movement

Recipes 

I have my 3rd ever batch of mead in the primary. Made it a week ago, I never took a hydrometer reading. How do I test the alcohol content?

avidhomebrewer

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You can only estimate at this point if fermentation has already started. Post your ingredients and you can give you a ballpark of what your final gravity 'might' be.

biochemedic

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You'll have to estimate, not having an OG (original gravity) reading. Normally, you compare the OG with the FG (final gravity) and there's a calculation that allows you to determine the approximate ABV.

So anyway, you can estimate...if you know the amount of honey and the total volume of your primary, you can calculate what the OG *should* be...it's not always spot on though, because the actual sugar content of honey varies somewhat by variety and season...

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Packaged: Vienna Simcoe SMaSH, Mayan Stout, Caramel Quad, Basic Spiced Cider, Spur of the Moment Graff
Recent Meads: Cherry Melomel, Belgeglin, Bochet
Primary: Fresh Simple Cyser
Secondary: Why do I keep this line here...?
Bulk Aging: Mead Day '11 Ginger Metheglin, Cocobochet, Mead Day '12 Traditional (orange blossom) Mead
Planned: Hop Metheglin #3 (NZ hops), Trad. Gesho T'ej

david_42

Recipes 

There are vintner's scales for measuring ABV directly and they would work for mead. You can also invest in an Ebulliometer (~$1000), but they have problems with high residual sweetness.