if you get all the way down to 1.000 or lower you'll be at, or over, 11.8% ABV.

Cool, yea I was kind of hoping to get a strong drink (for a change, beers have been coming out kind of weak). Maybe I can stabilize it after it's back down to 1.000 and sweeten it to taste with something?

As long as you don't plan on bottle conditioning to make it sparkling then you should have no problem using something to kill the yeast and backsweeten it to your liking, but I don't know what to recommend at the moment.

Thanks for the advice!

It doesn't look like my mead is making a lot of krausen but it's bubbling strong. At this point I'm guessing that blow-off tubes are unnecessary for mead?